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Germany in the High Middle Ages, c. 1050-1200
A comprehensive analysis of the fundamental political, social, economic and cultural changes in Europe between 1050 and 1200.
German history in the high Middle Ages : concepts, explanations, facts --
'Progress and promise' : the German empire in the mid Eleventh Century --
From Christus Domini to Antichrist : the King of Germany and the investiture contest --
Political reorientation and emergent diversity : from Salian imperial church system to Staufer kingship --
The centre-point of the German Middle Ages : Frederick Barbarossa and his age.
German history in the high Middle Ages : concepts, explanations, facts --
'Progress and promise' : the German empire in the mid Eleventh Century --
From Christus Domini to Antichrist : the King of Germany and the investiture contest --
Political reorientation and emergent diversity : from Salian imperial church system to Staufer kingship --
The centre-point of the German Middle Ages : Frederick Barbarossa and his age.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Horst Fuhrmann
31 books3 followersGerman Historian who specialised in medieval canon law and Church History.
After his military service (including a period as a prisoner of war) he worked for Monumenta Germaniae Historica in the mid 1950s before holding a series of teaching posts at Kiel, Tübingen and Regensburg.
After his military service (including a period as a prisoner of war) he worked for Monumenta Germaniae Historica in the mid 1950s before holding a series of teaching posts at Kiel, Tübingen and Regensburg.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 18, 2013
This is a perfectly good overview of the political history of Germany from Henry III in the mid-eleventh century until the death of Henry VI right before the dawn of the thirteenth. There's a good, substantial section on Henry IV and the Investiture Controversy, overviews of the "legalized anti-kings" Lothar III and Conrad III, and then a pretty substantial conclusion on Frederick Barbarossa and his aftermath. The book's central theme seems to be why Germany - so unified and promising circa 1050 - seemed to fall apart into an entanglement of messy principalities while France and England became increasing more stable and centralized. In a lot of ways, it functions as a mirror image to I.S. Robinson's very good The Papacy, 1073 1198: Continuity and Innovation, telling the same story over the same time period, but from the other side of the Alps. Most of the time, it's very readable, though a previous familiarity with German geography will help.
I only have a couple complaints: Fuhrmann is not terribly kind to the popes - most of them are usually described as "colorless" or "misanthropic" or characteristic of a papacy that "saw its own greatness measure in the number and extent of its own possessions and privileges," which I'm not entirely certain are always fair. On the positive side, this doesn't really disrupt his argument or narrative. A bit odder is the books structure - there are digressions throughout that address everything from France and England to contemporary spirituality to urban development. While I am all for integrating cultural and social histories into political narratives, it's not terribly well integrated here. There will be a section, seemingly out of nowhere that will talk about Premonstretensians, Hildegard of Bingen, and the biographies of Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, and then he'll dive right back into Welf/Staufer political machinations without ever giving a clear explanation of how they'd be related. It's not the end of the world, but it's jarring.
A particularly disconcerting example of this comes right at the start: this book has one of the weirder introductory chapters I've ever read in an academic book, in which Fuhrmann tries to cover medieval historiography, the nomenclature of the Germanic people, medieval climate and geography, and concepts of space, time, and the individual in 30 pages. It's weird, perfunctory, and leads to lots of statements like "people of those times did not share our enthusiasm for nature," and "the inhabitants on on the North Sea and Baltic coasts adopted a largely passive attitude towards the power of the sea." There is a diversion into whether coniferous or deciduous trees were more common, a study of changing skull shapes, and a brief existential consideration of why medieval people didn't just commit suicide on a large scale due to the difficulty of their lives. I feel like Fuhrmann figured he should give the Annales school a go, but just couldn't find the strength to put his heart into it. Pretty much nothing in the first chapter is ever brought up again in the rest of the book.
On a side note: thank you so much to whoever read this book before me, and put annotations in the margins. You made reading this book so much more fun, and you have carried on the monastic tradition of glossing with a vengeance. I liked your little hearts next to sections where popes would do particularly holy things, and your little crying face next to the section about the slave trade. Anyways, thanks! I was very sad when you stopped writing in the margins half way through.
I only have a couple complaints: Fuhrmann is not terribly kind to the popes - most of them are usually described as "colorless" or "misanthropic" or characteristic of a papacy that "saw its own greatness measure in the number and extent of its own possessions and privileges," which I'm not entirely certain are always fair. On the positive side, this doesn't really disrupt his argument or narrative. A bit odder is the books structure - there are digressions throughout that address everything from France and England to contemporary spirituality to urban development. While I am all for integrating cultural and social histories into political narratives, it's not terribly well integrated here. There will be a section, seemingly out of nowhere that will talk about Premonstretensians, Hildegard of Bingen, and the biographies of Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, and then he'll dive right back into Welf/Staufer political machinations without ever giving a clear explanation of how they'd be related. It's not the end of the world, but it's jarring.
A particularly disconcerting example of this comes right at the start: this book has one of the weirder introductory chapters I've ever read in an academic book, in which Fuhrmann tries to cover medieval historiography, the nomenclature of the Germanic people, medieval climate and geography, and concepts of space, time, and the individual in 30 pages. It's weird, perfunctory, and leads to lots of statements like "people of those times did not share our enthusiasm for nature," and "the inhabitants on on the North Sea and Baltic coasts adopted a largely passive attitude towards the power of the sea." There is a diversion into whether coniferous or deciduous trees were more common, a study of changing skull shapes, and a brief existential consideration of why medieval people didn't just commit suicide on a large scale due to the difficulty of their lives. I feel like Fuhrmann figured he should give the Annales school a go, but just couldn't find the strength to put his heart into it. Pretty much nothing in the first chapter is ever brought up again in the rest of the book.
