History of the Middle Ages #379869

Victor Duruy's History of the Middle Ages presents a sweeping account of European history from the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire to the capture of Constantinople in 1453. Beginning with the Germanic invasions and the transformation of the Roman world, Duruy traces the rise of the Frankish kingdoms, the Merovingians and Carolingians, the expansion of Islam and the Arab conquests, the Byzantine Empire, the invasions of the Northmen, and the development of feudalism. He follows the struggle between the Papacy and the German emperors, the Crusades in the East and West, the formation of the French and English kingdoms, the Hundred Years' War, and the political development of Spain, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, and the Slavic and Turkish states. Alongside wars, dynasties, and political institutions, Duruy examines the social and cultural conditions of medieval Europe and the forces that gradually transformed the feudal world into the emerging monarchies of the late Middle Ages. First published in English by H. Holt in 1891 in a translation of Duruy's twelfth edition, this classic work offers a broad narrative of the political, religious, military, and social forces that shaped medieval Europe.