The Middle Ages

by Johannes Fried, Peter Lewis (Translator)

Overview

Since the fifteenth century, when humanist writers began to speak of a “middle” period in history linking their time to the ancient world, the nature of the Middle Ages has been widely debated. Across the millennium from 500 to 1500, distinguished historian Johannes Fried describes a dynamic confluence of political, social, religious, economic, and scientific developments that draws a guiding thread through the era: the growth of a culture of reason.

“Fried’s breadth of knowledge is formidable and his passion for the period admirable…Those with a true passion for the Middle Ages will be thrilled by this ambitious defensio.”
—Dan Jones, Sunday Times

“Reads like a counterblast to the hot air of the liberal-humanist interpreters of European history…[Fried] does justice both to the centrifugal fragmentation of the European region into monarchies, cities, republics, heresies, trade and craft associations, vernacular literatures, and to the persistence of unifying and homogenizing forces: the papacy, the Western Empire, the schools, the friars, the civil lawyers, the bankers, the Crusades…Comprehensive coverage of the whole medieval continent in flux.”
—Eric Christiansen, New York Review of Books

“[An] absorbing book…Fried covers much in the realm of ideas on monarchy, jurisprudence, arts, chivalry and courtly love, millenarianism and papal power, all of it a rewarding read.”
—Sean McGlynn, The Spectator

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674744677
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/13/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	632
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Johannes Fried was, until his retirement, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Frankfurt.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface 1. Boethius and the Rise of Europe 2. Gregory the Great and the New Power of the Franks 3. Charlemagne and the First Renewal of the Roman Empire 4. Consolidation of the Kingdoms 5. The End of Days Draws Menacingly Close 6. “The True Emperor Is the Pope” 7. The Long Century of Papal Schisms 8. The Vicar of God 9. The Triumph of Jurisprudence 10. The Light of Reason 11. The Monarchy 12. Waiting for Judgment Day and the Renaissance Epilogue: The Dark Middle Ages? Abbreviations Notes Selected Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

10/13/2014
This beautifully written and well-translated overview of the period between 500 and 1500 C.E. examines concepts and perceptions rather than kings and battles. Fried, professor of medieval history at the University of Frankfurt, begins with Boethius, whose work bridged classical and late antiquity. The development of new attitudes toward liberty and the beginnings of the division between church and state are described with a lucidity that is rare in historical overviews. Fried considers Jews, Muslims, and women as integral parts of society. He also addresses the development of natural science in the 13th century, noting that its monastic adherents had no problem with trying to discover how God’s creation worked. The politics of absolutism are presented in the context of the nature of governance and the rise of the power of commerce. As Fried reaches the plague years of the 14th and 15th centuries and the Renaissance, he analyzes the “eruption of the supernatural into the real world” through new modes in art and the rise of witch hunts. Fried’s conclusion that the “Middle Ages... crossed seamlessly over into a similarly constituted Early Modern period” is aimed at dispelling the myth of a “dark” age between antiquity and modernity. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

A sprawling and engaging tome.

Tweed’s - Randy Rosenthal

[An] extraordinary history… ‘Monumental’ is an overused word for historical works, but it may be applicable here. The book has the ambition, scope and, above all, plausibility. There is an enormous amount of ground covered in nearly 600 pages, and with an impressive narrative fluency.

The Guardian - Nicholas Lezard

In his masterful book titled simply The Middle Ages, Fried begins with Boethius and wends his way to Machiavelli…telling a tale of political thought and philosophical exploration and most importantly of complexity at every step, a journey through Western Europe’s middle millennium that encourages the reader to think of the period as a truly fruitful period of intellectual, political, and social transformation… Fried shines as an intellectual historian.

Christian Humanist - Nathan P. Gimour

This Johannes Fried project is certainly ambitious—condensing 1,000 years of history into a coherent volume is not an easy task. But Fried manages it with aplomb… Encompassing religion, politics, art, literature, social structures and much more besides, the breadth of the book would make it a useful reference for students and amateur scholars.

Northern Echo - Prudence Ivey

Fried’s breadth of knowledge is formidable and his passion for the period admirable… Those with a true passion for the Middle Ages will be thrilled by this ambitious defensio.

Sunday Times - Dan Jones

[Fried’s] erudite study traces our evolution towards reason, worldwide exploration, and rational procedures to a dynamic medieval period. This is the springboard to the modern era, as innovation won out against stagnation.

