Awards
- Joint winner for Longman/History Today Book of the Year Prize 2002.
- Winner of Joint winner of the 2002 Longman/History Today Prize.
Overview
By 1300, medieval men and women were beginning to measure multitude, counting, for example, numbers of boys and girls being baptized. Their mental capacity to grapple with population, to get its measure, was developing and this book describes how medieval people thought about population through both the texts which contained their thought and the medieval realities which shaped it. They found many topics, such as the history of population and variations between polygamy, monogamy and virginity, through theology. Crusade and travel literature supplied the themes of Muslim polygamy, military numbers, the colonization of the Holy Land,and the populations of Mongolia and China. Translations of Aristotle provided not only new themes but also a new vocabulary with which to think about population. In this innovative new study Peter Biller challenges the view that medieval thought was fundamentally abstract. He investigates medieval thought's capacity to deal with concrete contemporary realities, and sets academic discussions of population alongside the medieval facts of 'birth, and copulation, and death'.
Full Product Details
Author: Peter Biller (Professor of History, Professor of History, University of York)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.70cm
, Height: 2.70cm
, Length: 23.30cm
Weight: 0.747kg
ISBN: 9780199265596
ISBN 10: 0199265593
Pages: 496
Publication Date: 16 October 2003
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
`Review from previous edition Peter Biller ends his book with a question: is medieval demographic thought recognisably there? He has left his readers with only one possible answer - and in doing so changed the way we must think not just about the medieval past but about what has come after in terms of understanding the world.' Janet Nelson, History Today `a trail-blazing book, packed with intellectual fireworks. It fuses diverse sources and scraps of information to detonate an explosion of insights.' Medical History `There are many strengths to this book, not least the imaginative lateral thinking required to conceive the topic in the first place ... an outstanding and original study, which approaches the high middle ages (in its reality as well as its thought worlds) from an unexpected but remarkably productive direction. Its heterogeneous interests should inspire a wide readership.' History `an impressive piece of scholarship.' Social History of Medicine
Remarkable and original -- Speculum<br> Biller's evidence is impressive, honestly presented, and adroitly argued. -- Journal of Social History<br> A valuable and original contribution to a facet of medieval life and thought that has previously received scant attention from historians. --The Catholic Historical Review<br>
<br> Remarkable and original -- Speculum<p><br> Biller's evidence is impressive, honestly presented, and adroitly argued. -- Journal of Social History<p><br> A valuable and original contribution to a facet of medieval life and thought that has previously received scant attention from historians. --The Catholic Historical Review<p><br>
