The Making of Polities Europe, 1300}}}1500 [Paperback]

This book is a major survey of political life in late medieval Europe.This book is a major survey of political life in late medieval Europe. Offering a full introduction to political events and processes from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth, it combines a broad, comparative account with discussion of individual regions and states.This book is a major survey of political life in late medieval Europe. Offering a full introduction to political events and processes from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth, it combines a broad, comparative account with discussion of individual regions and states.This major survey of political life in late medieval Europe provides a framework for understanding the developments that shaped this turbulent period. Rather than emphasising crisis, decline, disorder or the birth of the modern state, this account centres on the mixed results of political and governmental growth across the continent. The age of the Hundred Years War, schism and revolt was also a time of rapid growth in jurisdiction, taxation and representation, of spreading literacy and evolving political technique. This mixture of state formation and political convulsion lay at the heart of the 'making of polities'. Offering a full introduction to political events and processes from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth, this book combines a broad, comparative account with discussion of individual regions and states, including eastern and northern Europe alongside the more familiar west and south.1. Introduction; 2. Europe in 1300: the political inheritance; 3. The fourteenth century; 4. The fifteenth century; 5. Conclusion; Bibliographical notes. ...his sanguine view of the importance of this period is compelling. Highly recommended. -Choice Wattss book is a remarkable feat. It essays a reinterpretation of late medieval western European history which is far more than a work of synthesis &. It is courageous, original, and thought-provoking. It demonstrates the ilS/