PopMatters - John L. Murphy

Reads like a counterblast to the hot air of the liberal-humanist interpreters of European history… [Readers] will be impressed by the main body of the work, which covers a thousand years of mostly Western and Central European history with magnificent confidence. [Fried] does justice both to the centrifugal fragmentation of the European region into monarchies, cities, republics, heresies, trade and craft associations, vernacular literatures, and to the persistence of unifying and homogenizing forces: the papacy, the Western Empire, the schools, the friars, the civil lawyers, the bankers, the Crusades… Comprehensive coverage of the whole medieval continent in flux.

New York Review of Books - Eric Christiansen

A paean to the modernity of the Middle Ages. Fried is one of the lions of German medieval scholarship of the past generation. His Middle Ages ripple with cultural energy and power. They father the culture of European reason—only to be vilified by Kant and the sons of the Enlightenment.

Standpoint - Conrad Leyser

[Fried] gets down to the business of writing excellent history in this absorbing book… Fried covers much in the realm of ideas on monarchy, jurisprudence, arts, chivalry and courtly love, millenarianism and papal power, all of it a rewarding read… The medieval period was, he argues passionately and convincingly, ‘more mature and more wise, more inquisitive, inventive and with a finer feel for art,’ and its people ‘more revolutionary in their deployment of reason and their thinking’ than we give them credit for.

The Spectator - Sean McGlynn

Johannes Fried’s The Middle Ages is an absolute must read for anybody with an interest in the Middle Ages.

Kalpokas Ignas

Written by one of the most original historians of his generation, this survey of western European medieval history covers the decline of Rome to the eve of the Reformation with verve and intelligence. Fried argues that modernity and the Enlightenment, despite having forgotten their debts to the Middle Ages, actually owe to the period their most valued characteristics: rationality, method, empiricism, doubt, modern science, global interests, citizenship, and last but not least, freedom.

Philippe Buc

[An] extraordinary history… ‘Monumental’ is an overused word for historical works, but it may be applicable here. The book has the ambition, scope and, above all, plausibility. There is an enormous amount of ground covered in nearly 600 pages, and with an impressive narrative fluency.
-- Nicholas Lezard The Guardian

Fried’s breadth of knowledge is formidable and his passion for the period admirable… Those with a true passion for the Middle Ages will be thrilled by this ambitious defensio.
-- Dan Jones Sunday Times

Reads like a counterblast to the hot air of the liberal-humanist interpreters of European history… [Readers] will be impressed by the main body of the work, which covers a thousand years of mostly Western and Central European history with magnificent confidence. [Fried] does justice both to the centrifugal fragmentation of the European region into monarchies, cities, republics, heresies, trade and craft associations, vernacular literatures, and to the persistence of unifying and homogenizing forces: the papacy, the Western Empire, the schools, the friars, the civil lawyers, the bankers, the Crusades… Comprehensive coverage of the whole medieval continent in flux.
-- Eric Christiansen New York Review of Books

[Fried] gets down to the business of writing excellent history in this absorbing book… Fried covers much in the realm of ideas on monarchy, jurisprudence, arts, chivalry and courtly love, millenarianism and papal power, all of it a rewarding read… The medieval period was, he argues passionately and convincingly, ‘more mature and more wise, more inquisitive, inventive and with a finer feel for art,’ and its people ‘more revolutionary in their deployment of reason and their thinking’ than we give them credit for.
-- Sean McGlynn The Spectator

In his masterful book titled simply The Middle Ages, Fried begins with Boethius and wends his way to Machiavelli…telling a tale of political thought and philosophical exploration and most importantly of complexity at every step, a journey through Western Europe’s middle millennium that encourages the reader to think of the period as a truly fruitful period of intellectual, political, and social transformation… Fried shines as an intellectual historian.
-- Nathan P. Gimour Christian Humanist

Johannes Fried’s The Middle Ages is an absolute must read for anybody with an interest in the Middle Ages.
-- Ignas, Kalpokas LSE Review of Books

This Johannes Fried project is certainly ambitious—condensing 1,000 years of history into a coherent volume is not an easy task. But Fried manages it with aplomb… Encompassing religion, politics, art, literature, social structures and much more besides, the breadth of the book would make it a useful reference for students and amateur scholars.
-- Prudence Ivey Northern Echo

