This wide-ranging text focuses on the collective values and activities of lay society over several centuries, from trade guilds and manor courts to the development of parliaments and the rule of feudal monarchs. It offers a fresh approach to the history of medieval Europe.

That Maitland's hypotheses and conclusions should still be central to such a debate is not the least remarkable feature of this extraordinary book.

A wave of internal conquest, settlement and economic growth in Europe during High Middle Ages transformed it from a world of small separate communities into a network of powerful kingdoms. This book shows how Europe was itself a product of colonization, as much as it was later a colonizer, and what this did to shape the continent and the world.

Discusses the economic and social conditions in which feudalism developed, to offer an understanding of the processes at work in medieval Europe.

Discusses the social and economic conditions in which feudalism developed to offer an understanding of the processes at work in medieval Europe.

This is a visual sourcebook and survey of the medieval world: its people, its horizons, its defining characteristics, its whole culture. The themes it covers include religion and the Church, nations and laws, daily life, art and architecture, scholarship and philosophy.