EUROPE
IN THE MIDDLE AGES

EUROPE
IN THE MIDDLE AGES

BY

IERNE L. PLUNKET
M.A. Oxon.
AUTHOR OF ‘THE FALL OF THE OLD ORDER’, ‘ISABEL OF CASTILE’, ETC.

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1922

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen
New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town
Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai
HUMPHREY MILFORD
Publisher to the University

Printed in England

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The history of Mediaeval Europe is so vast a subjectthat the attempt to deal with it in a small compass mustentail either severe compression or what may appear atfirst sight reckless omission.

The path of compression has been trodden many times,as in J. H. Robinson’s Introduction to the History ofWestern Europe, or in such series as the ‘Periods ofEuropean History’ published by Messrs. Rivingtons forstudents, or text-books of European History publishedby the Clarendon Press and Messrs. Methuen.

To the authors of all these I should like to express myindebtedness both for facts and perspective, as to Mr. H. W.Davis for his admirable summary of the mediaeval outlookin the Home University Library series; but in spiteof so many authorities covering the same ground, Iventure to claim for the present book a pioneer path of‘omission’; it may be reckless but yet, I believe, justifiable.

It has been my object not so much to supply studentswith facts as to make Mediaeval Europe live, for the manywho, knowing nothing of her history, would like to knowa little, in the lives of her principal heroes and villains, aswell as in the tendencies of her classes, and in the beliefsand prejudices of her thinkers. This task I have foundeven more difficult than I had expected, for limits of spacehave insisted on the omission of many events and namesI would have wished to include. These I have sacrificedto the hope of creating reality and arousing interest, andif I have in any way succeeded I should like to pay mythanks first of all to Mr. Henry Osborn Taylor for his twovolumes of The Mediaeval Mind that have been my chiefinspiration, and then to the many authors whose namesand books I give elsewhere, and whose researches haveenabled me to tell my tale.

IERNE L. PLUNKET.

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