The New Cambridge Medieval History I: ca. 500-700.(Book review)

The New Cambridge Medieval History h ca. 500-700. Edited by Paul Fouracre. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. xviii + 981 pp. $180.00 cloth.

This volume completes the New Cambridge Medieval History, successor and replacement of the Cambridge Medieval History, published between 1911 and 1936. The new series began in 1995. As did the earlier series, this new one will become a standard reference work. Scholars will particularly welcome this volume since it gives a crucial period the attention it deserves instead of rushing through it on the way to Bede and Charlemagne. Scholars will also appreciate the 126-page bibliography. This is a general history, and only six chapters deal directly with religion, with one of those on Judaism and another on Islam. Given the impact of the Church in this period, however, many chapters, such as Jacques Fontaine's "Education and Learning," give extensive treatment to Christianity.

In the pre-Carolingian period, Germanic barbarians ruled most of Western Europe, while the Roman …