Since the fifteenth century, when humanist writers began to speak of a middle period in history linking their time to the ancient world, the nature of the Middle Ages has been widely debated. Across the millennium from 500 to 1500, distinguished historian Johannes Fried describes a dynamic confluence of political, social, religious, economic, and scientific developments that draws a guiding thread through the era: the growth of a culture of reason.

Beginning with the rise of the Franks, Fried uses individuals to introduce key themes, bringing to life those who have too often been reduced to abstractions of the medieval monk or knight. Milestones encountered in this thousand-year traversal include Europe s political, cultural, and religious renovation under Charlemagne; the Holy Roman Empire under Charles IV, whose court in Prague was patron to crowning cultural achievements; and the series of conflicts between England and France that made up the Hundred Years War and gave to history the enduringly fascinating Joan of Arc. Broader political and intellectual currents are examined, from the authority of the papacy and impact of the Great Schism, to new theories of monarchy and jurisprudence, to the rise of scholarship and science.

The Middle Ages" is full of people encountering the unfamiliar, grappling with new ideas, redefining power, and interacting with different societies. Fried gives readers an era of innovation and turbulence, of continuities and discontinuities, but one above all characterized by the vibrant expansion of knowledge and an understanding of the growing complexity of the world."

Since the fifteenth century, when humanist writers began to speak of a "middle" period in history linking their time to the ancient world, the nature of the Middle Ages has been widely debated. Across the millennium from 500 to 1500, distinguished historian Johannes Fried describes a dynamic confluence of political, social, religious, economic, and scientific developments that draws a guiding thread through the era: the growth of a culture of reason. "Fried's breadth of knowledge is formidable and his passion for the period admirable...Those with a true passion for the Middle Ages will be thrilled by this ambitious defensio." -Dan Jones, Sunday Times "Reads like a counterblast to the hot air of the liberal-humanist interpreters of European history...[Fried] does justice both to the centrifugal fragmentation of the European region into monarchies, cities, republics, heresies, trade and craft associations, vernacular literatures, and to the persistence of unifying and homogenizing forces: the papacy, the Western Empire, the schools, the friars, the civil lawyers, the bankers, the Crusades...Comprehensive coverage of the whole medieval continent in flux." -Eric Christiansen, New York Review of Books "[An] absorbing book...Fried covers much in the realm of ideas on monarchy, jurisprudence, arts, chivalry and courtly love, millenarianism and papal power, all of it a rewarding read." -Sean McGlynn, The Spectator

When Charlemagne died in 814 CE, he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Distinguished historian and author of The Middle Ages Johannes Fried presents a new biographical study of the legendary Frankish king and emperor, illuminating the life and reign of a ruler who shaped Europe's destiny in ways few figures, before or since, have equaled. Living in an age of faith, Charlemagne was above all a Christian king, Fried says. He made his court in Aix-la-Chapelle the center of a religious and intellectual renaissance, enlisting the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin of York to be his personal tutor, and insisting that monks be literate and versed in rhetoric and logic. He erected a magnificent cathedral in his capital, decorating it lavishly while also dutifully attending Mass every morning and evening. And to an extent greater than any ruler before him, Charlemagne enhanced the papacy's influence, becoming the first king to enact the legal principle that the pope was beyond the reach of temporal justice-a decision with fateful consequences for European politics for centuries afterward. Though devout, Charlemagne was not saintly. He was a warrior-king, intimately familiar with violence and bloodshed. And he enjoyed worldly pleasures, including physical love. Though there are aspects of his personality we can never know with certainty, Fried paints a compelling portrait of a ruler, a time, and a kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called "the father of Europe."

Canossa war keine Wende. Canossa fuhrte zu keiner Entzauberung der Welt. Dieses Canossa war ein Mythos, eine Legende. Tatsachlich schlossen Papst Gregor VII. und Konig Heinrich IV. in Canossa einen Friedensvertrag. Erinnerungsunkritische Kritik wollte diesen Pakt in Zweifel ziehen, als neue Legende voreilig dem Vergessen uberantworten. Die vorliegende Streitschrift setzt sich mit dieser Kritik auseinander und zeigt, wie auch die gegenwartige Geschichtsforschung der Modulationsmacht des Gedachtnisses ausgeliefert ist und damit zu Fehlurteilen fuhrt. Sie verweist auf wesentliche Inhalte und Ziele des Vertrags von Canossa, den wechselseitigen Schutz der Ehre von Papst und Konig, die angestrebte Konsenserneuerung im Reich der Deutschen, zeigt aber auch sein Scheitern durch die Uneinigkeit der Fuhrungseliten dort und in der Lombardei. Nicht Heinrichs Rekonziliation in Canossa, nicht die Kirchenreform, kein nach Weltherrschaft greifender Papst brachten die Wende, den Auftakt zu einem durch annahernd dreihundert Jahre immer wieder erneuerten, konflikttrachtigen Gegenkonigtum im romisch-deutschen Imperium, sondern interne Konflikte, der Hader unter den Deutschen."

