The Mortgage of the Past; Reshaping the Ancient Political Inheritance (1050-1300)

Francis Oakley continues his magisterial three-part history of the emergence of Western political thought during the Middle Ages with this second volume in the series. Here, Oakley explores kingship from the tenth century to the beginning of the fourteenth, showing how, under the stresses of religious and cultural development, kingship became an inceasingly secular institution. "A masterpiece and the central part of a trilogy that will be a true masterwork."Jeffrey Burton Russell, University of California, Santa Barbara

Francis Oakley is President Emeritus and Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas at Williams College.