The High Middle Ages

by Philip Daileader

At the dawn of the last millennium in the year 1000, Europe was one of the world's more stagnant regions - an economically undeveloped, intellectually derivative, and geopolitically passive backwater, with illiteracy, starvation, and disease the norm for almost everyone.

Yet only three centuries later, all of this had changed. A newly invigorated cluster of European societies had revived city life, spawned new spiritual and intellectual movements and educational institutions, and had begun, for reasons both sacred and profane, to expand at the expense of neighbors who traditionally had expanded at Europe's expense. This series of 24 lectures, filled with memorable detail, examines how and why Europeans achieved this stunning turnaround. By its conclusion, you will be able to describe and analyze the social, intellectual, religious, and political transformations that set into motion this midsummer epoch of the medieval world - an epoch you will come to know very well through Professor Daileader's vivid descriptions and examinations of its people, including

the warrior aristocracy of knights, castellans, counts, and dukes;
free and unfree peasants; and townspeople, both artisans and merchants;
its vibrant stirrings of religion and intellect, including monastic life and charismatic figures like Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas;
the lives of those outside the religious mainstream, especially heretics and Jews;
and its major political developments and events, including the First Crusade, the Norman Conquest of England, and the granting of the Magna Carta.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Medieval, Medieval History, Historical, European History

13 pages, Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Ph.D., Harvard University,
The College of William and Mary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_D...

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The European High Middle Ages.
I mean, there was an entire world going on and this only covers part of it. But then again, the "dark ages" are kind of reserved for this little chunk of the world.
It all works out in the end, I say.



I enjoyed this because I enjoy stuff about the Middle Ages. Most of it I'd heard before while listening to other books or lectures, but I did really get a lot out of the religious parts - like the stuff about Augustine & Thomas Aquinas. One thing I hadn't thought about was that the Inquisition gets a bad name because they tortured people. BUT.
All law enforcement used torture back then.



And the church actually put limits on what the inquisitors could and couldn't do to get confessions, with the end result being the accused hopefully recanting their heresy and coming back to the church. <--with penance
It seems far less scary when you look at it through that lens.



Another thing that might be worth a mention, since this is a lecture and Philip Daileader is the lecturer, is the way he speaks.
Lots of sighs and pausing. between. each. word. for. emphasis.
I didn't mind it so much but it might be a deal breaker for you.

Recommended for fans of the High Middle Ages!

[فؤاد · Rating 3 out of 5]

دو دورۀ این مدرس، قرون وسطای متقدم و قرون وسطای متأخر، مکمل هم و پر از اطلاعات مفیدن.
توی قرون وسطای متقدم بیشتر به سیر تاریخی پایبند بود. اما توی قرون وسطای متأخر (شاید به خاطر وضعیت آشفتۀ دولت ها و رسماً نبود تاریخ) به جای سیر تاریخی، به موضوعاتی مثل دین، جامعه شناسی، جنگ های صلیبی، و... پرداخت. هر چند جلسه راجع به یکی از این موضوعات بود و جنبه های مختلف اروپای قرون وسطی رو توضیح می داد.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest. My mother-in-law is obsessed with The Great Courses and she lent me these CDs many months ago. Maybe a year ago. And there is no conceivable way I could give them back without listening to them. The guilt! That being said, they are actually interesting. You should read the other reviews to get an idea of the good and bad. My overriding thought is that humans put themselves into such strange little boxes of convention. Many of the tortures of daily life they endured are completely useless today. So I wonder, what daily confinements am I living through that will be considered unnecessary and possibly ridiculous a century from now?

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The High Middle Ages is a fascinating period in history. This is when documentation of key events (in history) is more plentiful compared to prior times. It’s no exaggeration to state this was the fundamental shift for Europe. The Norman Conquest is one of the few many events that shaped western civilisation. I feel like most people recognise elements from The High Middle Ages compared to the Early Middle Ages. From simple tools that are used nowadays from the Commercial Revolution. Heavy plough and the horse collar were popularised due to the population of Europe doubling. This is partly attributed to the Viking raids ending by 1000, the increased adoption of Serfs compared to slaves (the practicality of it) governance for certain countries changed. There’s the infamous Chivalric Knight, Nobles, Feudalism, Monks, Heretics and so much we are aware of just from simple pop culture and its cultural significance. It was fascinating to learn about the first crusade, it was interesting exploring Aquinas, how the first universities functioned, Magna Carta and many other events. Once again Philip Daileader is a brilliant lecturer. He's engaging, he hooks you into the sequence and makes learning fun.

