This important and overdue book examines illuminated manuscripts and other book arts of the Global Middle Ages. Illuminated manuscripts and illustrated or decorated books—like today’s museums—preserve a rich array of information about how premodern peoples conceived of and perceived the world, its many cultures, and everyone’s place in it. Often a Eurocentric field of study, manuscripts are prisms through which we can glimpse the interconnected global history of humanity. Toward a Global Middle Ages is the first publication to examine decorated books produced across the globe during the period traditionally known as medieval. Through essays and case studies, the volume’s multidisciplinary contributors expand the historiography, chronology, and geography of manuscript studies to embrace a diversity of objects, individuals, narratives, and materials from Africa, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas—an approach that both engages with and contributes to the emerging field of scholarly inquiry known as the Global Middle Ages. Featuring more than 160 color illustrations, this wide-ranging and provocative collection is intended for all who are interested in engaging in a dialogue about how books and other textual objects contributed to world-making strategies from about 400 to 1600.

Global Medieval Contexts 500–1500: Connections and Comparisons provides a unique wide-lens introduction to world history during this period. Designed for students new to the subject, this textbook explores vital networks and relationships among geographies and cultures that shaped medieval societies. The expert author team aims to advance a global view of the period and introduce the reader to histories and narratives beyond an exclusively European context. Key Features: Divided into chronological sections, chapters are organized by four key themes: Religion, Economics, Politics, and Society. This framework enables students to connect wider ideas and debates across 500 to 1500. Individual chapters address current theoretical discussions, including issues around gender, migration, and sustainable environments. The authors’ combined teaching experience and subject specialties ensure an engaging and accessible overview for students of history, literature, and those undertaking general studies courses. Theory boxes and end-of-chapter questions provide a basis for group discussion and research. Full-color maps and images illustrate chapter content and support understanding. As a result, this text is essential reading for all those interested in learning more about the histories and cultures of the period, as well as their relevance to our own contemporary experiences and perspectives. This textbook is supported by a companion website providing core resources for students and lecturers.

A celebration of the visual contributions of the bestiary--one of the most popular types of illuminated books during the Middle Ages--and an exploration of its lasting legacy. Brimming with lively animals both real and fantastic, the bestiary was one of the great illuminated manuscript traditions of the Middle Ages. Encompassing imaginary creatures such as the unicorn, siren, and griffin; exotic beasts including the tiger, elephant, and ape; as well as animals native to Europe like the beaver, dog, and hedgehog, the bestiary is a vibrant testimony to the medieval understanding of animals and their role in the world. So iconic were the stories and images of the bestiary that its beasts essentially escaped from the pages, appearing in a wide variety of manuscripts and other objects, including tapestries, ivories, metalwork, and sculpture. With over 270 color illustrations and contributions by twenty-five leading scholars, this gorgeous volume explores the bestiary and its widespread influence on medieval art and culture as well as on modern and contemporary artists like Pablo Picasso and Damien Hirst. Published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center May 14 to August 18, 2019.

'The Medieval World Complete' re-creates one of the great ages of European civilization through a sequence of spectacular images accompanied by a lively, informed commentary. Ingeniously organized by topic and thoroughly cross-referenced, this all-embracing book enables the reader to explore and understand every facet of the Middle Ages, an era of breathtaking artistic achievement and of religious faith in a world where life was often coarse and cruel, cut short by war, famine and disease. Framed by chapters that outline the way the Middle Ages began and ended, the book consists of six sections encompassing religion and the Church, nations and law, daily life, art and architecture, scholarship and philosophy, and the world beyond Christendom. The book is completed by biographies of key personalities, from Charlemagne to Wycliffe, and timelines, maps, a glossary, gazetteer and bibliography.

Young readers will be captivated by this account of the daily life and social organization of people living in Europe in the Middle Ages. Medieval Society describes life under the feudal system and how kings and lords became rich while the peasants stayed poor.

