Life in the Middle Ages: Volume 1 & 2, Religion, Folk-Lore and Superstition; Chronicles, Science and Art

by George Gordon Coulton

Life in the Middle Ages will appeal to readers who want to get behind the generalizations of historians by reference to the raw material. This collection of documents covers a wide field. The topics range form clergy and laity, saints and sinners, to love, battles, pageants and some details of everyday life. The extracts are drawn from documentary material in six languages and the majority were translated for this collection; they represent thirty years' study among all kinds of medieval writings and have been chosen as specially representative of the period. The full collection is now published in two parts. The first encompasses 'Religion, Folklore and Superstition', and 'Chronicles, Science and Art', and the second, 'Men and Manners', and 'Monks, Friars and Nuns'.

Hardcover

Published March 2, 1968

About the author

George Gordon Coulton was a historian. In 1877 he won a scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, but a severe case of blood poisoning meant he was awarded an aegrotat degree. After leaving Cambridge, Coulton was briefly a master at a school in Malvern before being ordained deacon in 1883. By 1885 his beliefs led him to forsake his entry into the priesthood and he instead turned to teaching, holding a number of posts in various public schools. In 1896 his employment at a coaching establishment in Eastbourne allowed him time to develop his medieval studies, and he became an expert on the primary sources of the period. From 1900 Coulton began to publish works on the medieval period, probably the most important being two anthologies of medieval sources, 'A Medieval Garner' (1910) and 'Social Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation' (1918). In 1911 Coulton returned to Cambridge to become Birkbeck Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History at Trinity College, and in 1919 he was elected to a lectureship in the English faculty and to a Fellowship at St John's College. He now had the means to concentrate on his scholarship and subsequently published a number of important works, among them 'The Medieval Village' (1925), 'Art and the Reformation' (1928), 'Inquisition and Liberty' (1938), 'Medieval Panorama' (1938), and 'Five Centuries of Religion', published in four volumes between 1923 and 1950, the last appearing posthumously. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1929.

Coulton was something of a controversialist and much of his work was directed at Roman Catholic historians, whom he accused of having a flagrant disregard for historical accuracy. For Coulton historical truth, which he placed in contemporary sources, accurately cited, was the cornerstone of historical study. Something of a modernist, he considered it his duty as an historian to confront those who proffered what he believed to be a less than accurate view of the past. Coulton, though, is remembered for more than this confrontational reputation. His extensive scholarship, which extended much further than many historical works at the turn of the century, is rightly seen as important. He also contributed to a widening of the range of medieval studies by his attention to social and economic issues. Furthermore, Coulton was keen to extend his learning to a much wider audience than just those in academic circles, being a fine public speaker and a clear and lucid writer.

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good collection of primary sources but without enough context or thematic organization.