In terms of negatives, it will be similar to the Early Middle Ages review, the lack of Asia. So you often feel like something is missing. I do enjoy Philip's thematic approach but as this was his first recorded lecture series, I think here it's less polished. The umms can be annoying at times. The Last 3 lectures were starting to get difficult due to the number of names to track with its brevity. However, as a whole, this was a very good series, and I don't regret listening to it. I'm keen to listen to the finale of this "trilogy".

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who among us don't love the High Middle Ages? I know I do.

The world is changing and what we thought we knew about the world has changed. When I grow up I want to be just like Daileader (the lecturer), nerdy, informed, open to new interpretations, and able to explain a complex topic to a general audience. I find good books or lectures about this time period hard to find. This one is worth the listen.

Don't be an 'antiquarian' (his word) when learning. Pieces fit together and there is a context that needs contrast before we can understand. Most of all, to understand what we are doing right today and what we are doing wrong today one needs to know how we got here in order to understand who we are, and with no doubt, we got here through the High Middle Ages. Aquinas is in the exact middle of this lecture as he should be. With out him there would not have been Science, the Enlightenment or the Reformation (in my opinion) and we never would have had Goodreads allowing me to make such assertions without foundation.

Our understanding of history is shaded by the nuances of the period that a historian was thrown into. Daileader brings that point up and explains how our understanding of the past (and hence of our present) gets changed because of that. Or in my words, we are always in a Bayesian trap due to a convolution inherent within ourselves from the paradox of being human since our feelings are determined by our experiences and our experiences need our feelings which are both dependent on our recollection of our past and expectations of our future that get filter through our 'now' and discounted by our best guesses of our expectations and what we think is our now.

This lecturer understands that facts do not stand alone and has a good story to provide the context and gave the contrasts necessary for understanding.

[Katja · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best Great Courses I have listened to so far. Daileader doesn't only engage the listener, he also has a very scholoarly approach (yay!), talking about historical theories (Gibbons for example and why the Roman Empire broke down), which I haven't experienced in other Great Courses so far and thus really deserves the label "university level", something I find lacking in other Great Courses and reminded me of my own university days, happy sigh. (An example for a less scholarly apporach is The Great Courses on Ancient Egypt for example: as entertaining as it was, it was also full of speculations by Prof. Brier).

Fully recommended, get the whole "trilogy", the early Middle Ages are much more interesting than you'd expect, I promise!

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a series of 24 30 minutes long lectures, professor Daileader provides a very accessible introduction to the period of High Middle Ages. Each of the lectures focuses on a specific topic that in professor's opinion qualifies as significant for understanding the period. The lecture set itself is divided in three main sections dealing respectively with social, religious/cultural and political aspects.

My major point of criticism is based on the fact that the title of this set of lectures is simply incorrect - it should be "High Middle Ages in Western Europe" in recognition of the fact that the good professor concentrates almost exclusively on developments in England, France and to a lesser extent, Germany. Other countries are either ignored completely or mentioned in passing in relation with events that took place in one of regions that Daileader focuses on. I must admit that I found the good professor rather jarring in his sometimes cavalier and and on few occasions straight down dismissive attitude against whatever took place in "peripheries of Europe".

[William Adam Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 24 lecture course by Professor Daileader is a separate companion course to his course on the Early Middle Ages. I've listened to that course as well as the course on How the Crusades Changed History. Professor Daileader is well spoken and doesn't have too many distracting speech mannerisms, other than a tendency to hit the stress on "And" a little stronger than most. The professor mixes humor into his lectures in a deft manner. This course mixes social, political, and religious history in a balanced way. I also appreciated that he chose to wrap up the lectures with a historiography of the Middle Ages. As I am getting my Master's in History right now, I enjoyed going a little more in depth than many other Great Courses do.

Professor Daileader organizes the course well, giving over one lecture to the nobles, one to peasants, one to townspeople, one to monks, one to women, so to hit on all aspects of medieval society. There are two lectures on the Crusades and then individual lectures on Francis of Assisi, King Philip II, and Emperor Frederick II. He also covers the Jews, heresy, universities, and scholasticism. Overall a very good course. I learned a bit and enjoyed listening to the lectures.

