Can Veeky Forums tell me books about medieval trade and politics...

>Trade
An Italian sells his wares in France, the Frenchmen sells his in Normandy, the Norman does the same in England, the Englishmen does the same in Denmark. That's how trade worked, that's how it has always worked. Trade and commerce has never changed.

>Politics
Rich Nobles and men of influence governed their lands, and occasionally (A lot of the time) fought wars.

Wow that was exhaustive and informative...

My pleasure.

I for one would like to see some more actual suggestions in this thread.

the decameron

>Trade and commerce has never changed.
Couldn't be more wrong. Capitalism is not at all just a matter of buying cheap in one place and selling dear in another. And most everyday medieval trade was about selling/buy agricultural surpluses which weren't necessarily produced intentionally for exchange.

Anyone have any unconventional sources seeking to deal with Just War Theory?

Anderson - Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism
Bartlett - The Making of Europe
Bloch - Feudal Society
Cipolla - Before the Industrial Revolution
Duby - The Three Orders
Lopez - The Commercial Revolution
Reynolds - Fiefs and Vassals / Kingdoms and Community
Southern - The Making of the Middle Ages
Spufford - Money and Its Uses in Medieval Europe
Strayer - On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State
Wood - Medieval Economic Thought

Bloch is a very good recommendation but (and maybe this is just my bias) Ganshof is fucking boring. It's the classic text of ye olde textbook feudalism, the kind of feudalism you get taught in high school. But no one believes that shit anymore. At least Bloch is still kinda-sorta good.

Bloch is only out-of-date to Anglo medievalists who buy into cut-and-dry undergraduate narratives ("we all laboured under the blind construct of 'feudalism' until we were freed from its tyranny by Elizabeth Brown Susan Reynolds and now we're free").

OP, I would recommend you read Bloch's Feudal Society, though it's dense. He's one of the most legendary historians of all time. The other scholars I'd recommend you read are Georges Duby and Jacques le Goff. Bloch, Duby, and le Goff are all in the "Annales school" of historiography, which pioneered an "histoire totale," an attempt at interdisciplinary, social-economic, "history from below" that came to dominate French academia for most of the 20th century and overshadowed much of the historical discipline in general. For getting the kind of general vibe of an era, it's very helpful.

The school has been less in vogue since the 90s, but it produced a massive chunk of the top-100 list for greatest historical scholarship of all time. Duby and le Goff in particular were very much working in the legacy of Bloch, consciously so. The anti-feudalism stance of Anglo scholars often looks to Duby's doctoral thesis on the Mâconnais region as a definitive blow against the idea that anything like a single "feudal system" or "feudal society" ever ruled Europe, and that history is too complex for such constructs, but Duby notably never departed from using feudalism or feudal society as categories of analysis.

Cipolla is another great recommendation for medieval economy. Seconding that. Bartlett is also a major read.

I'd be careful with:
>Anderson
Great scholar, great read, but card-carrying semi-orthodox Marxist philosopher of history. Caveat emptor.
>Strayer
Like Ganshof but even more outdated. Very short and fun read though.
>Reynolds
One of the major Anglo anti-feudalism things. Very clunky and doesn't really have a central philosophy. I think her Kingdoms and Community is better though. I dunno, Strayer is good, but I feel like you should only read her if you're into the historiography. But I have a bias against Anglo historians for generally lacking a philosophy of history.

One other thing OP: The nature of the medieval economy is simultaneously one of the most disputed areas of historical scholarship, the most splintered (because the era and its locales and specialties are so vaguely defined, overlapping, diverse), and sometimes the most esoteric. People spend entire careers arguing Deprecated Variant Theory #82-B of"Capitalism and Modernity Started in [Region] at [Time], and Everyone Else is Wrong!"

Thanks. I would love a larger reading list/ more recommendations.

bump

This is an unusually well-informed post

Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors by Debra Brown , M.M. Bennetts

Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham

Spice and Wolf

Do you have a blog or anything?