Emberek és struktúrák a középkorban

by Georges Duby, Laszlo Vekerdi (Translator)

Az i. sz. 1000. év utáni Európában egyre jobban szembetűnik a bőség sokféle megnyilvánulása: a demográfiai emelkedés, a városok és az árucsere újraéledése, a politikai rend megerősödése csakúgy, mint a kulturális virágzás. Mindez és a középkori Európa egész fellendülése kétségkívül – Fernand Braudel kifejezésével szólva – „mezőgazdasági sikerből” fakad.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval

146 pages

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Peter Toth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm continuing my journey in Duby's works and I'm getting more and more convinced that for every medievalist, his works are absolute must-reads. This slim Hungarian volume from 1978 contains only a few essays from him, it does not even seem to be a full book for some reason, other editions I see here are double the page-count. Anyway, we get 5 essays from Duby, focusing on agriculture, the monks and abbeys, demographic trends, the appearance of knighthood and lastly about medieval societies as a whole. All of his works are based on decades of research into medieval manuscripts from the early medieval / late antiquity up until the 15th century on the territories that eventually became France. His style is therefore very scientific, to my great joy - includes typical latin words and expressions and explains them too. Some of the concepts, like the history of mentalities are a little off in Hungarian translation, but overall it can be understood well today.

The last essay I would like to put on a pedestal here about medieval societies. It was prepared when he took one of his professorships and it can really be considered as his ars poetica. I adore the work of all French 20th century historians from Bloch or Febvre to Duby or Braudel. They have created a necessary new view to look at historical research, medieval societies in general and opened our eyes to long-time-horizon changes that germinate for centuries before some major change happens in world history. For this, I absolutely recommend reading Duby as he was part of this great current that changed the way we look at the so called 'Middle-Ages'.

[Vasco Ribeiro · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tinha a expectativa de ser muito mais interessante do que afinal é.