[Fried’s] erudite study traces our evolution towards reason, worldwide exploration, and rational procedures to a dynamic medieval period. This is the springboard to the modern era, as innovation won out against stagnation.
-- John L. Murphy PopMatters

A paean to the modernity of the Middle Ages. Fried is one of the lions of German medieval scholarship of the past generation. His Middle Ages ripple with cultural energy and power. They father the culture of European reason—only to be vilified by Kant and the sons of the Enlightenment.
-- Conrad Leyser Standpoint

A sprawling and engaging tome.
-- Randy Rosenthal Tweed’s

Thanks to what German medieval scholar Fried calls the cultural prejudices of such Enlightenment thinkers as Immanuel Kant, the Middle Ages got a bad rap as a ‘childish and grotesque’ era when, in reality, it was a period of enormous learning, democratization and secularization… Overall, the Middle Ages brought freedom, Fried argues in this passionate but intensely scholarly book (translated from the German), and the desire to know the wider world.
-- Kirkus Reviews

This beautifully written and well-translated overview of the period between 500 and 1500 C.E. examines concepts and perceptions rather than kings and battles. Fried, professor of medieval history at the University of Frankfurt, begins with Boethius, whose work bridged classical and late antiquity. The development of new attitudes toward liberty and the beginnings of the division between church and state are described with a lucidity that is rare in historical overviews. Fried considers Jews, Muslims, and women as integral parts of society. He also addresses the development of natural science in the 13th century, noting that its monastic adherents had no problem with trying to discover how God’s creation worked. The politics of absolutism are presented in the context of the nature of governance and the rise of the power of commerce. As Fried reaches the plague years of the 14th and 15th centuries and the Renaissance, he analyzes the ‘eruption of the supernatural into the real world’ through new modes in art and the rise of witch hunts. Fried’s conclusion that the ‘Middle Ages…crossed seamlessly over into a similarly constituted Early Modern period’ is aimed at dispelling the myth of a ‘dark’ age between antiquity and modernity.
-- Publishers Weekly

Written by one of the most original historians of his generation, this survey of western European medieval history covers the decline of Rome to the eve of the Reformation with verve and intelligence. Fried argues that modernity and the Enlightenment, despite having forgotten their debts to the Middle Ages, actually owe to the period their most valued characteristics: rationality, method, empiricism, doubt, modern science, global interests, citizenship, and last but not least, freedom.
-- Philippe Buc, University of Vienna

From the Publisher

2014-10-19
A revisionist study of the medieval era as representing a process of consolidation and transformation that eventually yielded the Renaissance.Thanks to what German medieval scholar Fried calls the cultural prejudices of such Enlightenment thinkers as Immanuel Kant, the Middle Ages got a bad rap as a "childish and grotesque" era when, in reality, it was a period of enormous learning, democratization and secularization. The collapse of Rome spurred the migration of peoples, especially German-speaking, and the gradual consolidation in Europe of the Goths, Franks and Lombards. The meeting of the barbarians, who were devoted to the oral tradition, with the highly literate ancient culture of the Greeks and Romans, instigated "intensive learning processes" and the urge on the part of the invaders to emulate the civilization they had conquered. Fried sees a gradual progression toward a culture of reason, beginning with Boethius' translation of Aristotle's Organon and his own Consolation of Philosophy, moving through the highly educated Pope Gregory the Great (who ruled from 590 to 604) and his educational texts at the Byzantine court in Constantinople, and on to the emergence of Charlemagne and the Frankish kingdom via military conquest and Christian religious culture. Indeed, Charlemagne's hunger for knowledge encouraged literacy and the copying of ancient, especially Latin, texts, further unifying the West. Fried tracks the importance of the Irish itinerant clergy in spreading faith and literacy (especially grammar), the inciting of the Crusades against the regrouping Islamic forces, and the first social contract forged between monarchy and aristocracy, ratified by Charles the Bald in the ninth century. The crackdown on heretical sects (e.g., the Cathars) during a period of intense papal schism helped along the evolution of the elaborate jurisprudential system. Overall, the Middle Ages brought freedom, Fried argues in this passionate but intensely scholarly book (translated from the German), and the desire to know the wider world. A dense, often ponderous work from a deeply erudite scholar.

Kirkus Reviews