The making of Europe: conquest, colonization and cultural change 950-1350 (review)

Short notices Bartlett, Robert, The making of Europe: conquest, colonization and cultural change 950-1350, rpt London, Penguin, 1994; paper; pp. xv, 432; 12 maps, 6 figures, 4 tables; R.R.P. AUS$16.95. This book, which has been well received since it wasfirstpublished by AUen Lane in 1993, has now beenre-issuedby Penguin. In many ways it is an extremely useful and attractive book for scholars and students studying the expansion of Latin Christendom in the High Middle Ages. There is little doubt that it will find a wide readership in undergraduate courses in medieval history. Its strong emphasis on German central, and Slavic eastern, Europe wiU be especially welcome to those for whom the scholarship in these areas is primarily in inaccessible languages. It also has an unusually strong emphasis on Franco-Norman expansion into Wales and Ireland. Both of these emphasesreflectBartietfs ownfieldsof specific interest in the nature of Franco-German frontier societies in northern and eastern Europe and then impact on Celtic and Slavic peoples. Much less satisfactory, however, is the book's treatment of Latin expansion in the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterranean lands. Here the examples selected are much thinner and less convincing. The Latin establishments in the Black Sea, the Aegean, the Crusader states, and Muslim North Africa are much less extensively dealt with. So also are those hi the Mediterranean islands: the Balearics, Sicily, Crete, and Cyprus in particular. In the last hundred pages Bartlett addresses the issues of cultural change alluded to in the tide. In five chapters entitled 'Race relations on the frontiers of Latin Europe (1): language and law', 'Race relations on the frontiers of Latin Europe (2): power and blood', 'The Roman church and the Christian people', "The Europeanization of Europe', and 'The political sociology of Europe after the expansion' Bartlett posists a range of interesting, if somewhat idiosyncratic, theses concerning cultural change. Readers wUl find these stimulating but will, no doubt, wish to take issue with many of them. As a consequence, students will need guidance when 248 Short notices dealing with these chapters unless they already have a very sound grounding in medieval history. John H. Pryor Department of History University of Sydney Doob, Penelope R., The idea of the labyrinth from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages, rpt Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1992; paper; pp. xvii, 355; 25 plates; R.R.P. ? The first printing of this book in 1990 attracted much attention from reviewers and readers, more so among medievalists and Early M o d e m literary scholars than among classicists; although, it was also reviewed in classical journals as a book of considerable interest to the intellectual historian. In fact the book has more to say about the Middle Ages than the classical period, in spite of its title. Most reviewers of thefirstprinting welcomed The idea of the labyrinth and found it full of interesting and provocative ideas and connections, especially about the laybrinthine nature of medieval textuality and the centrality of the labyrinth as a figure in medieval and Early M o d e m literature. However, some found the book's incessant signposting overdone and a little tedious. Others doubted the extent to which various of texts analysed in part three had the labyrinth as then central image. The most common response, however, was to find the book original and suggestive of further lines of enquiry. This, though, is not helped though by the lack of a bibliography. One threads one's way through the learned footnotes. One reviewer even called the book 'magisterial' and 'a classic'. SmaU wonder then that Cornell University Press has been prompted to reissue it as a paperback. Margaret Clunies Ross Department of English University of Sydney Goodwin, Godfrey, A history of Ottoman architecture, rpt, London, Thames and Hudson, 1992; paper; pp. 511; 520 plates, 3 maps, chronological table; R.R.P. AUS$49.45. This book,firstpublished in 1971 and reprinted recently, consists largely of very detailed descriptions of every important Ottoman budding built during ...