Description: 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 neighbours to centres 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.
Review Quotes:
""This volume is no less than a new cultural history of East Central Europe.... [Bringing] together a group of excellent scholars...the volume presents many of the results of recent work on East Central Europe. It also, by struggling with problems like the definition for East Central Europe, shows the methodological problems scholars have faced and how they will proceed in exploring what is now an expanding and vibrant field.... [The book thus] also shows the future of the study of the region, identifying along the way the major pitfalls and problems that remain yet to be overcome.""--Robert W. Unger, University of British Columbia
""In the expansion of our knowledge of Central and Eastern Europe, and thus our understanding of what makes up the history of medieval Europe, few scholars can match the achievement of Paul Knoll. This collection is a fitting tribute to him."" -- Martyn Rady, The Slavonic and East European Review