The period we know as the Middle Ages, roughly the years 400–1400, saw the formation of ideas and institutions that mark modern societies. Developments as disparate as the foundation of Islam and the emergence of the middle class occurred during this pivotal millennium. Although historical study of the Middle Ages has traditionally focused on Western Europe, modern historians recognize the complex global nature of this era. For all major world regions, this three-volume work offers in-depth essays on broad themes, short entries on specific topics, and carefully selected primary documents to help readers more fully understand this critically important period. Edited by Joyce Salisbury, who is general editor of the award-winning Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life, and written by Professor Salisbury and a series of prominent historians with regional expertise, Greenwood Encyclopedia of Global Medieval Life and Culture comprises three volumes covering the following areas of the globe: Volume 1:Europe and the Americas Volume 2: Islam and Africa Volume 3: Asia and Oceania Each regional section comprises seven in-depth essays covering the following broad topics and concluding with bibliographies of important and current information resources: Historical Overview of the Region, Religion, Economy, The Arts, Society, Science and Technology, and Global Ties. The Global Ties essays trace the political, social, economic, religious, technological, or commercial connections that existed between the region under discussion and any other world regions during the Middle Ages. Each regional section also includes a series of brief entries covering people, events, developments, and concepts mentioned in the in-depth essays. Examples of entry topics include the following: Berbers, Emperor Harsha, Ethiopian Christianity, Flowery Warfare, Footbinding, Hildegard of Bingen, Jainism, Jihad, Maya Collapse, Neo-Confucianism, Romanesque, and Sharia. A series of sidebars in each section will provide lists, graphs, charts, and other useful data relating to the region. Each section will also be illustrated and will include a selection of interesting primary documents that further illustrate the main themes addressed in the in-depth essays. Cross-references within the sections and a detailed subject index will also help readers access information in the essays and short entries.

Deftly written and beautifully illustrated, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Second Edition, presents a distinctive and nuanced portrayal of a western world that was sharply divided between its northern and southern aspects. By integrating the histories of the Islamic and Byzantine worlds into the main narrative, author Clifford R. Backman offers an insightful, detailed, and often witty look at the continuum of interaction--social, cultural, intellectual, and commercial--that existed among all three societies. Filled with relevant primary documents, this compelling volume surpasses traditional textbook representations of the Middle Ages by balancing the conventional focus on political affairs, especially those of northern Europe, with equally detailed attention to medieval society as it developed in the Mediterranean. In addition, Backman describes the ways in which the medieval Latin West attempted to understand the unified and rational structure of the human cosmos, which they believed existed beneath the observable diversity and disorder of the world. This effort to re-create a human ordering of "unity through diversity" provides an essential key to understanding medieval Europe and the ways in which it regarded and reacted to the worlds around it. Thoroughly updated and redesigned, the second edition features an inviting and accessible layout and integrates captivating new illustrations--nearly twice as many as in the previous edition--to stimulate students' engagement with the material. Moreover, it offers a sophisticated analysis of gender, along with an intriguing examination of the tumultuous relationship between the Mediterranean and Islam. An invaluable resource for both students and instructors, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Second Edition, is ideal for undergraduate courses in medieval history, Western civilization, the history of Christianity, and Muslim-Christian relations. It also serves as an excellent supplement on the history of a specific country in the medieval period, the history of medieval art, or the history of the European economy.

This insightful survey of the "things" of medieval Europe allows modern readers to understand what they looked like, what they were made of, how they were created, and how they were used. All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World covers the widest definition of "medieval Europe" possible, not by covering history in the traditional, textbook manner of listing wars, leaders, and significant historic events, but by presenting detailed alphabetical entries that describe the artifacts of medieval Europe. By examining the hidden material culture and by presenting information about topics that few books cover—pottery, locks and keys, shoes, weaving looms, barrels, toys, pets, ink, kitchen utensils, and much more—readers get invaluable insights into the nature of life during that time period and area. The heartland European regions such as England, France, Italy, and Germany are covered extensively, and information regarding the objects of regions such as Byzantium, Muslim Spain, and Scandinavia are also included. For each topic of material culture, the entry considers the full scope of the medieval period—roughly 500–1450—to give the reader a historical perspective of related traditions or inventions and describes the craftsmen and tools that produced it.

It is organized in five main chapters, and each chapter is enhanced by a stunning six-page gatefold that reveals a contruction of an historical place.

The plague organism (Yersinia pestis) killed an estimated 40% to 60% of all people when it spread rapidly through the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe in the fourteenth century: an event known as the Black Death. Previous research has shown, especially for Western Europe, how population losses then led to structural economic, political, and social changes. But why and how did the pandemic happen in the first place? When and where did it begin? How was it sustained? What was its full geographic extent? And when did it really end?