It’s much easier, however, to push good books on people than to sneer at what they have already read in good faith. All the titles listed here are in English, and should be accessible to the interested general reader, or academic non-specialist. I’ve also tried to only include works which aren’t too expensive (as far as medieval history books go), or which should be available cheaply secondhand.<\/p>\n
Getting Started<\/strong><\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n This little paperback does exactly what it promises on the cover: provides a very short introduction to the Middle Ages. In just 120 pages, Miri Rubin<\/a> covers the ways in which medieval Europeans thought society should work and what salvation would look like, how they treated minorities and what points of connection we can see between the Middle Ages and the modern world. This is a straightforward refutation of the idea that the Middle Ages were a benighted and backwards time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n If you’re looking for a slightly more extensive introduction than Rubin’s Very Short Introduction<\/em>, Chris Wickham’s Medieval Europe<\/em> is probably the most up-to-date broad introduction available. Wickham covers the broad sweep of the thousand years between the end of the Roman Empire in the West to the Reformation, taking in some of the key social, economic, and political factors that shaped medieval Europe. Byzantium, the Islamic world, and Eastern Europe all feature\u2014essential areas to consider, yet ones which are often omitted in standard surveys.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n If you want to step back and consider why we think about the Middle Ages in the ways that we do, pick up Marcus Bull’<\/a>s Thinking Medieval. <\/em>It’s compact but wide-ranging, looking at the stereotypes and representations of the Middle Ages in film, television, and the press\u2014from Ivanhoe<\/em> to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court<\/em> and Pulp Fiction<\/em>\u2014and exploring why they are so persistent. Though written with the college classroom in mind, I think it’s also accessible to the general reader with an interest in understanding why the remote past matters.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Digging Deeper<\/strong><\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n There’s a popular misconception that before Columbus’ sailed west across the Atlantic, medieval Europe was cut off from the rest of the world. Yet in Out of the East<\/em>, Paul Freedman<\/a> explores how trade\u2014in particular the spice trade\u2014had long linked Europe with parts of the world far distant from it. Traders were drawn east in search of pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, and other culinary and medicinal luxuries\u2014and medieval Europeans enjoyed heavily spiced food that often resembled what we’d think of as quintessentially Asian or Middle Eastern food today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n In the late twelfth century, a woman named Ermengard, viscountess of Narbonne ruled across a large swathe of what is now southern France. Fredric Cheyette<\/a> sets out to rescue her from the historical shadows. This is a hefty book, but one which provides some fascinating insight into the political and social contexts of this period\u2014what it meant for a woman to be the lord of an important port city in a region home to one of the Middle Ages’ most famous heresies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n How did peasants in medieval England\u2014the vast majority of the population\u2014care for their children and their elderly? What games did they play? What did their homes look like? In The Ties that Bound<\/em>, Barbara Hanawalt<\/a> made pioneering use of late medieval coroners’ rolls to uncover details of the daily lives of peasants in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England\u2014and to show people who were as distinct and complex as anyone nowadays.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Medieval and the Modern<\/strong><\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n This thought-provoking collection of essays sets out to prove the assertion in its title. The various essays\u2014on topics as diverse as healthcare, crime and punishment, and clerical sexual scandals\u2014argue that while the Middle Ages may not provide neat solutions to modern social problems, then they do at least offer us new ways of approaching them. After all, “medieval” is not, and should not be used as, a simple synonym for “barbaric”, any more than “modern” is a synonym for “progress.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n The “clash of civilisations” narrative\u2014of an irreparable, binary conflict between the Christian West and the Muslim World\u2014is used by many to explain contemporary political conflicts. Yet religious polarisation is hardly inevitable, and in The Ornament of the World<\/em>, Mar\u00eda Rosa Menocal<\/a> explores the diverse and vibrant culture created by Muslims, Jews, and Christians in medieval Iberia. This multi-cultural society was one of the most advanced in medieval Europe. Menocal’s recreation of the glories of al-Andalus is perhaps at times an overly rosy one, but this is still a useful introduction to a period that’s still too-little known.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Find it: Indiebound<\/a> | Publisher<\/a> | Local Library<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/51S-vTEu8VL._SX315_BO1204203200_-191x300.jpeg\")
<\/a>Miri Rubin. The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction<\/em> (2014).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Screen-Shot-2017-07-28-at-21.45.46-201x300.png\")
<\/a>Chris Wickham. Medieval Europe <\/em>(2016).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/2806175-187x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Marcus Bull.\u00a0Thinking Medieval: An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages<\/em> (2005).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/51qrV7IDIQL._SX289_BO1204203200_-175x300.jpeg\")
<\/a>Paul Freedman. Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination<\/em> (2008).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/608524-209x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Fredric L. Cheyette, Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours<\/em>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/9780195045642-201x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Barbara Hanawalt. The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England <\/em>(1986).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/10693247-202x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Celia Chazelle et al. Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice<\/em> (2011).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/2028965-194x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Mar\u00eda Rosa Menocal. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain<\/em> (2002).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/k7124-200x300.gif\")
<\/a>Patrick Geary. The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe <\/em>(2003).<\/p>\n