title: Medieval Europe: A Short History
author: Judith M. Bennett
description: Judith M. Bennett teaches medieval history and women's history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she is Martha Nell Hardy Distinguished Professor. Educated at Mount Holyoke College, the University of Toronto, and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, she is the author of numerous books and articles about peasants, women, and families in the Middle Ages. Professor Bennett's research has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Humanities Center, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and numerous other agencies. She has held lectureships in Australia and England, as well as the United States. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London, she has held offices in such professional organizations as the Medieval Academy of America, the North American Conference on British Studies, the Coordinating Council for Women in History, and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. Professor Bennett has received several awards for her scholarly books and articles, and she is also an acclaimed teacher at UNC-CH, where she has won a top teaching award and is now a fellow of the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars.
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  John	W.	Cole
  Eric	R.	Wolf
  
  For	Ellan,	from	John	For	Katia,	from	Eric
  	
  
  PREFACE	xi
  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS	xi	i	i
  INTRODUCTION	xv
  Chapter	I.	The	Inquiry	1
  Two	Villages	8
  Fieldwork
  The	Politics	of	Place	Names	17
  Questions	and	Answers	18
  Chapter	II.	The	Forging	of	Tyrolese	Identity	25
  The	Alpine	Landscape	26
  Prehistory	28
  New	Settlers	30
  Political	Consolidation	35
  Trade	and	Mining	37
  The	Peasant	Revolt	39
  The	Counter-Reformation	42
  Economic	and	Political	Decline	45
  Chapter	III.	Torments	of	Nationalism	50
  Italian	Unification	50
  German	Unification	51
  Nationalist	Rivalry	53
  World	War	I	56
  
  Fascism	57
  The	Plebiscite	59
  Chapter	IV.	The	Economic	Development	of	the	Rural	Sector	64
  Early	Middle	Ages:	Sixth-Eleventh	Centuries	67
  Late	Middle	Ages:	Twelfth-Sixteenth	Centuries	70
  The	Early	Modern	Period:	Sixteenth-Seventeenth	Centuries	77
  Tyrol	and	Trentino	Contrasted	79
  The	Economic	Margin	of	the	State	81
  Changing	Economic	Relations	83
  The	Fascist	Interlude	88
  The	Postwar	Boom	92
  Chapter	V.	History	