QUOTATIONS FROM KOENIGSBERGER

     The following quotations come with page numbers from the book. Some are very much debatable. Others are clear statements of views I find it easy to share. You will have to decide for yourself which quotation fits into which category! But each of them should help you to focus your review of the book for the Prelim.

"European History began in the 5th century" (1)

"The division of Church & State produced a clash of claims & a division of loyalties" (5)

"In 400…there is no evidence that the Roman world was moving in the direction of further technological advance." (13)

"Put into modern terms, the basic problem of the Roman Empire was that of the distribution of the relatively small surplus of a geographically huge but stagnant economy." (14)

"When the Empire failed as a shield agst the barbarians, the Roman aristocracy lost the will to support it further." (17)

"At the beginning of the 5th century, the Empire was facing a severe economic, social & military crisis, but…was by no means doomed" (22)

"All later invasions of Europe by Asiatic nomads…were to run up agst the same insoluble problems" (29)

"The contrast w the Arab invasions of the Roman world in the 7th and 8th centuries could not be more striking." (29)

"[The] Greek-Byzantine presence in Italy…had a very great indirect influence on the development of the papacy, on that of the western concept of the Holy Roman Empire & on the whole western conception of the classical tradition" (38)

"The different barbarian peoples…were all faced with a similar problem: how to adapt the customs & traditions of a tribal society…to a new life among strangers,…who lived in a structured, urban, literary & self-consciously civilized society" (40)

"Systematic law & its codification was one of the greatest & most characteristic achievements of the Romans of the later Empire. Practically all the German successor states codified their laws" (45)

"In sharp contrast…the kingdoms of the Franks…& the Anglo-Saxons…survived; &…their survival …had a good deal to do with the slow process…by which the economic & political centre of gravity shifted north of the Alps." (46)

"That the Franks could indulge in…civil wars without suffering the fate of the Vandals or Ostrogoths was due largely to luck, their sheltered geographical position & the weakness of all their near neighbours." (49-50)

"the Great Chain of Being,…enabled Augustine to accept the value of classical learning while at the same time severely subordinating it to the higher religios aims which man should pursue." (52)

"With only a few exceptions, the Catholic Church has since remained on the side of established authority; but it could question, & often has questioned, what was legitimate authority." (52)

"[T]he bishops often emerged as the sole effective Roman authority." (56)

"[T]his virtually independent development of the christian Church in the West…was to create a dual power structure & a dual focus of loyalty for men such as had never existed before." (56)

"Yet masons could still build Roman arches, sculptors could still carve in stone, & painters could still paint icons & decorate the pages of books." (63)

"The villages…with their fields surrounded by forest, scrub or marsh, were mostly self-contained - small oases of cultivated land in a vast uncultivated continent." (68)

"There was simply no way of forcing a coastal fisherman or a mountain shepherd to perform regular labour services." (74)

"It may…be that the invasions…helped to make migrations & new settlements the dynamic element in European society which they became in the following centuries." (80)

"Feudalism* became a flexible relationship that varied considerably in detail in different parts of Europe & over periods of time." (101)

"It was inevitable that the most powerful king in Christendom shouldd be drawn into their politics [ie the politically unstable areas forming the old Middle Kingdom]" (104)

"It mattered desperately to people's view of their salvation that they should be absolutely certain of the correct nature & position of the mediator between God and man." (114)

"For centsuries the Byzantine Emperor was effectively defended by its free & armed peasants living largely in self-governing villages." (118)

"The alliance with the Franks…had given [the Papacy] the chance to put forward political claims that went far beyond anything previously attempted…, based on the Donations of Constantine." (123)

"The Byzantines…had neither the need for a renaissance nor even the self-confidence to emulate their great predecessors." (127)

"Book illustration…is the art form of a society which, while literate, did not take its literacy for granted." (131)

"The Arabs did not destroy the Mediteranean trade…or…only for a short period." (133)

"The high regard the age had for celibacy & monasticism…made sense in a society that was chronically short of marriageable women." (138)

"For the first time a machine, driven by a natural mechanical force & not by human or animal power, had entered the common experience of almost everyone in Eur." (139)