Die vernachlassigte Rolle des mittelalterlichen Hofes als Institution der Wissenskultur steht im Zentrum des auf die Hofe in Sizilien und Kastilien im 13. Jahrhundert konzentrierten Bandes, in dem zugleich allgemeine Charakteristika hofischer Wissenskultur herausgearbeitet werden. Einen Schwerpunkt des Buchs bildet die Erforschung des naturwissenschaftlichen Wissens am Hofe Friedrichs II. (1194-1250), einen weiteren die Herrschaftslegitimation, einen dritten schliesslich der kastilische Hof. Die friderizianische Herrschaftslegitimation wird sowohl in der Ikonologie als auch aus soziologischer Perspektive beleuchtet. Der 'Liber Introductorius' des Michael Scotus, ein Werk enzyklopadischen Charakters, findet grundliche Untersuchung, wobei der Blick der Interpreten auf das Gesamtwerk und die Textentstehung gerichtet ist. Detailliert, dabei zugleich kontrovers diskutiert, weist der Band den Weg der verbreitetsten mittelalterlichen Falkenkunde vom Orient uber den staufischen Hof in den Okzident nach. Durch die Analyse der Beschaffung, Ubersetzung und Lekture an Hofen, Universitaten sowie in Stadten werden die Wege und Funktionen von Wissen erhellt."

Fur die dritte Auflage hat Johannes Fried seinen Klassiker grundlegend uberarbeitet; der Forschungsuberblick behandelt alle wichtigen Neuerscheinungen der letzten Jahre."

Im Zentrum dieses Bandes steht die Untersuchung des Wechselspiels und der Eigenlogik von Politik, Religion und Philosophie im Mittelalter und in der Fruhen Neuzeit. Untersucht wird die Differenzierung religioser und politischer Diskurse im Medium der aristotelischen Philosophietradition. Den Leitgedanken bildet dabei die Frage nach der Art und Weise, in der verschiedene Autoren jener Epoche teils affirmativ, teils polemisch auf Aristoteles und seine Philosophie Bezug nahmen und so zur Herausbildung einer bestimmten Form von Politischem Aristotelismus beitrugen, der religiose und philosophische Argumentationen in ihren Geltungsanspruchen kritisch gegeneinander abhebt. Die diachrone Perspektive und die Gleichzeitigkeit von historischer und philosophischer Betrachtungsweise der Studien dieses Buchs fordern nicht nur bedeutende Ergebnisse im Hinblick auf die jeweils untersuchten Autoren und Problemzusammenhange zutage, sondern erproben anhand des Politischen Aristotelismus zugleich ein Deutungsmuster fur das Verhaltnis von Wissenskultur und gesellschaftlichem Wandel uberhaupt."

Dialektik und Rhetorik waren im mittelalterlichen Alltag allgegenwartig. Die klassischen Schuldisziplinen, Grundlage scholastischer Wissenschaft, stehen im Zentrum dieses Sammelbandes. Die Autoren beschaftigen sich jeweils exemplarisch damit, welche sozialen, politischen aber auch moralischen Auswirkungen auf die gesellschaftliche Entwicklung die Omniprasenz der rhetorischen und dialektischen Methoden hatte. Inhalt Johannes Fried: Vom Nutzen der Rhetorik und Dialektik fur das Leben. Eine Einfuhrung David E. Luscombe: Dialectic and Rhetoric in the Ninth and Twelfth Centuries: Continuity and Change John Marenbon: Glosses and Commentaries on the Categories and De interpretationes before Abelard Gangolf Schrimpf: Eine wissenschaftliche Anwendung der "dialectica" bei Johannes Scottus Eriugena Wilfried Hartmann: Rhetorik und Dialektik in der Streitschriftenliteratur des 11./12. Jahrhunderts John van Engen: Letters, Schools and Written Cultur in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries Peter von Moos: Rhetorik, Dialektik und "civilios scientia" im Hochmittelalter Gerhard Otte: Logische Einteilungstechniken bei den Glossatoren des romischen Rechts Claudio Leonardi: Alcuino e la retorica Ludolf Kuchenbuch: Ordnungsverhalten im grundherrlichen Schriftgut vom 9. zum 12. Jahrhundert"

The Donation of Constantine is the most outrageous and powerful forgery in world history. The question of its precise time of origin alone kept generations of researchers occupied. But, what exactly is the Donation of Constantine? To find the answer, it is necessary to approach the question on two different semantic levels: First, as the Constitutum Constantini, a fictitious privilege, in which, among other things, rights and presents were bestowed on the catholic church by a grateful Emperor Konstantin. Secondly, as a reflection of the Middle Age mindset, becoming part of the culture landscape midway through 11th century A.D. The author not only reinterprets the origin of this forgery (i.e. puts it down to the Franks' opposition of Emperor Louis the Pious), but retells, as well, the history of its misinterpretation since the High Middle Ages. In an appendix, all relevant texts are printed in the original language, an English translation is provided.

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Medieval Concepts of the Past shows how the history of the Middle Ages is being reshaped by leading medieval historians in Germany and the United States in light of cultural and social-scientific investigations into ritual, language, and memory. These two national traditions of medieval scholarship, which have been largely separated over the course of the twentieth century, are drawing closer together through a common interest in issues of social science and linguistic theory as applied to the representation of the past. This book marks a significant step in the reconvergence of these two historiographical traditions.

Medieval Concepts of the Past shows how the history of the Middle Ages is being reshaped by leading medieval historians in Germany and the United States in light of cultural and social-scientific investigations into ritual, language, and memory. These two national traditions of medieval scholarship, which have been largely separated over the course of the twentieth century, are drawing closer together through a common interest in issues of social science and linguistic theory as applied to the representation of the past. This book marks a significant step in the reconvergence of these two historiographical traditions.