In "Women of the Twelfth Century: Eve and the Church, "Georges Duby concerns himself with the relationship between women and the church, examining the ways in which women were viewed from a Christian point of view. By the twelfth century, the Church had begun to take the role and expectations of women seriously, and the clerical writings discussed in this work address the particular issues that emerged from this development.

In the first chapter, "The Sins of Women," Duby concentrates on the sins deemed to be particular to women (amongst others these include sorcery, disobedience, and licentiousness) and focuses especially on the male fear of female sexuality and magic. The second chapter is based on twelfth-century commentaries on the chapters in Genesis dealing with Eve's role in the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. Interpreting these writings, and the earlier writings upon which they were based, Duby shows how they reflect the reasoning behind the view held of women as unstable, curious, and frivolous creatures. The third section is based on letters written by clerics to women of noble status and nuns. Here, while the charges of instability and frivolousness are once again levelled at women, their praise is also sung for their marital and motherly values. The final section concentrates solely on the most famous text of this period by Andreas Capellanus ("De Amore"), and sets it within the context of the supposed twelfth-century discovery of love and the courtly love tradition.

As the third and last part of Duby's three-volume study of the lives of French noblewomen of the twelfth century, this book confirms the author as one of the greatest historians of theMiddle Ages. It will be of great interest to students and researchers of medieval history and women's history, as well as anyone interested in the historical relationship between women and the Church.

Georges Duby has changed our conception of medieval Europe, particularly our about the meaning and operation of 'feudal society'. In this book, now available in paperback, he examines the history of France from the rise of the Capetians in the mid-tenth century to the execution of Joan of Arc in the mid-fifteenth. He takes the evolution of power and the emergence of the French state as his central themes, and guides the reader through complex - and, in many respects, still unfamiliar, yet fascinating terrain. He describes the growth of the castle and the village, the building blocks of the new Western European civilization of the second millenium AD. In so doing, he reintroduces the cast of characters that he has made famous: the youths, the priests and the ladies.

Figures monumental in English history, such as William the Conqueror and Henry I, appear afresh in their contemporary context, dangerous and vulnerable. In place of Hastings, Duby offers the battle of the Bouvines (1214) as a decisive turning-point. It marks the successful construction of the French monarchy, which in turn represents a transformation in the exercise of power.

Extensively illustrated, and containing many clear and helpful maps and geneaological tables, this book will be of wide interest, and will stimulate discussion among specialists and non-specialists alike.

In this volume, one of the greatest medieval historians of our time continues his rich and illuminating enquiry into the lives of twelfth-century women. Georges Duby bases his account here on a twelfth-century genre which commemorated the virtues of noblewomen who had died, and the roles they had played in the history of their lineage.

From these genealogical works a vivid picture emerges of the lives these women led, the values they held, and the way in which they were viewed by the priest and knights who wrote about them.

The first section outlines the way in which the dead, and the memory and tales of the dead, served to bond noble society in the twelfth century. The second draws on the "Gesta," written by Dudo of Saint Quentin, and reflects on what it tells us about the roles ascribed to wives and concubines and women, in war and in power. The third and final section reconstructs women as wives, mothers and widows through the work of Lambert, Priest of Ardres.

This book is part of a three-volume work on women in the Middle Ages. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in medieval history, social history and women's history.

In this beautifully written book, Georges Duby, one of France's greatest medieval historians, returns to one of the central themes of his work - the relationship between art and society. He traces the evolution of artistic forms from the fifth to the fifteenth century in parallel with the structural development of society, in order to create a better understanding of both.

Duby traces shifts in the centres of artistic production and changes in the nature and status of those who promoted works of art and those who produced them. At the same time, he emphasizes the crucial continuities that still gave the art of medieval Europe a basic unity, despite the emergence of national characteristics. Duby also reminds us that the way we approach these artistic forms today differs greatly from how they were first viewed. For us, they are works of art from which we expect and derive aesthetic pleasure; but for those who commissioned them or made them, their value was primarily functional - gifts offered to God, communications with the other world, or affirmations of power - and this remained the case throughout the Middle Ages.

This book will be of interest to students and academics in medieval history and history of art.

In this beautifully written book, Georges Duby, one of France's greatest medieval historians, returns to one of the central themes of his work - the relationship between art and society. He traces the evolution of artistic forms from the fifth to the fifteenth century in parallel with the structural development of society, in order to create a better understanding of both.

Duby traces shifts in the centres of artistic production and changes in the nature and status of those who promoted works of art and those who produced them. At the same time, he emphasizes the crucial continuities that still gave the art of medieval Europe a basic unity, despite the emergence of national characteristics. Duby also reminds us that the way we approach these artistic forms today differs greatly from how they were first viewed. For us, they are works of art from which we expect and derive aesthetic pleasure; but for those who commissioned them or made them, their value was primarily functional - gifts offered to God, communications with the other world, or affirmations of power - and this remained the case throughout the Middle Ages.

This book will be of interest to students and academics in medieval history and history of art.

This is an engaging account of the lives of high-born women in the Middle Ages, by one of the foremost historians in Europe.

Focusing on France in the twelfth century, Duby recreates the image of women that the men of high society made for themselves. Using written evidence from the period - official texts written by men, all intended for public consumption and reading aloud - he tells the story of six very different women. These women - fictional and real, religious and secular - range from famous historical figures such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and H&eacutelo&iumlse, through Mary Magdalen, whose cult grew throughout the twelfth century, to Soredamors and Fenice, the heroines of "Clig&egraves, "the romance of Chr&eacutetien de Troyes.

Duby sets all of these women within their historical context, using their personalities to explore the characteristics of female existence during this period. He discusses relations between the sexes, including marriage and different types of love, and shows how women were feared, mistrusted and, sometimes, admired by men. He vividly reconstructs the French nobility's system of values, examining the place assigned to women within this system. He argues that men's attitudes to women began to change in the twelfth century and that women began imperceptibly to extricate themselves from masculine power.

This important book - the first of three volumes on women in the Middle Ages - will be of interest to a wide readership.

In this volume Georges Duby - one of the most outstanding historians in Europe today - addresses the theme of love and marriage in the Middle Ages.

By examining the poetry and practice of courtly love and the mores of aristocratic marriages, Duby shows the Middle Ages to be male-dominated. Women were regarded as symbols, as figures of temptation who paradoxically had no desires of their own. Duby argues that the structure of sexual relationships took its cue from the family and from feudalism - both bastions of masculinity.

In the second part of the book, Duby reflects on general issues in the writing of cultural history, on the history of pain and heresy, and gives a personal view of the state of historical research in France over recent generations.