David M Nicholas – författare

This ambitious and wide-ranging study of the European Middle Ages stresses the long-term factors of continuity, evolution and change. David Nicholas discusses the social and economic aspects of medieval civilization, and examines their links with political, institutional and cultural development.

The first part of David Nicholas's massive two-volume study of the medieval city, this book is a major achievement in its own right. (It is also fully self-sufficient, though many readers will want to use it with its equally impressive sequel which is being published simultaneously.) In it, Professor Nicholas traces the slow regeneration of urban life in the early medieval period, showing where and how an urban tradition had survived from late antiquity, and when and why new urban communities began to form where there was no such continuity. He charts the different types and functions of the medieval city, its interdependence with the surrounding countryside, and its often fraught relations with secular authority. The book ends with the critical changes of the late thirteenth century that established an urban network that was strong enough to survive the plagues, famines and wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

This ambitious and wide-ranging study of the European Middle Ages respects the complexity and richness of its subject; always accessible, it is never merely superficial or over-simplistic. Stressing the long-term factors of continuity, evolution and change throughout, David Nicholas discusses the social and economic aspects of medieval civilization, and examines their links with political, institutional and cultural development. Designed for students and non-specialists, his book triumphantly meets the need for a comprehensive survey of the medieval world within the covers of a single authoritative volume.