Europe’s Long Twelfth Century: Order, Anxiety, and Adaptation, 1095-1229

*** CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title ***

John D. Cotts’s Europe’s Long Twelfth Century is an award-winning overview of a key phase in Europe’s medieval history. It reflects on how the region grappled with a variety of cultural possibilities that would ultimately transform the way people thought, lived and thought of themselves. Cotts convincingly contends that the 12th century was fundamentally a period of difficult decisions, adaptation and anxiety, rather than the glorious ’renaissance’ mooted in earlier assessments of the era.

The book presents a balanced appreciation of social, economic and religious developments at a time when Europeans were needing to re-imagine their place in the world. It reflects on the vital significance of the Crusades and offers an unparalleled gateway into 12th-century political and intellectual life.

This new edition includes:

- A wealth of material which considers Europe in the context of a global Middle Ages
- New and expanded sections on kingship, political life in the Latin West, environmental history, architecture/visual culture and the Bible’s role in intellectual life
- Enhanced coverage of topics like family, sexuality, the medieval peasantry, and religious minorities/persecution
- Historiographical updates throughout, a range of new maps and a chronology

John D. Cotts is Associate Professor of History at Whitman College, USA. He is the author of The Clerical Dilemma: Peter of Blois and Literate Culture in the Twelfth Century (2009).