Resources: Nonfiction Books

Information in [] is Library of Congress number.

• Appleby, John T. The troubled reign of King Stephen. 1970. [DA198.5 .A8 1970 ]
• Chibnall, Marjorie. Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English. Blackwell. 1993. 228pp. ISBN: 0631190287.
• Cronne, Henry Alfred. The reign of Stephen, 1135-54: anarchy in England. 1970. [DA198.5 .C76 ]
• Davis, R. H. C. King Stephen, 1135-1154. Longman Publishing Group. 1990. 178pp. ISBN: 0582040000.
• Howlett, Richard. Chronicles and Memorials of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I. 4 vols. London: Longmans, etc., 1884. [DA25 .B5 no. 82 ]
• King, Edmund, ed. The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign. Oxford University Press. 1994. 300pp. ISBN: 0198203640.
  From Publisher: "The reign of King Stephen (1135-54) is famous as a period of weak government, as Stephen and his rival the Empress Matilda contended for power. A contemporary chronicler described it as 'nineteen long winters in which Christ and his saints were asleep'. Historians today refer to it simply as 'The Anarchy'. This is a study of medieval kingship at its most vulnerable. It also shows how individuals and institutions enabled the monarchy to survive. The weakness of government was the result of a disputed succession. Stephen lost control over Normandy, the Welsh marches, and much of the North. Contemporaries noted as signs of weakness the tyranny of the lords of castles, and the break-down of coinage. Stephen remained king for his lifetime, but leading churchmen and laymen negotiated a settlement whereby the crown passed to the Empress's son, the future Henry II. This volume by leading scholars gives an original and up-to-date analysis of these major themes, and explains how the English monarchy was able to survive the Anarchy of King Stephen's reign."
• King, Edmund, ed. William of Malmesbury: Historia Novella: The Contemporary History of Malmesbury. Oxford University Press. 1998. 280pp. ISBN: 0198201923.
• Pain, Nesta. Empress Matilda : uncrowned queen of England. 1978. [DA198.6 .P34 1978 ]
• Potter, Kenneth Reginald, ed. and tr. The deeds of Stephen. 1955. [DA198.5 .G42 ]
• Potter, K. R., ed. and tr. Gesta Stephani. 1976 (with new introd. and notes by R. H. C. Davis). [DA198.5 .G42 1976 ]
• Ratisbonne, Theodore. St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Oracle of the 12th Century (1091-1153) Abbot, Confessor & Doctor of the Church. TAN Bks Pu. 1991. 437pp. ISBN: 0895554534.
• Round, John Horace. Geoffrey de Mandeville; a study of the anarchy. 1960. [DA198.5 .R65 1960 ]
• Slocombe, George Edward. Sons of the Conqueror: Robert Curthose, William Rufus, Henry Beauclerc and the grandson, Stephen. 1960. [DA195 .S55 ]
• Stringer, Keith J. The Reign of King Stephen: Kingship, Warfare and Government in Twelfth Century England. London: Routledge, 1993. ISBN: 0415014158.

• Abulafia, Anna S. Christians and Jews: In the Twelfth Century Renaissance. Routledge. 1995. 232pp. ISBN: 0415000122.
  This Book was reviewed by: Colin Morris - The Times Literary Supplement, Andrew Colin Gow - The American Historical Review and R.I. Moore - History Today:
  From Colin Morris - The Times Literary Supplement: In spite of the technical character of much of the material, {this book} is beautifully written. It includes a discussion of the way in which the thought of the {Christian} scholars, and the polemic against Judaism, were rooted in wider changes in society. . . . The strength of this study lies in the analysis of the polemical literature itself. . . . {The author's} work will be indispensable to our future understanding of both the twelfth-century Renaissance and of the increasing Christian hostility to Judaism. It also contains a more general warning, with its demonstration that the most learned and enlightened groups in society may nurture the most virulently inhumane doctrines. Truly, as Bunyan perceived, there is a way to hell even from the gate of heaven.
