Readings in Medieval History, Third Edition

by Patrick J. Geary

Book Overview

Four principles guide the selection of materials. First, entire documents are included wherever possible, not snippets. Second, texts are grouped to form dossiers in which the individual documents relate to one another, reflecting the practice of historians themselves. Third, most of the documents chosen have been the subject of significant scholarship. And fourth, raw material for many types of historical investigations is provided: the documents are equally useful to the political historian, the social historian, the cultural historian or the historian of mentalities. The third edition includes an updated Preface, more extensive material from Gregory of Tours, and a new section, "The Iberian Peninsula," containing material that deals with Jews, Muslims and Heretics. The text has also been newly typeset, making the book more readable, and in response to suggestions concerning the weight of the book, lighter paper is being used. The result is a book that is overall more user friendly. Please note: This edition is also available in a two-volume format, dividing the text chronologically: Volume I: The Early Middle Ages Volume II: The Later Middle Ages Special Combined Price: "Readings in Medieval History," third edition may be ordered together with "A Short History of the Middle Ages," third edition at a special discounted price. In order to secure the package price, the following ISBN must be used when ordering: 978-1-44260-353-0.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1551115506
• ISBN13: 9781551115504
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 840 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Nice collection

Read it and weep at how far the West has deteriorated since Medieval times.

How much the West has lost

The book is intended to give the reader an idea of how people thought in Medieval times, which it does. It is also a sad commentary on how much of its values and backbone the West has lost since then.

Medieval History- packaged without filler

Readings in Medieval History is a terrific book for a number of reasons. Many students today encounter only secondary source materials in their history courses; in other words, students are immediately presented with a particular historian's opinion of a given source document before he or she is allowed to dive into the readings themselves. Secondary text books frame (and limit) one's readings with phrases such as "the Anglo-Saxon chronicle was significant because..." Patrick Geary presents the material in their raw form and allows the reader to draw his or her own significance. This text allows the student of history to read primary documents, which are mostly presented unabridged, exactly as they were written by their medieval authors. Other than the inherent problems of translation (most of these texts were writen in medieval Latin, Old English, French, or other vernaculars) this book offers the most direct contact with the past that an individual can reasonably hope for. This book allows you to hear the medieval voice without modern contextual hindrances. Readings in Medieval History situates its wonderful texts in their own particular cultural milieu, and allows the reader to appreciate these documents in their own right.

Geary Puts the Medieval Back In the Middle Ages

I had the opportunity to use this book as a text for a course while studying at UC Riverside. It serves well as a secondary souce; for those unfamiliar with the term, this kind of source is historical documentation written by contemporaries. So it contains accounts written written by medieval Europeans. It does primarily contain translated documents, in modern english, from Western Europe. Readers will find all the usual suspects and many more: Tacitus, Charlemagne, Gregory of Tours, King Louis the Ninth, King John, and a plethora of papal thought. Additional gems include the memoirs of a Byzantine princess, the Domesday book, the Concordant of Worms, and the interpretations of Aristotle by the Muslim philosopher Siegbert (my favorite). Naturally, the writings are challenging to read for those who are unfamiliar with medieval prose and style, but as a student I found reading the documents remarkably similar to reading today's Common Law documents. For anyone who is interested in building synapses geared for the study of law, this thick book is a springboard as most of its documents pertain to canon law, divine law, theology, Roman law, and English law. Worth your pennies!