The Two Cities

Covering a colourful period of medieval history from the schism between the eastern and western churches to the death of Dante, The Two Cities provides an introduction to key topics such as:

• The crusades
• The expansionist force of the Normans
• Major developments in the way kings, emperors and popes exercised their powers
• A great flourishing of art and architecture
• The foundation of the very first universities

Four major sections covering The Social and Economic Structure, The Church, Political Change, and Perceptions of the World, analyse and discuss the delicate relationship between the spiritual and secular worlds - the two 'cities' of the title.
This third edition has been updated throughout to incorporate new literature and ideas that have emerged since the previous edition including sexuality and the environment, as well as additional material on Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Making extensive use of primary sources and new trends in historical research and scholarship, this book provides a fresh approach to students in the most rounded, lively and integrated view of the High Middle Ages available.

Introduction
Part I The social and economic structure
1
The physical environment
2
Social structure
3
Economic development
Part II The Church
4
The Papacy
5
The Crusades
6
Monasticism and the friars
7
Popular religion and heresy
Part III Political change
8
The Empire
9
The Kingdom of Sicily
10
The Italian city-states
11
The Capetian monarchy
12
The Kingdom of England
13
Wales and Ireland
14 The Kingdom of the Scots
15
The Iberian kingdoms
16
The states of eastern and northern Europe
17
The Crusader States
Part IV Perceptions of the world
18
The medieval world view
19
Intellectual life
20
Art and society
21
Western Christendom and the wider world