The Middle Ages were for many years generally viewed as a period when faith and order supported a rigid society. By painstaking archival research, historians such as Joseph R. Strayer and the contributors to this volume have gradually replaced this view with a regard for the period as a time of great intellectual diversity.

These essays, divided into five groups, probe the themes of order and innovation as they appear in medieval government; finance; trade and urban life; social arrangements; and aspects of the personality and goals of the individual. The contributors focus on...

Beginning with the Black Death in 1348 and extending through to the demise of Habsburg rule in 1700, this second edition of Spanish Society, 1348-1700 has been expanded to provide a wide and compelling exploration of Spain's transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.

Each chapter builds on the first edition by offering new evidence of the changes in Spain's social structure between the fourteenth and seventeenth century. Every part of society is examined, culminating in a final section that is entirely new to the second edition and presents the changing...

Beginning with the Black Death in 1348 and extending through to the demise of Habsburg rule in 1700, this second edition of Spanish Society, 1348-1700 has been expanded to provide a wide and compelling exploration of Spain's transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.

Each chapter builds on the first edition by offering new evidence of the changes in Spain's social structure between the fourteenth and seventeenth century. Every part of society is examined, culminating in a final section that is entirely new to the second edition and presents the changing...