G. A. Loud

This collection of essays is largely based on a number of invited lectures given by various scholars at various English universities in the early 2010s. As such, it suffers from the same failing as many such collections: while some of the chapters here speak to one another, and while some of the essays are individually very good, The Making of Medieval History doesn't entirely cohere. Although some of the contributors seem to agree, others (like Geary and Nelson) seem to be in tension with one another. At the very least a concluding chapter might have helped to tease out some of those tensions for the reader. Still, a collection at least worth dipping into for anyone working in the field of medieval history, and a few of the essays (Geary and Ames chief among them) which could profitably be assigned as reading in the advanced undergraduate classroom.… (more)

Schenk and Loud have gathered an anthology of origins of German states, a topic of interest to some medievalists. The Empire was a far more varied state than the English speaking scholars deal with in the much less varied structure of the English and Scots' states. The book contains 19 family trees usually those of families achieving the imperial power for a period, and otherwise of those ancestries who created the more permanent German states. The mapping is marginal, but not essential to the narratives. A useful book demonstrating some lessons for future constitutionalists. In addition there are some mentions of the German functionaries known as ministeriales, or serf knights. There are translations of four kinds of German Imperial documents, including the "Rules" of the constant internal wars of the period.
A very useful book for the serious student of German history.… (more)