"At this level of highly developed skills.there existed something which may be called the unity of medieval Europe [though] at every other level, [it] must still be seen as a continent of peasant & tribal communities, clinging stubbornly to thr age-old customs & their traditional languages, & rarely looking beyond their local horizon." (143)

"European society was dominated by a class of men brought up from boyhood to the profession of arms." (148)

"No one in the 11th century thought in even the most elementary statistical terms" (155)

"Inevitably…the inward looking spirit of Cluny was turned outward towards the woirld." (164)

"The idea of codifying…the Common Law was…derived by English jurists from an anolgy with Roman Law." (169)

"What the Becket affair lacked in political significance, it made up for in dramatic interest" (172)

"The papal…curia now emerged [in the 12th century] as the most advanced & sophisticated central government in Europe." (172)

"To an age for which the precise formuln of of doctrine seemed essential to personal salvation.,the precise wording of the creed was of supreme importance." (182)

"In the atmosphere of mingled piety & militancy which was so characteristic of the crusades, it is not surprising that the idea arose to combine the qualities of the monk with those of the warrior." (191)

"In the end the crusades remained an interlude in the complex hist of Syria & Palestine." (191)

"[T]he circulation of money & the value of trade increased; for the crusaders had to sell property to equip themselves." (195)

"The crusades accustomed Christians to find religious justifications for wars of plunder & destruction." (197)

"The larger cities…like monasteries & courts, brought men together & therefore enouraged conversation & intellectual questioning & they brought together men of more varied interests & backgrounds than monks & courtiers." (197)

`We are dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants', said one of the 12th century scholars of Chartres." (201)

"Catholic Eur was becoming a continent of rationalizing men." (204)

"The specialists had to take note of the local traditions in which they worked &, at the same time, they remainbed open to influences from outside Catholic Europe." (211)

"By the end of the 13th century the growth of population in large parts of Europe had reached a critical point … There are at least some indications that, in the 1st decades of the 14th century, the economy of Europe as a whole was no longer expanding." (219)

"Their basic causes remained the same: the effects of changing economic conditions on a peasant society that was conservative by tradition." (221)

"Thus by the end of the 13th century, both the Flemish & the Italian cloth industries were importing high quality wool from Eng." (223)

"But the 13th & 14th centuries were the watershed between a traditional society slowly emerging from the fusion of late-Roman skills & barbarian customs & the dynamic, competitive & deeply fissured society of modern times." (225)

"The great expansion of trade in the 13th century could not possibly have occurred on a cash-and-carry basis. There was simply not enough money in circulation…" (226)

"[T]he long resistance to the common use of arabic numerals shows the basic conservatism even of the highly educated." (228)

"Ministeriales…[are] a reminder to historians that feudalism* was not a tidy `system' of social relations but incorporated many contradictory facets." (230)

"Government…was also involving larger & larger sections of the population in the particpation of the government of their community." (230)

"France remained a country of quasi-autonomous provinces with an increasingly elaborate centralizing monarchy super-imposed on them." (231)

"What contemporaries would not forgive was lack of success." (232)

"Basically Magna Carta affirmed the rule of law." (233)

"The concept of the sovereign state had by this time evolved so clearly that the pope's claims were regarded as a frontal attack." (239)

"men would not forgive a pope what they might forgive in a king." (242)

"It was in the nature of medieval society & its ethos that life in a regular order cd appeal only to a very small number of women, & these mostly of the upper classes." (247)

Tribes of the vast inner Asian land mass…had, for almost a millennium, shown their capacity to defeat the armies of more advanced societies & to build up very large, loosely controlled empires. (263)

"[T]he age of the great Continental nomad empires came to an end; they had done nothing directly for mankind & only left a universally bad memory." (267)

"The Mongol invasion…did little to influence the character of the Russian people & its traditions…formed largely by the Russian Church with its traditions of orthodoxy & its hostility towards foreigners." (268)

"[The] econ & cultural growth wh fragmented Eur…increased variety & competition & thus forced men to modify traditions through reason & inventiveness. It was these characteristics which, by the end of the 15th century, were to give the Europeans their technological, political & military edge over native Americans, Africans and most Asians." (279)

