Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Publications
  3. Collections & Series
  4. Content listing

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

42503 results in Collections

Page 1871 of 2126

  • 29 - Russia

  • from PART IV - THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN STATES
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 748-770

  • Summary

    Russia' is the state descended from the grand principality that coalesced around Moscow in the fourteenth century and began the historical continuum that extended to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and modern Russia. Powerful rivals included the city republics of Novgorod and Pskov, not forgetting the grand duchy of Lithuania. The dynamics of geopolitics in this century were structured by Moscow's rivalry with the grand duchy of Lithuania. Archbishop Evfimii also evoked Novgorod's past in architecture, rebuilding several churches according to their original twelfth-century designs. Architecture joined literature and icons in embellishing Moscow. The Cathedral of the Dormition, became a repository of Moscow's past and future pretensions. The Cathedral of the Dormition symbolically depicted God's blessing on Moscow, its antiquity and eminence and its ties to Constantinople, Kiev and Vladimir. Moscow reached even beyond Kiev to classical Antiquity to assert its status, a step paralleling Renaissance-era historiography throughout Europe.

  • 9 - Exploration and Discovery

  • from PART II - ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 175-202

  • Summary

    This chapter focuses on the term 'exploration' for the identification, investigation and recording of practical routes. The story of exploration in the fifteenth century is very largely of the crossing of the Atlantic with routes that linked its shores and led to other oceans. This story should be understood against the background of the internal exploration of Latin Christendom in the late Middle Ages. The discovery of new sources of gold and slaves meant that the direct economic effects of west African exploration were potentially revolutionary. Exploration was a means whereby the civilisation of Latin Christendom established access to and, in the longer run, command of a disproportionate share of the resources of the world. Explorers made a major contribution to the reversal of fortunes on a global scale. Previous civilisations derived their images of the world from dogmas of cosmology, from inductive reasoning, from revelation, from inherited tradition or from the elaboration of theory.

  • 4 - The European Nobility

  • from PART II - ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 87-105

  • Summary

    The nobility of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages needs and deserves to be studied from a standpoint that is not merely socio-economic, but political and cultural, too. Europe is deemed synonymous with Latin Christendom. The Castilian nobility was distinctly divided into three categories: the titulos, the caballeros and later the hidalgos and the escuderos. Nobles from different parts of western Christendom could also meet at the court. The Prussian Reise, that cross-roads of western nobility, was more characteristic of the fourteenth than of the fifteenth century. Texts, in some cases translations, spread far from their place of origin identical concepts of nobility and chivalry, and stimulated commentaries upon them. The existence of noble classes of varying importance within different European societies is explained, first and foremost, by the long-term history of these societies, and, vitally, by its outcome.

  • 17 - Germany and the Empire

  • from PART IV - THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN STATES
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 335-366

  • Summary

    Thomas Murner derided as naive the contention of Jakob Wimpfeling that Alsace had always been both geographically and politically 'German' since the days of the Roman Empire. Throughout the fifteenth century the 'German tongue' stamp a linguistic community set apart from foreign speakers. The campaigns against the Hussites were launched as European crusades with papal sanction, but their military organisations and financial burden drew members of the Empire into closer and more frequent consultation. The dualism of the Empire is reflected in the two issues which remained running sores throughout the century. They are the need for the kings to establish a dynastic power base strong enough to enable them to rule effectively as emperors; and the concern of members of the Reich to establish public order and the rule of law within Germany. In the consolidation of the greater secular principalities fifteenth-century Germany displayed the constitutional and political features which elsewhere in Europe marked the emergence of nation-states.

  • (c) - Portugal

  • from 24 - The Iberian peninsula
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 627-644

  • Summary

    Portugal comprises distinct geographical zones, a mountainous in the north, a lowland in the south, the dividing line being the river Tagus. The principal urban centres, Coimbra, Lisbon, Oporto and Silves, were riverside communities, as were many lesser settlements with a history of fishing, shipbuilding and maritime enterprise. The consciousness of Portuguese nationalism, portuguesismo, awoke with war: the battle of Aljubarrota, elaborately reported by chroniclers and further exalted by myth, marked its birth. Of all the elements forming Portuguese political structures, the royal office was the most important. Joäo I secured for the crown in 1402, when all cities came to be recognised as belonging to the crown; only Braga, seat of the primate of Portugal, eventually had its former independence restored, reverting to archiepiscopal control. The two reigns of Joäo I and Duarte reveal coherent continuity, a result of the fact that Duarte was associated with his father's rule in the last third of the latter's very long reign.

