With Volume XIII the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History moves into fresh territory. The first edition was completed by Volume XII which closed in A.D. 324. The Editors of the new edition have enlarged the scope of Volume XII to include the foundation of Constantinople and the death of Constantine, and extended the series with two wholly new volumes taking the History down to A.D. 600. <br /><br />Volume XIII, the first of these new volumes, covers the years 337-425, from the death of Constantine to the reign of Theodosius II.

With Volume 14 The Cambridge Ancient History concludes its story. This latest volume embraces the wide range of approaches and scholarship which have in recent decades transformed our view of Late Antiquity. In particular, traditional political and social history has been enormously enhanced by integrating the rich evidence of Christian writing, and the constantly expanding results of archaeological research. <br /><br />A picture emerges of a period of considerable military and political disruption, but also of vibrant intellectual and cultural activity. The volume begins with a series of narrative chapters. These are followed by sections on government and institutions, economy and society, and religion and culture. A section on the provinces and the non-Roman world marks the rise of new and distinct political and cultural entities. This volume, and the CAH, ends in around AD 600, before the Arab conquests shattered for ever what remained of the unity of the Roman world.

The Cambridge Medieval History Series consists of 8 volumes, with volume 1 first published in 1911. Planned by one of the most renowned Byzantinists and Medievalists of the day, John B. Bury, it became the de facto standard by which all comprehensive period histories would be measured. Its impact on the field of medieval scholarship is every bit as great as Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Volume One - The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms begins with the accession of Constantine to the Imperium and ends roughly with reign of Justinian in the East. It covers the migration of Germanic tribes into Roman territories. Significant attention is given the ecumenical church councils of the 4th Century, with particular emphasis on the Arian controversies. Volume Two - The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire covers the time period from roughly 500 CE to 814 CE. Beginning with Justinian, it also looks at the Frankish Merovingian dynasty, the Lombard Kingdom in Italy, the Restoration of the Imperium in Italy, and ends with the transition of power from the Merovingians to the Carolingians through Charlemagne's reign. Chapters covering England and English institution and the conversion of the Celts. Finally, attention is given to the birth and spread of Islam and the growth of the Islamic Caliphate. Volume Three - Germany and the Western Empire covers the period from roughly 814 CE through the end of the first millennium. Beginning with the reign of Louis the Pious, it traces the decline of the Carolingian Empire and the foundation of the Capetian Dynasty. Attention is paid to the Holy Roman Empire in Germany through Henry III. The impact of the Norse Vikings on the political landscape is examined as is the development of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England through the death of Edward the Confessor. Throughout the volume development of feudalism as a primary labor, land-owning, and social way of life is highlighted. Finally, the continued growth of the Western Caliphate is looked at. Volume Four - The Eastern Roman Empire focuses primarily on the Byzantine East from roughly 700 CE through the end of the Empire in 1483. The different dynasties (Isaurian, Phrygian, and Macedonian) receive their own chapters, and in-depth attention is paid to the struggle with the emerging Islamic Caliphate. The religious and political relationship with the West is considered and significant attention is paid to the Comneni and Fourth Crusade. Volume Five - The Contest of Empire and Papacy is concerned primarily with the century and a half from 1050 CE to 1200 CE. It looks at the surging political power of the Church and the corresponding growth of nations of Western Europe. The Holy Roman Empire and the Norman Invasion of England, the establishment of the Plantagenet Dynasty in Norman Britain, and the emergence of Monasticism and Scholasticism in the period receive attention. Volumes 6-8 were published after 1923 and are therefore not in the public domain. Plantagenet Publishing will not be able to make them available in this format.

