The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History [Paperback]

Norman F. Cantor (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 3, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0060925531 | ISBN-13: 978-0060925536 | Edition: First Edition

Now revised and expanded, this edition of the splendidly detailed and lively history of the Middle Ages contains more than 30 percent new material.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"No better explanation of medievalism is available to the general reader." -- --Booklist

About the Author

Norman F. Cantor was Emeritus Professor of History, Sociology, and Comparative Literature at New York University. His many books include In the Wake of the Plague, Inventing the Middle Ages, and The Civilization of the Middle Ages, the most widely read narrative of the Middle Ages in the English language. He died in 2004.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; First Edition edition (June 3, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060925531
• ISBN-13: 978-0060925536
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read, Great Overview October 10, 2004

By Richard R. Carlton

Format:Paperback

The confusion with all of the different opinions on this classic college introductory European medieval history text are clearly due to the differences in the backgrounds of the various readers.

Cantor has produced a book that is absolutely wonderful in it's ability to pull together the twisted history of both major and minor events throughout Europe and relate them to one another. Being able to understand how Papal politics impacted the Germanic Princes and then caused reactions in England and the Low Countries, which then produced French political events that influenced the Papacy.....great stuff when it can all come together like this!

Cantor can read like an enjoyable novel if you have an active interest in the medieval period, he points out the seeds of feminism and does a good job of placing them in the context of the period, he does the same for heresy, piety and the monastic movements, law and politics, the development of monarchism, the growth of the bourgeoisie, and a host of other factors and elements from the middle ages.

There are valid criticisms of his work though....some of his facts are wrong (some he should have know and others have now had additional historical thought added to them)....for example, the Turks taking Constantinople and the details of the death of Thomas a Becket. More serious to me though is the lack of footnotes (which are so essential to credibility that the readability issues must take second consideration) and the total lack of maps to help with orientations (especially important for those not intimately familiar with medieval European geography).

I've created lists that provide Amazon links to Cantor's top 10 medieval books and top 10 films, if you want to continue to follow the syllabus for medieval understanding that he lays out in the book.

116 of 131 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Cantor gets medieval but not ancient society right. July 5, 2002

By Graham Henderson

Format:Paperback

This is a book you should buy if you wish to understand the Middle Ages. But I must tell you that I was very nearly put off it by the author's tragically flawed understanding of Greek and Roman society. Greek and Roman culture are my areas of interest so I do feel I have some basis upon which to offer this critique.

The fact that his understanding of ancient society is flawed is rather frightening, because, as Cantor himself says, "...the heritage of the ancient world set the conditions for medieval society." So as I waded further into his book it was with considerable trepidation. If he got Greece and Rome so very, very wrong, how on earth could he get the Middle Ages right?

For example, reflect upon this near polemical attack on the Roman educational system (which seems to be to blame for a lot if Cantor is to be believed):

"The Romans were psychologically damaged by their educational system, as evidenced by their violence, aggression, sadism, hostility to women, and other unattractive characteristics. Children were treated badly, indeed, and many of them grew up to be sadomasochists."

It gets better. He goes on to remark that "...vestiges of this system have lived on into the twentieth century. The educational system of the medieval church was based on the Roman, and there were a good many neurotic educated adults within the medieval church."

And what exactly are the characteristics of the Roman educational system that produced this race of monsters? "It is a natural system for an aristocratic society, which needs to train its young people only to accept power handed on to them." The men who taught these benighted children were, and I QUOTE: "often slaves and frequently frustrated, sadistic men."

Wow!!! When you read something as novel and outlandish as this, you really want to see some source documentation. But you will be disappointed here. These remarks are not foot-noted and indeed one of the GRAVE failings of this book is that despite the fact Cantor re-edited and updated the entire text, he does not offer foot-notes. Having said that, his bibliography is quite good -- it is organized around a sort of top ten list format. But, curiously, the bibliography is placed AFTER a list of the best movies (!) on the Middle Ages.

I suppose like many scholars, he is a "man of his period" so to speak. His understanding of the Middle Ages is fluent and masterful, but his knowledge of the epochs that preceded it scanty and ill founded. Still I find it breath taking that he could be so wrong in places.

Having said this, my patience was rewarded. And my reading on the Middle Ages that I undertook as a result of this book have affirmed my faith in Cantor: he does, after all, get most of it right!

What was revolutionary about Cantor's book is that, as the jacket says, his was the "first comprehensive general history of the Middle Ages to centre on medieval culture and religion rather than political history."

A vital companion to this would be John Julius Norwich's three volume series on Byzantium and Marcia Colish's "Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition 400-1400 (Yale Intellectual History of the West)". Do not, under any circumstances bother with William Manchester's gravely flawed: "A World Lit Only By Fire" (for why I say that, see my review of that book).

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction to the Middle Ages, but .... January 1, 2002

By Jonathan Dirrenberger

Format:Paperback

As a newcomer to the history of the Middle Ages, this book was my first in the subject (other than textbooks from college on Western Civilization). I have truly enjoyed it and it has given me a decent overview of the vast era (and he has an excellent list of further reading, including movies!), but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting, as it is more of a narrative than a simple laying out of the facts. Being a narrative has its advantages (it makes for a more interesting read, almost like a novel at times), but it can certainly be confusing. As expected, the book has a general trend of moving chronologically forward from the disintigration of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of the Renaissance, but the subjects are organized more by theme than date, and this can be very confusing for a newcomer to the field. As one reviewer mentioned, not having any maps and some sort of timeline to put everything together is a big problem, something which is really needed to give the book cohesion.

I found the way Cantor introduced the Middle Ages to be highly enlightening. He starts from the late Roman Empire and seamlessly flows into the Middle Ages, so seamlessly that I didn't even realize the "introduction" had ended and that I was now into the Middle Ages. I was expecting it just to start abruptly like most history books, but Cantor spends the first 4-5 chapters developing the background from which the Middle Ages sprung. It makes it clear how hard it is to define the beginning of the Middle Ages (like almost any age of history).

Cantor's style of writing tends to use long, run-on sentences and many different terms for referring to the same concept or idea (have a dictionary handy!), so it sometimes requires more effort than needed to understand what he's saying. And like any historian, his own personal bias slips in at times, but I didn't find it over-bearing at all. He undoubtedly knows his stuff, but he could use an editor who could give it some cohesion via maps, a timline, and footnotes to explain concepts he often blows over. Nonetheless, I recommend this book for any newcomer to the field.