  • 12 - Humanism

  • from PART III - SPIRITUAL, CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 243-277

  • Summary

    A discussion of Renaissance humanism must begin with Burckhardt, whose The civilization of the Renaissance in Italy has set the terms of debate and analysis from the time of its publication in 1860 up to the most recent scholarship. Burckhardt had posited a political explanation of the origins of Renaissance individualism, which in his view was the product of the egoistic and amoral political world of the Italian city-states. The great merit of Kristeller's interpretation of Renaissance humanism, indeed the key to its lasting appeal, is his philological study of primary sources. History, as one of the five disciplines of the studia humanitatis, was a principal concern of the humanists, who not only assiduously studied the ancient Roman histories but also wrote histories of their own. The grammar curriculum in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was divided into two relatively distinct phases: elementary education, and secondary education.

  • 8 - War

  • from PART II - ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 161-174

  • Summary

    War was more than an opportunity for physical excitement or the chance to win reputation through deeds worthy of being recorded for the benefit of others. War was widely regarded as a way of securing peace and justice. Differences between religious and social systems lay behind wars fought mainly at the extremities of Europe. The most decisive development was the move towards centralisation of military organisation and command which was to be achieved in many parts of Europe. The requirement to avoid the collective consequences of defeat led to societies choosing both soldiers and, in particular, leaders from among those who had good practical experience of war. The war involving England, France and Burgundy, fought largely in the north and north-east of France, advanced considerably the use of heavy artillery in that part of Europe. War helped to stimulate the development of economies associated with it, in particular the provision of armaments and the materials which went into their making.

  • 18 - Hus, the Hussites and Bohemia

  • from PART IV - THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN STATES
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 367-391

  • Summary

    In the fifteenth century the king and nobility of Bohemia were in competition to fulfil what each saw as the interests of the kingdom. Along with Moravia, Silesia and Upper and Lower Lusatia, the kingdom of Bohemia was one of five provinces united under the crown of St Wenceslas. By the fourteenth century, lay religious groups such as the Waldensians were active in southern Bohemia, Hradec Královè, Prague and Žatec, and would supply recruits for the Hussite cause. Nicholas of Hus constituted an example of a man prepared to risk worldly achievements for the sake of Hussite ideals. The fifteenth-century was marked by the Hussite revolution which grew out of an attempt to reform the religious lives of the people. Hus was primarily concerned with the reform of religious life both in the individual and in the Church. The first diet of the Hussite revolution recognised urban power and was determined to give Czechs the dominant position within the realm.

  • (b) - Yorkist and Early Tudor England

  • from 21 - England
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 477-495

  • Summary

    Edward IV dated the start of his reign from 4 March 1461, the day he was acclaimed by the Londoners and took his seat on the throne in Westminster Hall. His claim to be king of England received its real confirmation three weeks later, on 29 March, when he led the Yorkists to victory at Towton. Alongside Edward's search for domestic security went the need to secure recognition for his dynasty in Europe. The Burgundian alliance was formalised in the marriage of Duke Charles to Edward's sister Margaret, the only one of the Yorkist royal family to make a 'dynastic' marriage. Edward IV, now reconciled with Clarence, defeated Warwick at the battle of Barnet and then went on to overcome a Lancastrian army at Tewkesbury. The handful of exceptions included the Lancastrian half blood, now represented by Jasper Tudor and his nephew Henry, and a few men who knew that they had no hope of regaining their land under York.