  From Andrew Colin Gow - The American Historical Review: The situation of actual Jews in medieval Europe does not have much to do with the intellectual problems at issue here. Abulafia does not connect concrete Jewish-Christian relations before or during the twelfth century to her findings, except in a very general way. Her critique of Gavin Langmuir's influential theory of anti-Semitism (Christian doubt or insecurity is behind irrational hatred) is persuasive: Christian notions about 'Jewish irrationality' and thus about Jews' humanity may have been more central. . . . Abulafia has served students of scholasticism and of Christian-Jewish relations well by putting afresh set of questions to seemingly well-known sources. Aside from a few textbook-like 'context' passages that seem out of place in so erudite a work, this is a well-written book.
  From R.I. Moore - History Today: One of the paradoxes of the twelfth century, as it seems to modern eyes, is that it laid the foundations not only of European humanism, but of Europeananti-Semitism--it learned to portray men as made in the image of Christ, and the Jew as his crucifier. . . . It is hard to accept that this happened just when Christian scholars were making more frequent contact with Jewish learning,and even sometimes--Abelard was not alone in this--to admire it. Anna Sapir Abulafia probably knows the records of these encounters better than anybody, and her admirably clear and concise discussion provides much the best account we have of them. . . . This is an absorbing and essential account of a dimension of the twelfth-century renaissance that has been too often overlooked, as well as an important and challenging contribution to the continuing debate on one of the crucial moral and cultural dilemmas of the European, and therefore the liberal, inheritance.
  Table of Contents
  Pt I The Twelfth-Century Renaissance
  1 The Schools
  2 The Tools of Reason and Christian Humanism
  3 The Christianization of Reason
  Pt. II Christians and Jews in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance
  4 A Changing Society
  5 The Jewish Challenge
  Pt. III The Jewish-Christian Debate
  6 Christianized Reason at Work
  7 The Testimony of the Hebrew Bible
  8 Bodies and Money
  9 Inclusiveness and Exclusion
• Amt, Emilie. The Accession of Henry II in England: Royal Government Restored 1149-1159. Woodbridge: Boydell P, 1993.
• Beeler, J. H. Warfare in England 1066-1189. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1961.
• Benson, Robert Louis, Giles Constable and Carol D. Lanham (Editor), eds. Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century. University of Toronto Press. 1991. 781pp. ISBN: 0802068502.
• Bigelow, Melville Madison. History of procedure in England from the Norman conquest: the Norman period (1066-1204). 1972.
• Bisson, Thomas N. Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, & Process in Twelfth-Century Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1995. 400pp. ISBN: 0812215559.
  Table of Contents
  1 Nobles and Knights in Twelfth-Century France
  2 Instruments of Power: The Profile and Profession of ministeriales Within German Aristocratic Society (1050-1225)
  3 Castles, Barons, and Vavassors in the Vendomois and Neighboring Regions in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
  4 Women and Power
  5 Proposing the Ordeal and Avoiding It: Strategy and Power in Western French Litigation, 1050-1110
  6 England, France, and the Problem of Sacrality in Twelfth-Century Ritual
  7 Law and Power in Twelfth-Century Flanders
  8 Papal Judges Delegate and the Making of the "New Law" in the Twelfth Century
  9 Sacred Sanctions for Lordship
  10 Leon: The Iconography of a Capital
  11 Jongleur as Propagandist: The Ecclesiastical Politics of Marcabru's Poetry
  12 Courtliness and Social Change
  13 Principes gentium dominantur eorum: Princely Power Between Legitimacy and Illegitimacy in Twelfth-Century Exegesis
• Bony, Jean. French Gothic Architecture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. University of California Press. 1985. 640pp. ISBN: 0520055861.
• Buechner, Frederick. Godric. Harper San Francisco. 1983. 192pp. ISBN: 0060611626.
• Chenu, M. Nature, Man and Society in the 12th Century, Vol. 37. U of Toron. 1997. 384pp. ISBN: 0802071759.
  From The Publisher: The nine essays in this collection, selected from La theologie au douzieme siecle, inquire into the historical context and origins of medieval scholasticism. They are representative of Chenu's finest work.
  Table of Contents
  1 Nature and Man - The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century
  2 The Platonisms of the Twelfth Century
  3 The Symbolist Mentality
  4 The Old Testament in Twelfth-Century Theology
  5 Theology and the New Awareness of History
  6 Monks, Canons, and Laymen in Search of the Apostolic Life
  7 The Evangelical Awakening
  8 The Masters of the Theological "Science"
  9 Tradition and Progress
• Constable, Giles. The Reformation of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge University Press. 1998. 427pp. ISBN: 0521638712.
