★★★★★ 4
Wonderful book, but not a general reference on the subject & period
Format: Paperback
Southern's powerful study of the organizational and administrative structures of the medieval church is a wonderful antidote for the popular view of the Middle Ages as a long period of almost continual chaos between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance (i.e. the "Dark Ages"). Southern does a fantastically good job of explaining and illustrating the central truth of the Church in the Middle Ages, i.e. that the Church was identical with society to an extent that had never been true before and has never been true since. That said, Southern's disciplined approach is often too much of a good thing and there are a number of topics which one would expect to take pride of place in a typical narrative history of the subject and period that Southern touches on only obliquely and insofar as they are relevant to his primary topic: those neglected stories include the long papal/imperial struggle (Guelps & Ghibellines), the Crusades, the Black Death, etc.. Southern also has a puzzling and sometimes maddening tendency to couch the discussion in terms of implications, roles and epithets instead of being explicit and just naming names. E.g. in the context of the discussion of the fall of Constantinople, Mehmed II is mentioned äs "the conqueror", but not by name; that a pope visited Constantinople in 710 for the first time and last time in premodern history is noted, but the pope is not named (it was Constantine); some of consequences of the "Donation of Constantine" are implied fairly early in the book, but it is not explitly named (and then, to add to the reader's irritation, discussed later as if the topic had already been explitly introduced). These are all characteristic slips of an expert used to addressing other experts in his field attempting in this instance to write a more or less introductory text. They are understandable slips, but they take their toll. The book is generally excellent & well worth reading and it is hard to imagine a better introduction to the topics it does cover, but unfortunately, and unlike Chadwick's initial volume in this series, it does not serve well as a general reference on the history of the Medieval Church.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2010