[Void lon iXaarii · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty interesting course. A lot of very interesting facts, very interesting perspectives! At times it felt too me like a bit too much focus on the ideas, literature and religious and too little on the more material conditions of people. Still, much better than other history courses which focus much more on the kings and personalities. Very interesting perspective and data, and my chance to gather more information on my little pet theory that the middle ages are called "the dark ages" and generally spoken of bad by historians because of their implicit statist bias with a tendency to admire monuments that are preserved or great works in culture which again tend to be the grandeur projects of states with a propaganda machine.

Some interesting things that come to mind among the many i've personally learned during this course would be
- facts about the inquisition such as their torture techniques being standard of that age sometimes even a bit more benevolent than the state ones
- about the behavior and treatment of Jewish communities in issues of sometimes apparently preferring walls of isolation and organizing search parties for children as a way to protect against accusations
- details about the hierarchical organizations
- interesting facts about different heretical movements
- the unexpected turnup of the crussades

Overall an interesting course about a very interesting period.

[R. August · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little too brief, but as an introduction it was very good. It seemed to focus more on reasoning and mindset then actual events - "Then William the Conqueror conquered England, but let's talk about the sophistication of the English government at that time..." The one line I liked the most was that England later became a constitutional monarchy because the during this time the monarchy was so strong, while France later became such a strong monarchy it could only be reformed through revolution because at this time the monarchy was so weak.

[Michael Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

The High Middle Ages, what people often think equates to the Middle Ages, is a very interesting part of history. Daileader is an expert on the Middle Ages and well worth your time.

[Koosha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Key takeaways:
- Europe had a major demographic growth between 1000 and 1300 CE.
- Kingdom of France started as weak and fragmented, but managed to increase its central power and make the kingdom more unified.
- Kingdom of Germany started strong and unified, but went through devastating internal conflicts, including conflicts with the Papacy, which resulted in several excommunications of German Emperors that weakened the position and prestige of the Emperor.
- The emergence of Scholasticism, with important figures such as Thomas Aquinas, who started to read the works of Aristotle again, and to reconcile faith with reason. They laid the groundwork for renaissance.

The were many lectures about the monastic movements and reforms, inquisitions, and heresy during the High Middle Ages which I found boring.

[Abhi Gupte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take a look at the list of chapters in the Goodreads book description - the first 16 chapters out of 24 are on the social understanding of the High Middle Ages. Only the last third of the course is on the typical political history that we're most familiar with. This was a great structure to learn about the middle ages from an entirely different perspective. I feel I would still need to listen to the courses on the individual topics like the Crusades or the Norman Conquest. But this course was great to understand medieval life.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid lecture series that gives a good overview of the period. The lecturer is engaging, though his habit of referring to every person mentioned by their full name/title/nickname every fucking time they were mentioned got a bit annoying - seriously, if you're holding an entire lecture on, say Hildegard of Bingen or Eleanor of Aquitaine, you do not need to append "of Bingen" or "of Aquitaine" in every sentence. Please trust that your listeners are capable of remembering who you're talking about from one sentence to the next.

[Norman Howe · Rating 4 out of 5]

History always bored me to tears when I was in school. Of course, that was the 1960s. Then I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism, and discovered how delightful the past was!

Dates? Events? Forget it! The real meat is how people lived, and what motivated them. This set of lectures is fascinating.

[Christine B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A super useful and interesting overview.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This audiobook is very much on par with the first audiobook in the series.

Like the first audiobook, the narrator does a great job of describing new terms and concepts that the listener may not be aware of. The narrator picks up where the first audiobook left off and continues the lectures in the same manner as the first instalment, this time, covering the period known as “The High Middle Ages.”

This audiobook is a great listen and I will definitely listen to the next audiobook in the series covering the Middle Ages!

[Elijah]

Sadly, not nearly as engrossing as the "Early Middle Ages" course. I still learned a lot, but overall, I found the structure of the course being presented in a kind of dull and uninteresting fashion.

[Gabriel Congdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do I get page-count for these kinds of things? The professor must be reading from something, right? I'm lagging on my numbers.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this and it was excellent. The speaker again stresses the importance of demographics and he makes a very convincing case. It was during the High Middle Ages (1000-1300) that the population boomed. It doubled during the period, which is a marked contrast to what happened to the two periods before. This population growth resulted in the revival of urban life in Europe and the 'commercial revolution' of the High Middle Ages.

He argues that population increased due to several factors that he describes as brakes and engines. The brakes fell off during the High Middle Ages and the engines powered the demographic growth.