  From The Publisher: This book is concerned with the changes in religious thought and institutions from the late eleventh century to the third quarter of the twelfth. It concentrates on monks and nuns, but also takes into consideration hermits, recluses, wandering preachers, crusaders, penitents, and other less organized forms of religious life. In particular it studies the variety of reform movements, the relation of the reformers to each other and the outside world, and their spirituality and motivation as reflected in their writings and activities. The work stands in close relation to the author's Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (1995), which took what may be called a horizontal approach, studying three topics over the entire Middle Ages. The present work takes a vertical approach, looking at many aspects of reform during a comparatively short period. Together the two works show the relatively rapid change in religious life and sentiments in the twelfth century.
• Daniel, Walter and F. M. Ailred Powicke. The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx ((Oxford Medieval Texts). Oxford University Press. 1978. 8181pp. ISBN: 0198222564.
• Dronke, Peter. A History of 12th-Century Western Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 1992. 512pp. ISBN: 0521429072.
  "This is a particularly well-produced collection of meticulously researched papers on central aspects of philosophy in 12th-century western Europe...As a model of accessibility to non-specialists its appearance is especially welcome at a time when philistine charges of irrelevance are increasingly being made against disinterested scholarship." -- Times Higher Education Supplement
• Duby, Georges. Women of the Twelfth Century: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others, Vol. 1. Jean Birrell (Translator). University of Chicago Press. 1997. 112pp. ISBN: 0226167801.
  Focusing on medieval notions of women and love, Georges Duby examines the lives of prominent 12th-century French women, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Heloise, as well as popular female literary figures like Iseult--beloved of Tristan. Informative and entertaining, the book offers new insight on courtly love and the representations of women under medieval patriarchy. 50 photos.
• Duby, Georges. Women of the Twelfth Century, Vol. 2. Jean Birrell (Translator). University of Chicago Press. 1998. 144pp. ISBN: 0226167844.
• Duby, Georges. Women of the Twelfth Century, Vol. 3: Eve and the Church. Jean Birrell (Translator). University of Chicago Press. 1998. 128pp. ISBN: 0226167860.
• Ferrante, Joan M. Guillame D'Orange: Four Twelfth-Century Epics. Columbia Univ. Pr. 1991. 311pp. ISBN: 0231096348.
• Gilchrist, John T. Canon Law in the Age of Reform, 11th-12th Centuries. Variorum R. 1993. 1pp. ISBN: 0860783685.
• Holmes, Urban Tigner. Daily Living in the Twelfth Century : Based on the Observations of Alexander Neckam in London and Paris. U of Wis P. 1962. 352pp. ISBN: 0299008541.
• Gross, Charles. Graves, Edgar B., ed. A Bibliography of English history to 1485 : based on The sources and literature of English history from the earliest times to about 1485. Issued under the sponsorship of the Royal Historical Society, the American Historical Association, and the Mediaeval Academy of America. 1975. [Z2017 .B5 DA130 ]
• Hudson, John. Land, Law, and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England (Oxford Historical Monographs). Clarendon Press. 1997. ISBN: 0198206887.
  Reviews: This is an important new interpretation of the development of land law in England during the century after the Norman Conquest. Norman society was based upon land and lordship, and the relative power of lord and vassal was crucial to the control of land. John Hudson exploits a wealth of surviving charter and chronicle evidence in this scholarly analysis. His approach integrates social, political, administrative, and intellectual history. Dr Hudson examines the uses to which lords and vassals put their lands, the relationships between them, and the constraints upon them. He traces the increasing sophistication of law and the changes in royal control of justice, and offers a significant reassessment of legal developments in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
• Husain, B. M. C. Cheshire under the Norman Earls, 1066-1237. cartography by A. G. Hodgkiss. 1973. [DA670.C6 H93 ]
• Hyams, Paul R. King, Lords, and Peasants in Medieval England : The Common Law of Villeinage in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Oxford Historical Monographs). Clarendon Press. 1980. ISBN: 019821880X.
