Our understanding of medieval Central and Eastern Europe is being revitalized by new directions in cultural history. Careful and detailed portraits of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century life in the region shed new light on the city, the court, the school and university, the economy, and prevailing ideas, and expand our vision of the interplay between religion, politics, music and memory. Gorecki and Van Deusen present the region in its intimate relationship with other regions of Europe: the commercial, intellectual, and social networks that naturally connect Poland and its neighbors to centers in Italy, France and Germany, as well as the broad areas of contact, cultural sharing, and similarity of patterns. This book thus contributes to the problem of "Europe"--as a region and as a construct. Offering us nothing less than a new cultural history of the region, "Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages" will be invaluable for scholars working on the cultural, economic and social history of Central and Eastern Europe.