HE century and a half, roughly from 1050 to 1200, with which this volume is concerned, follows on a period when the disorganization and anarchy of the ninth century had barely been made good. Order had been to some extent restored; the desire for order and for peace was at any rate widespread. The opportunity for fruitful development, both in the sphere of ecclesiastical and of secular government, and also in those pursuits which especially needed peace for their prosecution, such as culture and commerce, had now arrived. We have to deal, then, with a period, on the one hand, of new movements and new ideas—the appearance of new monastic orders, a renaissance of thought and learning, the rise of towns and the expansion of commerce; on the other, of consolidation and centralization—the organization of the monarchical government of the Church, the development of monarchical institutions in the various countries of Europe, and, to give direction and solidity to the whole, the revived study of Civil and Canon Law. Finally, and most novel of all, we see Europe at once divided by the great conflict of Empire and Papacy and united by the Crusades in the holy war against the infidel. The former as well as the latter implies a conception of the unity of Western Christendom, a unity which found expression in the universal Church. For the Church alone was universal, European, international; and, as its institutions begin to take more definite form, the more deeply is this character impressed upon them.<br /><br />The volume opens with a chapter on the Reform of the Church, which was not merely a prelude to, but also a principal cause of, the striking events that followed; for in the pursuit of the work of reform the Papacy both developed its own organization and was brought into conflict with the secular power. In the first half of the eleventh century, it had been entirely dominated by the secular interests of the local nobles. It had been rescued by the Emperor Henry III, and Pope Leo IX had immediately taken his natural place as leader of the reform movement. When he undertook personally, in France, Germany, and Italy, the promulgation and enforcement of the principles of reform, he made the universality of papal power a reality; the bishops might mutter, but the people adored. The Papacy was content to take a subordinate place while Henry III was alive; Henry IV's minority worked a complete change. The first great step was the Papal Election Decree of Nicholas II, and, though the attempt of the Roman nobles to recover their influence was perhaps the immediate cause, the Papacy took the opportunity to shake off imperial control as well. An opening for interference still remained in the case of a disputed election, as was clearly shown in the contest of Innocent II and Anastasius II, and especially in that of Alexander III and Victor IV. This gap was closed by the Third Lateran Council in 1179, which decreed that whoever obtained the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals should be declared Pope.<br /><br />Chapters:<br /><br />I. THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH<br /><br />II. GREGORY VII AND THE FIRST CONTEST BETWEEN EMPIRE AND PAPACY.<br /><br />III. GERMANY UNDER HENRY IV AND HENRY V<br /><br />IV THE CONQUEST OF SOUTH ITALY AND SICILY BY THE NORMANS.<br /><br />V. THE ITALIAN CITIES TILL c. 1200.<br /><br />VI ISLAM IN SYRIA AND EGYPT, 750-1100.<br /><br />VII THE FIRST CRUSADE.<br /><br />VIII THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM, 1099-1291.<br /><br />IX. THE EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES UPON WESTERN EUROPE.<br /><br />X GERMANY, 1125-1152.<br /><br />XI ITALY, 1125-1152.<br /><br />XII FREDERICK BARBAROSSA AND GERMANY.<br /><br />XIII. FREDERICK BARBAROSSA AND THE LOMBARD LEAGUE.<br /><br />XIV THE EMPEROR HENRY VI<br /><br />XV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DUCHY OF NORMANDY AND THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.<br /><br />XVI. ENGLAND, 1087-1154.<br /><br />XVII. ENGLAND: HENRY II.<br /><br />XVIII. FRANCE: LOUIS VI AND LOUIS VII (1108-1180).<br /><br />XIX. THE COMMUNAL MOVEMENT, ESPECIALLY IN FRANCE.<br /><br />XX. THE MONASTIC ORDERS.<br /><br />XXI. ROMAN AND CANON LAW IN THE MIDDLE AGES.<br /><br />XXII. MEDIEVAL SCHOOLS TO c. 1300.<br /><br />XXIII. PHILOSOPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

The Cambridge Medieval Volume 6, Victory of the Papacy - 1968

Excerpt from The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 8<br />About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers most of the period of Frankish and Carolingian dominance in western Europe. It was one of remarkable political and cultural coherence, combined with crucial, very diverse and formative developments in every sphere of life. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the authors examine the interaction between rulers and ruled, how power and authority actually worked, and the society and culture of Europe as a whole. The volume is divided into four parts. Part I encompasses the events and political developments in the whole of the British Isles, the west and east Frankish kingdoms, Scandinavia, the Slavic and Balkan regions, Spain, Italy, and those aspects of Byzantine and Muslim history which impinged on the west between c. 700 and c. 900. Parts II, III and IV cover themes and topics concerning church and society, and cultural and intellectual developments.

The period of the tenth and early eleventh centuries was crucial in the formation of Europe, much of whose political geography and larger-scale divisions began to take shape at that time. It was also an era of great fragmentation, and hence of differences that have been magnified by modern national historiographical traditions. This volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History reflects these varying traditions, and provides an authoritative survey in its own terms. The volume is divided into three general themes, the former Carolingian lands, and areas farther afield.

The fourth volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which comprised the most dynamic period in the European Middle Ages. The first of two parts, this volume deals with ecclesiastical and secular themes, in addition to major developments such as the expansion of population, agriculture, trade, and towns; the radical reform of the Western Church; the appearance of new kingdoms and states, the Crusades, knighthood and law; and the development of literature, art and architecture, heresies and the scholastic movement.

