Medieval German History (Politics, Economy, Society, and Others)

Author: Hou Shudong
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-02-01
Features: The book Deutsche Mittelaltergeschichte – Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und andere discusses the political and socio-economic history of Germany during the Middle Ages. However, this book is not a comprehensive and complete account of the political and socio-economic history of Germany in the Middle Ages; it only examines several specific issues within a certain time frame. Nevertheless, there are inherent connections between the chapters on political history and the chapters on socio-economic history. The first five chapters follow the development of the German monarchy in the 10th and 11th centuries as the main thread, discussing the early political history of medieval Germany. The last five chapters take the German Peasants' War as the main thread, discussing the socio-economic history of Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries. The last chapter is a lengthy book review, summarizing a representative work on the German Peasants' War published in the contemporary Western world. The term "Middle Ages" in the title of this book follows the convention of the Chinese academic community, which includes the "Early Modern Period." Since the reform and opening-up, Western medieval history research in China has made significant progress, but the development of this discipline still faces many challenges. The reasons for these difficulties are both objective and personal. The disadvantages in language preparation, access to historical materials, updating methods, understanding current trends, and information exchange are obvious. However, lamenting the difficulties will not help. We must take things step by step, and our work must start from the reality. Under the conditions permitted by reality, we should contribute to the study of China's own historical and cultural heritage and bring the perspective and vision of the Chinese people to the study of Western historical and cultural heritage. Therefore, the aforementioned disadvantages do not mean that we cannot make any contribution. Under the current conditions, it should be feasible to collect as much relevant literature as possible, fully draw on Western academic achievements, and conduct relatively in-depth analysis of these achievements, based on which to present some preliminary views. This is also the basic attitude adopted by the author when examining certain issues in the medieval history of Germany. This book is compiled and revised based on academic papers, some of which have already been published in relevant journals. During the process of studying and discussing the medieval history of Germany, the author received dedicated guidance from his mentor, Professor Kong Xiangmin. The author's profound insights into some major issues in the medieval history of Germany provided him with significant inspiration. The author also received encouragement and guidance from Professor Pang Zuohe of the Department of History at Tianjin Normal University during his studies and discussions. The author sincerely thanks both professors for their teachings! Professor Zhu Xiaoyuan of the Department of History at Peking University also provided guidance and assistance to the author during his studies and discussions. The author sincerely thanks him here! The author also thanks Mr. Zhu Jiao, editor of the Commercial Press, for his hard work in publishing this book! The author is fully aware that the discussions in this book are only a preliminary attempt, and there will undoubtedly be many inaccuracies or errors. The author welcomes criticism and corrections from the readers.