Ocean State Libraries

"Winner of the 2000 Haskins Medal, Medieval Academy of America" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1996" William Chester Jordan is Professor of History and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University. Among his books are Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton), Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Develpoing Societies, and The French Monarchy and the...

In this book, Henri Pirenne, the great Belgian economic historian, traces the character and general movement of the economic and social evolution of Western Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the middle of the fifteenth century. From the breakup of the economic equilibrium of the ancient world to the revival of commerce, the redevelopment of credit, the trade of commodities, the origins of urban industry, and the rebirth of new forms of protectionism,...

"Explores 'yucky' aspects of medieval medicine"--Provided by publisher.

"The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much -- or too little -- sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about who they could have sex with, in what way, how often, and even when, and could be harshly punished for getting...

"How a seven-year cycle of rain, cold, disease, and warfare created the worst famine in European history ... In May 1315, it started to rain. It didn't stop anywhere in north Europe until August. Next came the four coldest winters in a millennium. Two separate animal epidemics killed nearly 80 percent of northern Europe's livestock. Wars between Scotland and England, France and Flanders, and two rival claimants to the Holy Roman Empire destroyed all...