The second part of the volume is about the course of events--ecclesiastical and secular--with regard to the papacy, the western empire (mainly Germany), Italy, France, Spain, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Hungary, Poland, the Byzantine empire and the settlements in Palestine and Syria established by the crusades and their Muslim neighbors.

The sixth volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History offers an authoritative synthesis of the major themes in European fourteenth-century history, written by leading British, continental and American scholars. It provides a wide-ranging account of a period of major social, political and cultural change, punctuated by the greatest natural disaster experienced by mankind, the Black Death. Illustrated by maps, figures and plates, and furnished with detailed bibliographies, it will be indispensable to anyone interested in the development of Christendom during the period and its relations with other civilizations.

In a preface written for the paperback edition, Professor Hay examines some of the changes in Renaissance scholarship since the first publication of this volume in 1957. Successive chapters examine the social and economic structure of a continent about to establish trade and colonies in the New World, the intellectual and artistic movements which made up the Renaissance, the position of the Church on the eve of the Reformation, the political inheritance of the Middle Ages, with its rising nation states, and the growth of the Ottoman Empire.

This is the second, amended and enlarged edition of a familiar standard work, first published in 1958. Like its predecessor, it describes the open conflicts of the Reformation from Luther's first challenge to the uneasy peace of the 1560s. Reforming movements in all the principal countries are discussed against the background of constitutional development and the political struggles of the ruling dynasties. Europe's relations with the outside world are given due prominence. The second edition incorporates the results of some thirty years of further research and fills some of the gaps, especially in the history of central Europe, which beset the first edition. All chapters that remain from 1958 have been revised, some very substantially, while other contributions are wholly new. The only other volume of The New Cambridge History planned to appear in a second edition is Volume I: The Renaissance scheduled for 1991.

This volume deals with the bloody half-century that intervened between the final conflicts of the Lutheran Reformation and the first warnings of the Thirty Years War. It covers the economic consequences of the decline of Antwerp and the rise in prices; the social and political strains that produced the Revolt of the Netherlands and the French Civil Wars; the religious passions that eventually fused the local tensions of Western Europe into a general conflict between Spain and her English, French, and Dutch neighbours; and the intellectual conditions that made it difficult to find solutions for the deeper problems of government and society which the ferment of the previous century had bequeathed. It also deals with the growing struggle for Baltic supremacy, the waning menace of Turkish power, and the consolidation of European influence in other continents.

War, plague, rebellions, and religious and dynastic conflicts changed the distribution of power between states, as well as their structure, when many of the social, intellectual and political foundations of Europe during the Ancien Régime were laid. The mass of the people suffered from direct and indirect effects of war, but both limited and absolutist governments and a variety of social groups strengthened themselves. In this volume, contributors discuss the shift of power and command of oceanic routes to north-western Europe, the failure of Habsburg power in Spain and Germany and the rebuilding of their power in Bohemia. The internal costs of France's victory over Spain and her international position in the 1650s are assessed. Greater immediate gains were won by smaller powers, the Dutch and the Swedes and, despite the Civil War, England. Particular attention is paid to attitudes towards absolutism and the development of scientific ideas.

This volume, the sixth to be published, covers the age of Louis XIV, when France played the leading role not only in the political and military sphere, but also in culture, literature and art.

Volume VI draws attention to two of the paramount developments which, with the growth of the Hapsburg monarchy, affected all of Europe and many parts of the Americas during the period under survey. War, politics, and society in Western Europe are studied from the English Revolution to the death of Louis XIV, and elsewhere from the accession of Charles XII to the death of Peter the Great (and for the Ottoman Empire to 1730). There is a survey of European maritime commerce extending to all important traffic within the overseas world, and a chapter on population and prices in Europe. Although much space is necessarily occupied by war and diplomacy, and by new methods of conducting them, the cultural and religious history of the period was of fundamental importance to the Enlightenment that was to follow. In this and other respects, the present volume complements volumes V and VII.

This volume surveys the political, military and diplomatic history of a period of changing alliances and limited and gentlemanly but frequent wars. It gives particular weight to the emergence of Prussia and Russia as European Powers and to the rivalry of France and England in America, in India and on the high seas. The economic background to these national fortunes is of increasing international trade, technological progress and colonialisation. Socially, European society slowly evolved from the domination of the aristocracy to that of urban populations and bourgeois administrators. Intellectually, the culture of Europe took on what are recognized as specifically eighteenth-century forms and ideals. From the point of view of world history this period saw the confirmation of European pre-eminence and dominion.

This volume of the The New Cambridge Modern History looks specifically at the American and French Revolutions in the eighteenth century.