Customer Reviews

The First European Revolution: c. 970-1215 (The Making of Europe)

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This is an excellent book for those who wish to delve deeply into medieval history and can handle a book without pictures and illustrations, apart from a few maps. R.I. Moore, a British professor and editor for Blackwell publishers, deserves high points for a thorough scientific investigation, but also for describing his theories accessibly and vividly.

The title of the book heralds a new perspective, and Moore convinces his reader that changes occurred during this rather anonymous period in European history, after Charlemagne, but before the High Middle Ages, that were as fundamental as the French and Industrial Revolutions.

He argues that no real civilization existed in Europe before the tenth century, and that a new system of farming, administration and inheritance developed during the period 970-1215, which was a necessary foundation for all later appearances of universities, cities, commerce, castles, kings and taxes.

It is the birth of the feudal system, of course, which is a plain historical fact. What sets this book apart from many other history books is Moore's thourough grip on the minds and reasons of the actual people involved. Through sharp analysis of documents and wisely chosen and interpreted quotes, he makes the people of the period - sons of noblemen without an obvious career, intellectual monks, religious protesters, nomad farmers - come alive as thinking human beings with a rational cause for their actions. Moore shows how the actions and choices, the logic of the times, build up to a new social order, new customs and institutions, and introduce concepts as tithe, diocese, and cerealization.

His focus is mostly on France, where the development started, and partly on England, where it was perfected, and helped kings unify a nation. But he also shows how the Vikings contributed to European integration, and, very interestingly, compares Europe with the Chinese medieval empire, which lacked a few dynamic ingredients. One basic cause seems to have been the power hunger of Charlemagne's warlords, who, when the yearly conquests stopped, turned their attention inwards, to their own subservient farmers.

Moore abstains from elaborating on abstract theories, and appears to let his source material come alive on its own accord. But this painstaking build-up of details from many kinds of sources into social and economic facts, and drawing conclusions about the mentality of the people involved is the method of the Annales school, of which Jacques Le Goff is an honoured representative. Le Goff is the editor of this series on The Making of Europe, of which this book is one in a long line. The series is published by Blackwell Pulishers in cooperation with four other European publishers.

Writing European history seems to be a Millennium Project for many publishers. Blackwells could be expected to do better than most. This study neatly shows how economic reorganization on the very local level can lead to integration on a national, and European, level. These times are politically opportune for that kind of thought, aren't they?

Moore's method of investigating and explaining is very illuminating and clear, and if the approach is new to this period, the title of the book is well motivated. The Annales approach often combines with good, vivid writing, and this book is also an example of that.

In The First European Revolution: c. 970--1215, R. I. Moore argues that "Europe was born in the second millennium of the Common Era, not the first" (1). He asserts that concepts from antiquity were used and discarded by individuals in this long century to construct a new kind of social order that would provide the foundations for modern Europe. "Citied civilization" characterizes this new foundation, and the revolution between 970 and 1215 made the supporting of cities possible. In arguing his thesis, Moore investigates the roles of political elites and the church, emphasizing their complementary natures. These two institutions worked together, sometimes consciously sometimes unconsciously, to better exploit the land and those who worked it.

Moore cites a wealth of evidence in this book, but he interprets it from a Marxist point of view. For example, he writes, "The resulting combination of greed, curiosity and ingenuity drove these first Europeans to exploit their land and their workers ever more intensively, constantly to extend the scope and penetration of their governmental institutions, and in doing so eventually to create the conditions for the development of their capitalism, their industries and their empires" (197). If you are a typical American student of medieval history, you will probably find these passages annoying.

The book has many other flaws. First and foremost, the book needed more editing. Though I did not agree with much of his thesis, he managed to argue it better in the first half of the book. Also, his prose manifests banal moralism and promotes gross stereotypes. Moore obviously finds the Church distasteful. His promiscuous use of the word "ruthless" when referring to lords, secular and ecclesiastical, is trite, as is his unexamined use of "exploit." His condescending attitude towards peasants, however, may be more insulting. In a number of passages he belittles the lives lived by those who worked the land, claiming that any agency they might have perceived themselves as having was only imagined. His analysis of the hardships faced by Europe's Jews is superficial and tendentious, and he casts the situation in terms of the modern world, not the medieval. Most disturbing is the facility with which Moore robs people of their humanity. He reduces men and women to mere cogs in this economic revolution, often referring to "forces which they could do little to control." On the whole, Moore seems uncomfortable with real people who have real ideas. For example, he really just does not get Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument. However, Moore does demonstrate that life was different after 1215 than it was before 970, but that's hardly a revolutionary idea.