  Customer Comments: A reader from Ann Arbor, Michigan , October 14, 1998: Origins of Common Law In his first full-length book, Paul R. Hyams, one of the preeminent medieval historians of England, traces the origins of common law from its Latitudinarian beginnings to the Syballine reform movement. Using as his starting point the incrementalist paradigm first espoused by M.M. Postan and Shirley Williams, Mr. Hyams has drawn deeply on primary sources--assizes records, mortmain circulars, and court chamber decrees--to support his thesis that the common law was introduced to England by the Saxon invaders of the twelfth century. He sheds new light on the recently discovered and controversial Uptechurch manuscript, which purports to show that Edward I, and not Athelstan, was the first English monarch to move against the prerogatives of the clergy. In crisply written English, Mr. Hyams boldly takes issue with the Marxist interpretation of English common law, as argued by Rodney Hilton, and conclusively demolishes Bruce Macfarlane's hypothesis that the common law has its origins in the Druid priesthood. This is a splendid contribution to English medieval and legal history and deserves to rank with the classics of English historiography.
• Matarasso, Pauline Maud. The Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century. Viking Penguin. 1993. 3181pp. ISBN: 0140433562.
  "Founded in 1098 in Citeaux, France, the Cistercian Order sought a return to strict asceticism and a life of poverty. By the end of the 12th century, there were 530 Cistercian abbeys in Europe, and the abbot St. Bernard had become one of the most influential writers of the period. This book contains his letters, sermons, and other works, as well as biographies of other Cistercians."
• McGinn, Bernard. Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great through the 12th Century, Vol. 2. Crossroad. 1996. ISBN: 0824516281.
• Newman, Martha G. The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture & Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180. Stanford U. 1995. ISBN: 0804725128.
  This work explores how twelfth-century Cistercian monks maintained their tradition of social withdrawal yet played a pivotal political role in the world outside their monasteries. It argues that the Cistercians' political behavior was neither a betrayal of their monastic ideal nor evidence of some inherent Cistercian paradox, but that such public involvement grew out of the monks' conception of their monastic life, notably the cluster of ideas associated with Christian love, or caritas.
  Table of Contents
  Pt I The Creation of Cistercian Culture
  1 The Transformation of the Monastic Scola
  2 "The Consolation of Holy Companionship": Individual Progress and Community Support
  3 "A Garden Enclosed": The Cultivation of the Soul
  4 Unity and Diversity
  Pt. II Charity in Action
  5 "Some Will Shine More Than Others": The Unity of the Monastic World
  6 "A Well-trained Clergy"
  7 "With the Power of Your Right Hand": Princes and Knights
  8 Repairing a Divided Church
  9 "Bulwarks Against the Savage Beasts": The Threat of Heresy
• Partner, Nancy F. Serious entertainments : the writing of history in twelfth-century England. 1977. [DA130.H413 P37 ]
• Poole, Austin Lane. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta : 1087-1216 (The Oxford History of England). Oxford University Press. 1993. 541pp. ISBN: 0192852876.
• Round, John Horace. Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Greenwood Publishing Group. 1979. 444pp. ISBN: 0313212392.
  From The Publisher: The impact of the Norman victory over England brought about as broad and fundamental a social change as any that has taken place subsequently, and Round's book has been in constant demand since its original publication in 1895. His scrupulous care in collating the facts of eleventh and twelfth century feudalism combines with his sane deductions to create what has become a work of unquestioned uthority. In the foreword to a later edition Sir Frank Stenton calls it "a contribution to learning which would place any man among the energizing forces in the scholarship of his day."
• Scott, John, ed. The Early History of Glastonbury : An Edition, Translation, and Study of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie. Boydell & Brewer. 2002. ISBN: 0851158587.
• Thomson, Rodney M. William of Malmesbury. Boydell & Brewer. 1986. 252pp. ISBN: 0851154514
  From Roger Ray - The American Historical Review: The present book consists of an updated and adapted version of more than a dozen articles otherwise scattered in publications one or more of which many, probably most, libraries do not hold. Hence, the volume is no mere reprint,since it includes second thoughts and much fresh material, yet its value liespartly in the gathering of studies that many will be pleased to hold simultaneously in their hands. This happy design gives us our only book on a voluminous monastic author who has too often been put among the more distant stars of the twelfth-century revival of thought and letters. Thomson, especially in this volume, has given William a place in the foreground of that firmament. . . . The most valuable pieces in the volume are the chapter entitled 'William's Reading' and the long appendix called 'A Handlist of Books Known to William at First Hand.'
