Europe's Long Twelfth Century: Order, Anxiety, and Adaptation, 1095-1229

*** CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title *** John D. Cotts’s Europe’s Long Twelfth Century is an award-winning overview of a key phase in Europe’s medieval history. It reflects on how the region grappled with a variety of cultural possibilities that would ultimately transform the way people thought, lived and thought of themselves. Cotts convincingly contends that the 12th century was fundamentally a period of difficult decisions, adaptation and anxiety, rather than the glorious 'renaissance' mooted in earlier assessments of the era. The book presents a balanced appreciation of social, economic and religious developments at a time when Europeans were needing to re-imagine their place in the world. It reflects on the vital significance of the Crusades and offers an unparalleled gateway into 12th-century political and intellectual life. This new edition includes: - A wealth of material which considers Europe in the context of a global Middle Ages - New and expanded sections on kingship, political life in the Latin West, environmental history, architecture/visual culture and the Bible’s role in intellectual life - Enhanced coverage of topics like family, sexuality, the medieval peasantry, and religious minorities/persecution - Historiographical updates throughout, a range of new maps and a chronology

Table of Contents:
Preface to the 2nd Edition Introduction: The Twelfth Century and Its ‘Renaissance’ 1. Kingdoms, Communities, and the Political Order 2. Material Conditions and Social Life 3. Spirituality and Its Discontents 4. Intellectual Syntheses 5. Europe and the Wider World Chronology of Events, 1095-1229 Further Reading Index

About the Author :
John D. Cotts is Associate Professor of History at Whitman College, USA. He is the author of The Clerical Dilemma: Peter of Blois and Literate Culture in the Twelfth Century (2009).

Review :
Ideal for classroom use, this updated edition of John Cotts’s 2012 work offers a concise history of the Latin West from c. 1050 to 1200. Incorporating recent scholarship, Cotts addresses classic debates—like the twelfth-century renaissance and reformation—as well as newer questions about medieval Europe’s global context and the evolving direction of medieval studies. Neither a Dark Age nor a Renaissance, Cotts brings us into an pivotal moment in medieval history that emerges, instead, as profoundly human - with all the messiness that entails.