  • 5 - Rural Europe

  • from PART II - ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 106-120

  • Summary

    The European countryside in the fifteenth century was more sparsely populated than at any time since 1150. This chapter focuses on the view of a 'demographic crisis' that helps understanding of the fifteenth century, but that excessive dependence on it leads to a distorted and incomplete picture. The desertion and shrinkage of settlements followed from the demographic crisis. The developments in farming amounted almost to a new ecological balance, reflected in the scientific evidence of pollen samples by a diminishing proportion of cereals and the weeds of cultivation, and increases in grass and tree pollen. The examination of the varied history of different regions suggests that the 'demographic crisis' applies most appropriately to lowland arable farming regions. Fifteenth-century Europe had experienced centuries of commercialisation and urbanisation. Peasants accounted collectively for the bulk of agricultural production. Despite the widespread abandonment of direct production for the market, home farms still produced for lords' households, and some nobles ventured into profitable enterprises.

  • 15 - Architecture and Painting

  • from PART III - SPIRITUAL, CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 299-318

  • Summary

    The epochs in the history of art occupy so central a position in western achievement yet so strongly resist the neat distinctions of period and categorisation as the fifteenth century. The arts of fifteenth-century Christendom, known variously as 'late medieval', 'early Renaissance', 'late Gothic', even 'florid' and 'flamboyant', present an extraordinarily heterogeneous picture. The most profound changes come from the most mimetic of media, manuscript and panel painting, and to leave architecture, and to a lesser extent sculpture, unaltered until the mid-sixteenth century. The contrasting sensibilities of van der Weyden and van Eyck established the two poles within which Netherlandish painting operated to the end of the century. The Quattrocento sanctioned all kinds of personal commemoration for political, military, literary and artistic achievement. The cultivation of purely aesthetic values and interests, allied to a proliferation of new kinds of secular art in northern Europe and Italy, cannot obscure the fact that fifteenth-century art remained predominantly religious.

  • 33 - Conclusion

  • from PART IV - THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN STATES
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 831-840

  • Summary

    The diversity of European experience at the end of the Middle Ages could also be seen in the changing role played by nobilities, now increasingly national, in a rapidly altering world. The economic history of Europe was affected by famine and even more by war, although it is claimed that war did not have as ruinous an effect on international trade as might be expected. The rise of the state, which historians of recent years have traced back to the thirteenth century, took on different forms and emerged at different tempi in different parts of Europe. Royal intervention in England against the subversive activities of the Lollard heretics in the century's early years, and the establishment, by royal request in 1478, of the Inquisition in Castile, originally to deal with converted Jews who renounced their Christianity. The development of taxation, already advanced in many territories by 1400, was now becoming a marked feature of life over the whole of Europe.

  • (a) - The Northern Italian States

  • from 23 - Italy
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 547-570

  • Summary

    Italy in the fifteenth century was becoming a more coherent political area and it is hard to confine discussion to the northern part of the peninsula, without reference to the pope or to the king of Naples. Rising levels of taxation and borrowing, increasing expenditure on state enterprises, eroded the instinctive capitalistic interests of individual entrepreneurs and distorted the economies of the Italian states. In the early fifteenth century the hegemonic aspirations of first the Visconti and then Ladislas of Naples appeared to be the controlling factors in Italian politics. Of the three main states of northern Italy it is Florence which has attracted most interest from historians in the first half of the fifteenth century. Florentine republicanism was edging gradually towards oligarchy in the later years of the fourteenth century. The corollary to the emergence of class and cultural division within the individual societies of Renaissance Italy was a tendency for the elites to seek links with each other.

  • 11 - Schools and Universities

  • from PART III - SPIRITUAL, CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE
  • Edited by Christopher Allmand, University of Liverpool
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 June 1998, pp 220-242

  • Summary

    The salient features in the history of schools and universities of medieval Christendom were progress and, on the whole, continuity until the crisis of the Great Schism. This chapter focuses on the consideration of the old and the new, of tradition and innovation. The new universities created in fifteenth-century France, be frequently linked with provincial parlements, were in towns that were asserting their authority as regional capitals. Universities formed the top tier of educational establishments in Europe during this period. There were the traditional ecclesiastical schools, to be found in large numbers in the vicinity of cathedrals, main collegiate churches and urban monasteries. The responsibility for primary education devolved upon municipalities and families, whose financial capacities were limited. During the fifteenth century some university colleges initiated grammar courses in annexes, so that future students could be better prepared. Because of the absenteeism endemic among teaching staff, curricula were often only partially covered, and the practice of disputation fell into disuse.

Page 1871 of 2126