The brakes are bubonic plague, foreign invasions, and slavery. One of the brakes that disappeared was the bubonic plague. The bubonic plague did not appear in the High Middle Ages. The second brake that fell off was the lack of foreign invasions. The Viking, Maygyar and Muslim invasions largely disappear, and these invasions are significant because these invaders, especially the Vikings, are looking for slaves to sell. The third brake is the end of slavery. How slavery was practiced during the West meant that the slave population could not reproduce itself. Having a signficant portion of the population not be able to reproduce itself is obviously a huge drag. Serfdom supplants slavery, and serfs can have families and can actually reproduce themselves.

The engines are technological advancement and climate change. Due to technological advancements: the heavy plow, the leather harness, manorial 3-field system, and the water-powered windmill; all advancements that greatly improved agricultural production. The heavy plow was actually able to work the farmland of Northern Europe, which the previous plow was very poor at. The leather harness allowed horses to be harnassed, which are much faster than oxen, and the 3-field system allowed more of the land to be in use. The estimates of farm yield in 1000 is 2:1 while in 1300 it is 4:1. So, in reality the amount of grain that a peasant produced tripled. As for windmill and climate change, windmill obviously frees up labor by grinding grains and the climate just got better for farming.

This surplus allowed more people to not farm. Less people were needed to actually produce what the people consumed. This surplus meant wealth, meant merchants, meant towns, meant increased trade, meant specialization, meant more buying power, etc.

I think this explanation makes a lot of sense, as does his explanation for the fall of Roman Civilization. What I like about it is because it explains so much and removes all of the moral judgments and condemnations that you typically hear when you are discussing the fall of the Roman Empire and the Medieval Period. Frankly, I think moral judgments are more of a reflection on that person's views and biases rather than what is actually happening in society. Of course, that could just be my biases talking. But I think seeing the Fall of the Roman Empire and the early medieval period as a demographic decline and the High Medieval period as a demographic increase (that then saw re-urbanization and commercialization) makes a ton of sense.

While he doesnt really explicitly say it, he also discusses a great deal about technological, intellectual, and cultural changes/advancements(whatever) that you really see the period as somewhat of a continuation and the building blocks of the future. I always hated explanations like the Roman Empire fell, Civilization ended. Nothing good happened until the Renaissance 1000 years later. I mean, shit just doesnt pop out of nowhere.

I think the best example of continuation and building blocks in this period is Scholasticism. This was quite a big break from previous religious study because it stressed debate and argument over random musings. It also relied heavily on Aristotle and Averroes. The church had access to some Latin (and Greek writers translated into latin) before, but the purpose was to just learn how to write Latin well from people who wrote Latin well. Scholasticism was different because that movement was actually using the thoughts and ideas of A and A in their arguments.

So yea, go demographics.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating overall, although the portions about royal marriages and dynastic succession didn’t interest me as much as, say, why chivalric romances were written, or even how the royal bureaucracy in England was more advanced than on the continent. Fortunately Daileader moves briskly from one topic to the next, while still giving enough information to satisfy my interests.

He is also lucid and entertaining without being patronizing. For example, his explanation of scholasticism is easier to grasp than Wikipedia's, and unlike Wikipedia, he points out how scholasticism differed with the previous mode of learning in European monasteries, and how it got some of its proponents into trouble.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

The information is presented clearly and interestingly. The only thing that was somewhat distracting was that the speaker has a way of sighing/drawing a breath every few seconds. If you can get past that, you will learn a lot and enjoy learning it. I was amazed to find out all the languages that a medieval historian has to know: Latin, French, German and a few others I can't remember. That was something I had never thought about before. It made me appreciate those who research medieval history all the more.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This lecture series was not as good as his Early Middle Ages one. It spent way too much time on the groups of people(Nobles,Church,Peasent/Merchants) and Religious aspects of this period and not enough time on the political and broad overview portions. He also doesn't really bring the time period into scope with the its neighbors so it focuses way too much on Europe without bringing in the influences of its more powerful neighbors.

A good series none the less and if I had listened to it first I would of enjoyed it more.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me this deserves 5 starts. It is remarkable because Daileader engages the history of society in a way that he does not in other of his audio courses. In other courses he tended to summarize great works of literature. I wasn't typically interested in the summaries because I have read the books myself. The broad discussion of the what and why of the Middle Ages was very satisfying.

[Ray LaManna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another good course continuing the study of the Middle Ages. Easy to understand.

