A Short History of the Middle Ages

Citation

Rosenwein, B. H. (2023). A Short History of the Middle Ages (6th ed.). University of Toronto Press.

Chapter Summary

The sixth edition is a one-volume survey of about 340 pages of text in eight chronological chapters, from c.300 to c.1500, each covering a period of one to three centuries. Three short "Material Culture" features sit between chapters, on forging medieval swords, on cloth and clothing, and on the making of an illuminated manuscript. The front matter lists maps, plates, genealogies and figures, a note to readers and a note on the companion website; the back matter has a list of sources and an index. (The book is also published in two volumes, c.300–c.1150 and c.900–c.1500.)

The publisher describes the edition as offering a panoramic view of the medieval world "from Iceland to China and from Sweden to West Africa", while keeping in view the heirs of the Roman Empire in Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic world, and highlights a new map programme and line drawings of archaeological finds and buildings. The publisher's companion site, utphistorymatters.com, carries every map, genealogy and figure, plus chapter-by-chapter study questions with suggested answers; those questions are a good guide to what each chapter covers.

Chapter 1: Prelude: The Roman World Transformed (c.300–c.600)

The late Roman empire and its transformation: the "provincialization" of the empire in the third-century crisis, Diocletian's reforms, the spread and definition of Christianity, the Church Fathers and Augustine, the barbarian peoples (including the archaeology of the settlement at Wijster), the post-Roman kingdoms in the West, and Justinian's attempt at restoration. Its study questions frame the debate between "decline and fall" and a slowly transforming Late Antiquity.

Chapter 2: The Emergence of Sibling Cultures (c.600–c.750)

The book's central idea is introduced here: Byzantium, the Islamic world and the West as three "sibling" heirs of Rome. The chapter covers the Persian–Byzantine wars, the rise of Islam and the Arab conquests, iconoclasm, the Merovingian, Visigothic and Lombard kingdoms, the conversion of England and the pope as a "man in the middle". The site of Volubilis in Morocco shows a Roman town becoming part of the Islamic world.

Chapter 3: Creating New Identities (c.750–c.900)

A revived Byzantium and its missions to Moravia and Bulgaria, the Abbasid revolution and Baghdad, al-Andalus as a "society in the middle", and the Carolingians, from their rise and alliance with the papacy to Charlemagne's coronation and the civil war among his heirs. The chapter compares the economies and the cultural "renaissances" of the three worlds.

Chapter 4: Political Communities Reordered (c.900–c.1050)

Byzantium under pressure from the powerful landholders (dynatoi), the conversion of Rus', the fragmentation of the Abbasid caliphate and the rise of the Fatimids, the Vikings and Alfred the Great, the Ottonians and Capetians, the Peace of God, and the new states of East Central Europe around 1000.

Chapter 5: New Configurations (c.1050–c.1150)

The Seljuk Turks, the Almoravids and their links with West Africa, the Normans in Sicily and England, the "commercial revolution", Cluny and the Gregorian Reform, the Investiture Conflict, the First Crusade (including the massacres of Rhineland Jews), the Iberian kingdoms, and the rise of schools, new religious orders and Romanesque architecture.

Chapter 6: Ambitions Realized and Thwarted (c.1150–c.1250)

The Almohads and Saladin, Chinggis Khan and recent theories linking the Mongols to the origins of the plague, Henry II of England, Magna Carta and Philip Augustus, Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II, the Fourth Lateran Council, friars, Beguines and Cathars, later crusades, the Italian communes, vernacular literature, universities and Gothic architecture.

Chapter 7: Empires of Land and Mind (c.1250–c.1350)

The Mongol empire and its effects, the Ilkhanids and Mamluks, the empire of Mali, Mediterranean and Hanseatic trade, conflict in the cities of Flanders and Italy, representative institutions such as the English parliament, East Central Europe, the Avignon papacy, Purgatory, and the scholastics and their late-medieval critics.

