Covering a thousand years of history, this volume tells the story of the creation of Western civilization in Europe and the Mediterranean. Now available in a compact, more convenient format, it offers the same text and many of the illustrations which first appeared in the widely acclaimed Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe. Written by expert scholars and based on the latest research, the book explores a period of profound diversity and change, focusing on all aspects of medieval history from the empires and kingdoms of Charlemagne and the Byzantines to the new nations which fought the Hundred Years War. The Oxford History of the Medieval World also examines such intriguing cultural subjects as the chivalric code of knights, popular festivals, and the proliferation of new art forms, and the catastrophic social effect of the Black Death. Authoritative and eminently readable, this book will entertain as much as it will educate.

1. The Transformation of the Roman Mediterranean, 400-900 ; 2. The Northern World in the Dark Ages, 400-900 ; 3. The Society of Nothern Europe in the High Middle Ages, 900-1200 ; 4. Northern Europe invades the Mediterranean, 900-1200 ; 5. The Mediterranean in the Age of the Renaissance, 1200-1500 ; 6. The Civbization of Courts and Cities in the North, 1200-1500 ; Editor's Postscript ; Further Reading ; Chronology