On a side note: thank you so much to whoever read this book before me, and put annotations in the margins. You made reading this book so much more fun, and you have carried on the monastic tradition of glossing with a vengeance. I liked your little hearts next to sections where popes would do particularly holy things, and your little crying face next to the section about the slave trade. Anyways, thanks! I was very sad when you stopped writing in the margins half way through.
June 11, 2021
If Salian kingship, the marvels of escheat and Germano-Papal bickering tickles your fancy, then look no further than this, a compact if complex little history of a pivotal period in Imperial German history.
Terse it might be, but it is also dense and mostly centers on the papal-imperial backs-and-forths between various popes and Henrys. Or Henries? There's some social history to boot, but not as much as you want, especially since this was such a rich period for German lyrical poetry and song. The Crusades meander in and out, but largely as a function of the larger Teutonic goings-on.
Terse it might be, but it is also dense and mostly centers on the papal-imperial backs-and-forths between various popes and Henrys. Or Henries? There's some social history to boot, but not as much as you want, especially since this was such a rich period for German lyrical poetry and song. The Crusades meander in and out, but largely as a function of the larger Teutonic goings-on.
October 9, 2015
Germany in the High Middle Ages c. 1050-1200
Horst Furhmann
Read it in old heavily underlined/margined Hardcover at 209 including appendix and select bibliography.
This time period is my jam. I've been restricted to primarily to the west but am slowly scrolling towards the great Empire and thought I'd dip into the choppy waters with an overview. That's exactly what this is, 150 years of history from the 10ft elevation. With such a small page count it's hard to go into a lot of detail but this hits all the major points and does get more granular when dealing/talking about the successive Investiture contest that became such an important engagement for the Emperors and Popes of the day.
Furhmann does an adequate job, although he does get off on tangents easily and spends pages on content that would be better suited to delving into the wider workings of The Holy Roman Empire and the people that moved the gears. I did appreciate Furhmann's dedication in giving Frederick I a larger chapter.
For a more comprehensive and critical view, check out Katie's review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Horst Furhmann
Read it in old heavily underlined/margined Hardcover at 209 including appendix and select bibliography.
This time period is my jam. I've been restricted to primarily to the west but am slowly scrolling towards the great Empire and thought I'd dip into the choppy waters with an overview. That's exactly what this is, 150 years of history from the 10ft elevation. With such a small page count it's hard to go into a lot of detail but this hits all the major points and does get more granular when dealing/talking about the successive Investiture contest that became such an important engagement for the Emperors and Popes of the day.
Furhmann does an adequate job, although he does get off on tangents easily and spends pages on content that would be better suited to delving into the wider workings of The Holy Roman Empire and the people that moved the gears. I did appreciate Furhmann's dedication in giving Frederick I a larger chapter.
For a more comprehensive and critical view, check out Katie's review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
February 15, 2017
A textbook survey of great men and events. A key focus for Fuhrmann is the position of the German emperor, who spends the first half of the book fighting with the papacy and the second half his vassals. Fuhrmann is interested in the question of why the German lands failed to develop the centralized system that west Frankia and the English had by the end of the period. He concludes that the magnates were too powerful and that despite the reforms of Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI, Henry’s premature death stopped the momentum that the crown had built up. Fuhrmann definitely has a goal in mind here - to him, it is definitely a bad thing that the German lands failed to unify. This book was published in 1986, and whether such a volume would have been written in 1996 after the collapse of the Soviet republics is another question. Thus the overall argument may be lacking, but if one is interested in the doings of kings, this is a useful book.
April 15, 2020
2. Band der Reihe Deutsche Geschichte
Imvestiturstreit und seine Auswirkungen und ordentlich viel Barbarossa.
Es wird nicht nur eine Geschichte von Ereignissen dargestellt, sondern die Personen, ihr Handeln und die Themen werden gestappelt dargestellt und es kommt schon ein komplexeres Bild der damaligen Gesellschaft auf.
Alles gut lesbar und wohl gut in den Erkenntnissen gealtert.
Imvestiturstreit und seine Auswirkungen und ordentlich viel Barbarossa.
Es wird nicht nur eine Geschichte von Ereignissen dargestellt, sondern die Personen, ihr Handeln und die Themen werden gestappelt dargestellt und es kommt schon ein komplexeres Bild der damaligen Gesellschaft auf.
Alles gut lesbar und wohl gut in den Erkenntnissen gealtert.
March 19, 2024
This is a text book not a popular history.
That said, it is readable and gives a good overview and introduction to the period.it has a good mix of narrative and analysis that was what I wanted.
It presents an interesting contrast to the histories of Sicily I've read in the period: the historians sympathies with their preferred country showing . For example the death of Henry VI is clearly seen as a disaster by Fuhrmann, but as a big relief by Norwich.
That said, it is readable and gives a good overview and introduction to the period.it has a good mix of narrative and analysis that was what I wanted.
It presents an interesting contrast to the histories of Sicily I've read in the period: the historians sympathies with their preferred country showing . For example the death of Henry VI is clearly seen as a disaster by Fuhrmann, but as a big relief by Norwich.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews