The History of Medieval Europe Quotes

“medieval English literature reached its height after the plague in the writings of William Langland and Geoffrey Chaucer”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“the Hanse towns acquire a commercial supremacy over Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, – in fact, from the east coast of England to Novgorod they almost monopolize trade.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“the fourteenth-century historian, Froissart.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“defended his mother tongue in a scholarly Latin treatise, entitled De Vulgari Eloquentia, upholding it even against Latin and further giving us much information about Italian dialects and medieval verse-forms.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Alfonso the Wise of Castile (1252-1284),”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“prose histories in the Castilian tongue began to appear.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“written, sometime between 1150 and 1250, the Poema del Cid, an epic with a Spanish hero.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“a contemporary account of the Fourth Crusade by Villehardouin”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“In the thirteenth century there began to be French prose literature, especially historical writing”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“this beast epic is throughout a keen satire not only upon medieval society, but upon human nature in all ages.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Romance of Reynard the Fox”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“The poets of other countries learned from the troubadours many lessons in literary form; their refining influence upon manners was also widely felt and their attitude toward woman was generally adopted.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“The poets of other countries learned from the troubadours many lessons in literary form; their refining influence upon manners was also widely felt and their attitude toward woman was generally adopted. Provençal literature”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Guilhem or William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (1086-1127), was the first known troubadour”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“We therefore owe our universities to the Middle Ages.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“It has been said that the medieval universities “affected the progress and intellectual development of Europe more powerfully, or perhaps rather more exclusively, than any schools in all likelihood will ever do again.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“The greatest virtues among terrestrial objects were attributed to gems, some of which, it was believed, could confer wisdom and eloquence, graciousness or success or riches upon their bearers, or even make them invisible.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Abelard”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“the ontological argument for the existence of God.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Widukind narrated with spirit and vigor the story of his own Saxon people. Liutprand the Lombard tells of his trips to Constantinople and has a good grasp of the general state of Europe in the middle of the tenth century. Thietmar records the story of the German kings and of his Bishopric of Merseburg to 1018. Raoul Glaber, writing about the middle of the eleventh century, entertains us hugely by his pot-pourri of portents and disasters, marvels and mysteries of the preceding sixty years, and, ere he closes, confides an account of his early sinful life and subsequent monastic adventures. Hermann the Lame, of Reichenau, who died in 1054, and Marianus Scotus (1026-1083), an Irish monk who wandered to Germany, wrote world histories, and they are noted for their chronological researches. With these men and with Adam of Bremen, who introduces us to the history and geography of northern Europe, and Lambert of Hersfeld, who gives a detailed and well-written, though partisan, account of the eventful years 1073-1077, we find the writing of history well developed before the time of the First Crusade.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Already in the thirteenth century German cities were forming leagues for their mutual protection. Prominent among these were the Rhine League and the Hanseatic League,”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Among the oldest craft gilds in Germany were the weavers of Mainz (1099), the fishermen of Worms (1106), the shoemakers of Würzburg (1128), the makers of bed-ticks and the turners of Cologne, and the cobblers, tailors, and painters of Magdeburg from the twelfth century.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“This case of Laon suggests several points that are true of the French communes in general. They were created especially at the expense of bishops and ecclesiastical lords, and the Church in consequence made a great outcry against them. “Commune is a new and detestable word,” wrote an abbot of the time.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“North of the Alps almost any Italians engaged in banking were indiscriminately called “Lombards,” and Lombard Street was the center of the financial district of London.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Probably the most lasting result of the crusades was the trade which the Italian cities established with the Orient,”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“despite its shortcomings the First Crusade was one of the most daring and brilliantly successful military expeditions recorded in history.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“relations between the crusaders and the Byzantine emperor were seldom cordial.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“A crucial instance was the question of the treatment of clergymen who had committed crimes such as murder and robbery, or at least were accused of such deeds. The ecclesiastical courts would not shed blood and were apt to let such “criminous clerks” off with a light sentence, if they found them guilty at all.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“Gregory VII”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe

“even a pope who tried to free the Church from feudalism could not free his own mind or government from feudal methods.”
― Lynn Thorndike, The History of Medieval Europe