The Making of Polities: Europe, 1300-1500

Description

This major survey of political life in late medieval Europe provides a framework for understanding the developments that shaped this turbulent period. Rather than emphasising crisis, decline, disorder or the birth of the modern state, this account centres on the mixed results of political and governmental growth across the continent. The age of the Hundred Years War, schism and revolt was also a time of rapid growth in jurisdiction, taxation and representation, of spreading literacy and evolving political technique. This mixture of state formation and political convulsion lay at the heart of the 'making of polities'. Offering a full introduction to political events and processes from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth, this book combines a broad, comparative account with discussion of individual regions and states, including eastern and northern Europe alongside the more familiar west and south.

John Watts is a Fellow and Tutor in History, Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His previous publications include Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (1996) and, as editor, Power and Identity in the Middle Ages (2007).

'This is a work of genuine importance, excellently constructed and rigorously thought out, combining accessibility with great originality. It is a wise, mature, thought-provoking book. This book injects new life into the study of late medieval politics; it offers a highly stimulating and easily accessible overview of political conduct in the late Middle Ages; it is rich in new ideas and will be a fundamental point of reference for future discussion of the politics of the period.' David Abulafia, University of Cambridge 'An impressively scholarly, substantive and lucid volume, which combines original and challenging analysis with a wealth of information.' Medium Aevum 'Watts's book is a remarkable feat. It essays a reinterpretation of late medieval western European history which is far more than a work of synthesis ... It is courageous, original, and thought-provoking. It demonstrates the inadequacies of all the current conventional assumptions, and is to be welcomed for putting politics and ideas back at centre stage. Despite the title of the series in which it is published, this is much more than a textbook.' George Garnett, English Historical Review '... very convincing book ... develops a truly superb narrative, thanks to the European perspective.' Karl Ubl, translated from Historische Zeitschrift '... a stimulating overview, which should rapidly become a work of reference.' Vincent Challet, translated from Cahiers de Recherches Medievales et Humanistes '... succeeds with clarity and originality in its declared intention of reinterpreting and reassembling all the pieces of the puzzle in a coherent whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.' Isabella Lazzarini, translated from Storica '... an important new synthesis of late medieval politics and political culture: one that offers a strong and clear argument, both substantive and methodological; one that moves away from a focus on the nation-state and the large Western kingdoms; and one that succeeds in drawing out the parallels and commonalities that give the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries across the entire continent of Europe unity, logic, and direction.' Adam Kosto, The Medieval Review '... an interesting analysis ... The book is particularly refreshing ...' Speculum