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Reviewed by:
  • European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century
  • Sarah Whitten
European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century, ed. Thomas F. X. Noble and John Van Engen (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 2012) 562 pp.

Every generation of historians struggles with questions of periodization. For medievalists, debates have raged for the last two decades about the nature of Late Antiquity and the closing centuries of the Middle Ages (1200–1500). Perhaps one of the most fraught periods to define for the discipline is the long [End Page 188] twelfth century (1050–1200). Since 1927 when Charles Homer Haskins declared that this century was a period of renaissance, scholars have tried to characterize this period. Everyone agrees that things changed dramatically in the twelfth century, but almost no one agrees on how to characterize these changes. It has been called a renaissance, reformation, revolution, crisis, and even the making of Europe. This volume edited by Thomas F. X. Noble and John Van Engen proposes a new term: transformation. Clearly taking inspiration from the debate over Late Antiquity, Noble suggests that the term “connotes change without denying continuity” (10). One of the goals in the volume is to try to balance the old and new within the twelfth century and approaches to this period. As Noble points out, the book is intended to be part of the conversation—not to supersede earlier works.

One of the most important ways that the volume participates in this conversation is the choice of topics. The essays have been grouped into four basic categories: area studies, economics, identity studies, and culture. These contributions reflect the idea of proposing something new while engaging with the old. There are essays about the traditional areas of study, including England, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as regions that have only recently received sustained attention such as Iberia, Scandinavia, and Eastern Central Europe. The two essays dedicated to economic life focus on urban renewal and the peasantry. In the identity section of the volume, the question of the changing role of Muslims and Jews in medieval Europe is taken up. Lastly the book devotes six chapters to the issue of medieval culture, addressing law, liturgy, female literature, philosophy, theology, and signification. One of the most important goals of the section is to insert religious life into the debate of the twelfth century. Missing from the volume (as recognized by the editors) are sections on art, architecture, and vernacular literature. Because of the limits of space, I have chosen to discuss one article from each section.

John Gillingham uses the historian William of Malmesbury to explore the changes made to English society after the Norman conquest in 1066. Born after the Battle of Hastings, William sees the twelfth century as a modern age and England as transitioning from barbarism to civility. Fundamental to this tranformation was the end of the slave trade. The Norman conquest was the first English war that did not see captives sold into slavery. This—and generally more peaceful relations with their neighbors—meant greater stability for the English aristocracy. After the destruction of the conquest, the following decades were marked by rebuilding and growth in towns, architecture, monasteries, churches, and even libraries. The changes brought to England by the Normans were not just purely secular because this reshaping of English society occurred simultaneously with the redefining of the church during the Gregorian reforms. Important religious appointments were never freed from religious control, but church courts dealing with birth, sex, marriage, and death were established across the island. Lastly, the Norman conquest brought England into greater contact with the Continent and greater isolation from the Celtic world. For Gillingham, England changed more than any other place during the twelfth century. Yet these transformations are largely positive in Gillingham’s account. Not discussed are the revolts against Norman rule, removal of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, and civil war, because Gillingham devotes little [End Page 189] space to government and administration (an approach shared by many of the essays in the volume).

The period of the really long twelfth century (950–1200) saw a doubling in Europe’s population, and cities experienced even larger growth in inhabitants. David Nicholas...

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