[Brett Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this lecture series is informative in regards to the path of ruin, bare survival, and hints of recovery that civilization experienced in Europe, but the subject matter remains (for me) depressing. The series picks up after the 700 years of Dark Ages addressed in the preceding series and chronicles the reemergence of civilization in Europe from 1000 to 1300 AD. Humans are simply trying to figure out how to order themselves. Populations are starting to grow again, some are learning how to read again, an economy is starting to develop with urban centers on the rise. Everything looks remarkably primitive from our vantage. Barbaric abuses of power over those who can be abused are everywhere in the feudal system they employ. The fertile imaginations of religious thinkers are as wild, loony, and dingy as the Dark Ages while they argue about just how many angels you really can fit on the head of a pin—and are they standing on one foot or two—let’s fight about it. Professional inquisitors roamed about on a quest for heretics, one inquisition after another. Inquisitors invited individuals to confess their heretical beliefs and to denounce others (secretly) who were heretics. Those who confessed were given a lenient penance—as long as they revealed to the inquisitors all that they knew about other heretics in the area. A great way to get even with lousy neighbors. Of course, since anyone with a papal title called the shots, the Crusades entered full stride, chopping off the heads of infidels and unbelievers, including against a king or two in Europe. Despite all this, late in the period, something good happened when the ancients started to dribble back into Europe thanks to the Arabs, who were having a blast during their Islamic Golden Age in the Middle East. Principally Aristotle, but a bit of Plato and the others are being rediscovered. After a thousand years of ignorance, reason gets another chance to rise above superstition.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of the Great Courses series, this is an audiobook recording of 24 lectures given by Philip Daileader, Professor of History at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The course covers mostly the development of European society and culture from AD 1000 to the early 1300s. It talks about social classes, the role of religion, the growth of schools and universities, and major political events such as the First Crusade, the Norman Conquest, and the Magna Carta. The programme ends by explaining how the academic discussion of the High Middle Ages has changed over time, and the significance of the period in the creation of Western civilization as we understand it today.

I did basic history in secondary school, so I was of course familiar with many of the names, but not the incredible detail that Professor Daileader provides in this lecture series. With an enthusiastic, almost breathless presentation style, and frequent pauses full of irony, he feeds your mind with all kinds of fascinating stories that prove the Middle Ages were an essential precursor to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and not the social, intellectual and political wasteland that they are often shown to be in popular culture. It was hard to take breaks as I had my preconceptions about the period well and truly shattered.

This was definitely a good use of my time. If you choose to listen, you will learn a lot, and come out the other side with a new understanding of European history.

[Luka · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review of this will be pretty much the same as the review of "Late middle ages" - they are produced by the same author ( i havent yet listened to his early middle ages or read other books) but i liked this audiobook more because it was less focused on the nobles and

+
Loved his lectures about "regular" people
As you can see by his profile picture he is a serious guy but he did threw some good jokes
Very interesting facts about how our period differs from medieval and how medieval differs from ancient
Made me think if it was better for a regular person to live in lets say high middle ages or ancient rome(latter had much more slaves)
I dont think middle ages as a very bad period anymore

-
biggest minus is his emphasis on western europe, in fact the book should be called The High Middle ages of Western Europe or something like that(this is especially true for his book about late middle ages)
Sometimes i couldn't recognize if he was talking something that applies to every state or a specific one

[Jennifer Heise]

This is pretty much the first Great Courses audio that I'm utterly panning, and not for the style of the presentation. Honestly, Daileader is an enaging presenter. And he's very honest about his biases. He says that while certain takes on the history are more likely to be presented by someone who *isn't* a white man who was educated at a high status classically liberal arts institution and now teaches at the same kind of institution, he doesn't share them. However, I ran into some issues where he repeated historical canards about daily life that just aren't supported by the evidence. Not just "oh, there's some dispute about that" but stuff that was uncritically repeated by mid-20th-century historians without investigation. Of course, I listened to it several months ago and can't remember the actual errors, so don't take my word for it. I did feel like I have a bit more background on the High Middle Ages than I did before, but every specific thing he said I started to feel like I had to double-check.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The High Middle Ages is the second of three Great Courses that Philip Daileader gives on the Middle Ages. In 24 lectures, about 30 minutes each, he covers the years from 1000 to 1300. The lectures are informative and easy to listen to, but there is so much content that is covered briefly that I want to listen again, perhaps after reading or listening to other sources on the Middle Ages. I like that they are more than a listing of kings and popes, but provide knowledge on what it was like to live at that time.

Everyday, before listening to another audio book, I listened to one lecture. I looked forward to that time. Daileader is a little breathy in his lectures, but over time I stopped noticing and just enjoyed his enthusiasm for the subject.