Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII;: State vs. papacy, (European problem studies)

Wood, Charles T.

HOLT. RINEHART AND WINSTON

Joan of Arc and Richard III loom large in the histories of their countries, but the myths surrounding them have always obscured just who they were and what they hoped to accomplish. In this book, medieval historian Charles Wood brings these fascinating figures to life through an original combination of traditional biography and wide-ranging discussion of the political and social world in which they lived. Wood draws on a range of unusual sources--from art and legal codes to chronicles and lives of saints--to present a new picture of medieval people and their concerns. Focusing on topics often neglected by other historians, he includes lively discussions of royal adultery scandals, child-kings and the problems they posed, and earlier people and crises that helped to shape the culture of sex and sainthood that was profoundly that of the Middle Ages. In so doing, he clarifies the historical contributions of Richard and Joan, and sheds new light on the political, social, and religious forces that shaped medieval government and made France and England such widely different countries.

Joan of Arc and Richard III: Sex, Saints, and Government in the Middle Ages

Biographies & Memoirs

Oxford University Press

Joan of Arc and Richard III loom large in the histories of their countries, but the myths surrounding them have always obscured just who they were and what they hoped to accomplish. In this book, medieval historian Charles Wood brings these fascinating figures to life through an original combination of traditional biography and wide-ranging discussion of the political and social world in which they lived. Wood draws on a range of unusual sources--from art and legal codes to chronicles and lives of saints--to present a new picture of medieval people and their concerns. Focusing on topics often neglected by other historians, he includes lively discussions of royal adultery scandals, child-kings and the problems they posed, and earlier people and crises that helped to shape the culture of sex and sainthood that was profoundly that of the Middle Ages. In so doing, he clarifies the historical contributions of Richard and Joan, and sheds new light on the political, social, and religious forces that shaped medieval government and made France and England such widely different countries.

History

Europe

An analytical study of the French apanages from their creation to the end of the Capetian period, this pioneering book offers an explanation of why the French kings began the practice of granting fiefs to their younger sons, and why they introduced the curious inheritance restrictions which limited succession in an apanage to direct heirs of the original holder. The author also examines the connection of the apanages with the royal government in terms of sovereignty, jurisdiction, administration, military obligations, and financial affairs, showing how difficult it was to draw distinctions between the two spheres of government.  Since the original apanages were granted from lands only recently conquered from the English, they had the important practical effect of introducing the notion of French royal authority into areas that had not known it for centuries. People living in these lands became used to the fact that "the king" was the king of France, not of England. A clear understanding of the relationship of the apanages to the monarchy, the author maintains, is at the same time a large step toward an understanding of how the monarchy gained control of France and, ultimately, made a nation out of her fragmented provinces.

The French Apanages and the Capetian Monarchy, 1224-1328 (Historical Monographs ; No 59)

Harvard University Press

An analytical study of the French apanages from their creation to the end of the Capetian period, this pioneering book offers an explanation of why the French kings began the practice of granting fiefs to their younger sons, and why they introduced the curious inheritance restrictions which limited succession in an apanage to direct heirs of the original holder. The author also examines the connection of the apanages with the royal government in terms of sovereignty, jurisdiction, administration, military obligations, and financial affairs, showing how difficult it was to draw distinctions between the two spheres of government. Since the original apanages were granted from lands only recently conquered from the English, they had the important practical effect of introducing the notion of French royal authority into areas that had not known it for centuries. People living in these lands became used to the fact that "the king" was the king of France, not of England. A clear understanding of the relationship of the apanages to the monarchy, the author maintains, is at the same time a large step toward an understanding of how the monarchy gained control of France and, ultimately, made a nation out of her fragmented provinces.

The French Apanages and the Capetian Monarchy, 1224-1328 (Harvard Historical Monographs)

(First published as THE AGE OF CHIVALRY) A lively and insightful interpretation of the Middle Ages.

The Quest for Eternity: Manners and Morals in the Age of Chivalry. [Orig. pub. as The Age of Chivalry.]

Dartmouth College Press

The Middle Ages have often been thought of as little more than a thousand years of barbarism and superstition separating the grandeur of Rome from the glories of the Renaissance.  In 'The Age of Chivalry, however, Charles T. Wood shows that the medieval period was also a time of exuberant vitality, an era whose manners and morals did much to shape the outlook of the modern world.
After a prologue setting forth the formation of medieval Europe, Professor Wood depicts the human situation at around the year 1000, a time when men were the prisoners rather than the masters of their environment. Europe at that time, he writes, was no place for the weak and tender-hearted; "torment and tragedy were the constant companions of rich and poor alike". But with the revolution in agriculture, the development of a money economy, and the consequent rise of the towns, there arose among all classes a buoyant enthusiasm; and with the appearance of chivalry and romantic love, "Europe had arrived at a new level of civilization, one possessing a cultural coherence unknown since the fall of Rome".
In the thirteenth century, the political face of Europe began to take on features that would last well into the modern world, and a constitutional framework was created for the more peaceful settlement of political and social disputes and of the conflict between religious and secular values. During the later Middle Ages, however, the catastrophically savage and brutal period of the Black Death and the Hundred Years War, "the buoyant optimism that had characterized the long period of expansion gave way to feelings of dread and impending doom from which wild revels and senseless display seemed to provide the only release".  Economic depression gripped the age, and "religion itself seemed to crumble, thus adding to the woes that political and economic distress had already engendered."
With the emergence of new attitudes in the fifteenth century--attitudes that brought the age of chivalry...

The age of chivalry;: Manners and morals, 1000-1450

Universe Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wood, Charles T.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wood, Charles T.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wood, Charles T.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII;: State vs. papacy, (European problem studies)

Joan of Arc and Richard III: Sex, Saints, and Government in the Middle Ages

Joan of Arc and Richard III: Sex, Saints, and Government in the Middle Ages

The French Apanages and the Capetian Monarchy, 1224-1328 (Historical Monographs ; No 59)

The French Apanages and the Capetian Monarchy, 1224-1328 (Harvard Historical Monographs)

The Quest for Eternity: Manners and Morals in the Age of Chivalry. [Orig. pub. as The Age of Chivalry.]

The age of chivalry;: Manners and morals, 1000-1450