"These losses in the early 14th century signalled the limits of the expansion." (284)

"The Princes, finding that revenue from domain lands had suffered…began to compensate this loss by systematic imposition of taxes." (286)

"Where the feudal* relations of earlier generations had been largely military, the new patron-client relationship was largely civilian, tho it could be, and was, still used for military purposes." (288)

"International dialogue…underwent a `quantum leap' in volume & intensity." (298)

"A new technology creating an expanding market for a standardized product, investment of capital, concentration of the workforce under one roof & ambitious entrepreneurship", all characterized by Christopher Plantin's press in Antwerp (299)

"Another Roman law principle, that `what concerns all must be approved by all',…gradually came to take on the colouring of a fundamental political maxim, embodying the notion of a community of interest within a country, & eventually, the need for conscious consent by the community for its government." (301) ["Quod omni tangit ab omnibus approbetur"]

"Yet when they insisted that the ruler observe their privs they were also defending the rule of law against arbitrary power, when they limited the ruler's demands for taxes they were also protecting the non-privileged; when they insisted on ratifying international treaties & began to criticize their ruler's aggressive policies, they went at least some way towards mitigating the worst aspects of the international anarchy of the times." (302)

"Commynes & Fortescue…both highlighted the fact that, basically, the relationship between princes and parliaments was one involving political power." (303)

"The kings of France could never accept that the English still held a large part of Aquitaine…The kings of England…had never forgotten or forgiven their loss of Normandy." (304)

"[A]t times it looked as if France would break up into quasi-independent principalities, like Germany." (304)

"[The coup of the Burgundian Estates in 1477] was a real political revolution, &…the first time a representative assembly had actually seized control of the government of a western European country." (311)

"Kings & Princes…claimed & got a sizeable cut from the clerical taxes & more & more they told the pope whom to appoint." (324)

"But Europe grew richer. It could afford more clergy & even an educated laity. The states of Europe & their rulers no longer needed an internationally organised church." (325)

"[T]he popes…came to act as Italian princes in the interests of their families. The Church in its 15th-century form of the universal church as an eternal institution had outlived its usefulness." (328)

"The papacy…tended to remain aloof from the new & popular religious movements with their emphasis…on personal salvation." (330)

"The Black Death put an end to more than 3 centuries of population growth, of economic expansion, of the founding of cities & the ploughing up of forest & heathland…For those who survived [the plague], life often became easier." (340-1)

"The medieval Eur city differed…in one vital characteristic: its citizens had develd a separate body of law and a conept of citizenship." (346)

"The independence of the Italian & German city states was…a function of the absence or weakness of the central monarchy & of the territorial states." (347)

"But the power-political relats of the 15th-century Italian states were so complex, the need for accurate & quick information of the often rapidly changing circumstances & policies of one's neighbours was so urgent that states began to accredit permanent ambassadors with their neighbours." (348)

"The European towns never gained full independence; but they often achieved considerable autonomy." (361)

"The memories of the lost world of the ancients, the overwhelmingly powerful feeling of the need to recover at least some of its splendours, these had been amongs the most persistent forces in European society from the very moment of the collapse of the Rom Emp in the West." (362)

"By the 15th century there was a clearly defined idea of a long dark age following on the fall of Rome from which the present was actually emerging by a self-conscious return to the precepts & values of the ancients, & this was happening thanks to the efforts of a few great men." (362)

"The invention of printing & its rapid spread in Italy in the last quarter of the 15th century gave an enormous impetus to these activities [humanist collection of classical works]" (365)

"What we do not find in the north is the self-conscious imitation of classical models or the acceptance of classical proportions in painting & sculpture." (378)

"For every one person, in historical times, who read a book there were a hundred who listened to music, who sang and who danced," (379)

"The citizens of the [Italian Renaissance] towns regarded themselves as good christians & their cities as christian communes. But their basic view of life was secular." (385)

* You should beware of this and similar statements; I do not believe that the F-words, "feudalism", "feudal" and the like, are helpful words. That is why you will never catch me using them.