• Trexler, Richard C. Christian at Prayer: An Illustrated Prayer Manual Attributed to Peter the Chanter (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Vol 44). Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. 1987. 260pp. ISBN: 086698027X.
• Weaver, J.R.H., ed. The Chronicle of John of Worcester 1118-1140. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1908.

Secondary Sources

• Brewer, John Sherren, ed. Registrum malmesburiense. The register of Malmesbury abbey. 1879. [DA25 .B5 no. 72 ]
• Davies, R. Trevor. Documents illustrating the history of civilization in medieval England, 1066-1500. 1969. [DA170 .D3 1969 ]
• Brooke, Z. N., Dom Adrian Morey and C. N. L. Brooke. The letters and charters of Gilbert Foliot, Abbot of Gloucester (1139-48), Bishop of Hereford (1148-63), and London (1163-87). 1967. [BR754.F55 A4 ]
• Candidus, Hugo. The Peterborough chronicle of Hugh Candidus. 1966. [DA690.P47 H813 1966 ]
• Chibnall, Marjorie, ed. and tr. The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis. 1969. [D113 .O7213 1969 ]
• Douglas, David Charles,ed. Feudal documents from the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds.1932 [HC251 .B7 vol. 8 ]
• Forester, Thomas, tr and ed. The chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon; comprising The history of England, from the invasion of Juluis Cæsar to the accession of Henry II. Also, The acts of Stephen, King of England and Duke of Normandy. 1968. [DA130 .H4 1968 ]
• Giles, J. A., tr. Flowers of history; comprising the history of England from the descent of the Saxons to A.D. 1235, formerly ascribed to Matthew Paris. London, H. G. Bohn. 1968. [DA130 .R813 1968 ]
• Giles, J. A. William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the kings of England; from the earliest period to the reign of King Stephen. 1968. [DA130 .W513 1968 ]
• Greenhill, F. A. G. Incised effigial slabs : a study of engraved stone memorials in Latin Christendom, c.1100 to c.1700. 1976. [NB1830 .G73 ]
• Greenway, D. E. Charters of the Honour of Mowbray, 1107-1191. David Brown Book Company. 1972. ISBN: 019725926X.
• Hassall, William Owen, comp. They saw it happen; an anthology of eye-witnesses' accounts of events in British history, 55 B. C.-A. D. 1485. 1957. [DA130 .H37 ]
• John of Salisbury. McGarry, Daniel, tr. Metalogicon of John of Salisbury. Peter Smith Pub. 1985. ISBN: 0844601594.
• Knights of Malta. The rule statutes and customs of the Hospitallers, 1099-1310. AMS Press. 1934. ISBN: 0404162460.
• le Faye, Deirdre. Mediaeval Camden : a collation of information available in print regarding Holborn, St. Pancras, and Hampstead during the period 1086-1485: compiled for a symposium of the Camden History Society held in November 1971. 1975. [DA685.C18 L43 1975 ]
• Riley, Henry T., tr. The annals of Roger de Hoveden, comprising the history of England and of other countries of Europe from A.D. 732 to A.D. 1201. 1968.[DA200 .H842 ]
• Taylor, Jerome, tr. Didascalicon; a medieval guide to the arts. 1961. [AE2 .H83 1961 ]
• William of Malmesbury. Winterbottom, M., tr. Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings (Oxford Medieval Texts). Clarendon Press. 1998. ISBN: 019820678X.
• William of Malmesbury. Preest, David, tr. Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: The Deeds of the Bishops of England. Boydell & Brewer. 2002. ISBN: 0851158846.
• William of Malmesbury. Giles, J. A., ed. Chronicles of Kings of England. AMS Press. 1968. ISBN: 0404500250.
• Winterbottom, M. and R. M. Thomson, eds. William of Malmesbury: Saints' Lives (Oxford Medieval Texts). Oxford University Press. 2002. ISBN: 0198207093.

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