Chapter 8: Catastrophe and Creativity (c.1350–c.1500)

The final chapter's maps and figures show its range: the spread of plague from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, the Ottoman empire by c.1500, the Hundred Years War and the duchy of Burgundy, Western Europe c.1450, the building of the dome of Florence Cathedral, and the long-distance sea voyages of the fifteenth century.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Late Antiquity to c.900

• Sibling cultures: Byzantium, the Islamic world and the Latin West seen as related heirs of the Roman Empire.
• Provincialization: the shift of the Roman empire's army, capitals and wealth away from Rome towards the provinces.
• Ethnogenesis: the forming of new peoples and identities among barbarian groups.
• Iconoclasm: the Byzantine dispute over religious images.
• Caliphate: Islamic rule after Muhammad, from the Umayyads to the Abbasids.

Chapters 4–6: c.900–c.1250

• Fragmentation and state-making: political breakup in some regions alongside new kingdoms formed around 1000, often tied to conversion.
• Commercial revolution: the growth of towns, trade and money from the eleventh century.
• Gregorian Reform and the Investiture Conflict: the papacy's effort to free the Church from lay control.
• Crusades: expeditions to the Holy Land and, in the same period, wars in Spain and against heretics such as the Cathars.

Chapters 7–8: c.1250–c.1500

• Mongol empire: a vast Eurasian state that, after its conquests, fostered trade and religious diversity.
• Representative institutions: parliaments and assemblies created by rulers.
• Scholasticism: the medieval effort to reconcile faith and reason, and its later critics.
• Plague: the pandemic caused by Yersinia pestis, now traced back to Central Asia.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A comparative frame. Treating Byzantium, Islam and the West as siblings in every chapter, and widening the view to West Africa, Central Asia and East Central Europe in this edition, makes it a broader survey than one confined to Western Europe.
• Short, period-based chapters. Eight chapters, each tied to dates, give a clear chronology and make it easy to assign a chapter a week or two.
• Visual material. Maps keyed to each chapter, genealogies, plates of art and architecture and line drawings of excavated sites are integrated with the text; the study questions repeatedly ask readers to compare maps across chapters or to read a plate as evidence.
• Unusual support for self-study. The companion site's short-answer, map, plate and essay questions, with suggested answers and key terms, let students test themselves chapter by chapter.

Limitations

• Compression. With some twelve hundred years and three or more civilisations in about 340 pages, each topic receives only a few paragraphs; the book is a framework, not a detailed account.
• A survey, not a reader. The plates and "Material Culture" features bring in objects and images, but the book summarises rather than presenting written sources; the publisher issues translated texts separately, for example in Reading the Middle Ages.
• Uneven support for the last chapter. The companion site's study questions stop at Chapter 7, so students have to prepare the last chapter, on c.1350–c.1500, without them.

Where It Fits in the Course

Rosenwein is one of two entry points to the medieval-history list. Miri Rubin's The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction is a much shorter thematic essay on what the Middle Ages were and how people lived and thought; Rosenwein supplies the chronological narrative and maps that Rubin assumes. Read Rubin first for orientation or alongside for its themes.

Judith Bennett and Sandy Bardsley's Medieval Europe: A Short History is a longer American survey of Europe from the late Roman world to around 1500, with more attention to European society and culture; Chris Wickham's Medieval Europe is a concise interpretive history from the end of the western Roman empire to the Reformation. Either is a good next step after Rosenwein, which differs from both in giving Byzantium and the Islamic world equal weight. Wickham's Framing the Early Middle Ages is a large comparative social and economic history of 400–800 that deepens Chapters 1–3, and R. I. Moore's The Formation of a Persecuting Society is an argued study that develops themes of Chapters 5–6, such as the treatment of Jews and heretics.

How to Use This Book

No prior study of medieval history is needed. The book suits first-year university students, students of literature, art history or religion who need historical context, and general readers.

A suggested plan:

• Core: read all eight chapters in order; the chronology builds from chapter to chapter, and the sibling comparison only works if the three worlds are followed together.
• For a short course: Chapters 1–3 for the early Middle Ages, then Chapters 5 and 6 for the central Middle Ages, with Chapter 8 to close.
• Optional: the three "Material Culture" features, useful for seminars on objects and technology.

Use the maps actively: the study questions ask, for example, how Western Europe changed between maps of c.600 and c.750, or how Tours grew between c.600 and c.1100. After each chapter, try the short-answer questions on the companion site before checking the suggested answers, and use the essay questions for revision. Pair the survey with a source reader; the University of Toronto Press's Reading the Middle Ages appears on the same companion site, and any translated source collection will serve.