Medieval Europe Quotes

I saw the crown of France laying on the ground, so I picked it up with my sword.

I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.

In the tenth century the old Batavian and later Roman forms have faded away.

When fiefs inspired military service, it is easily discerned why females could not inherit them; but the reason is at an end.

Beginning in the 11th century, a less-fragmented Europe began to take shape, and what we now call medieval culture - in which literature and learning made a noticeable rebound - spread through much of the territory Rome had once dominated.

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages.

ON the decline of the Roman power, about five centuries after Christ, the countries of Northern Europe were left almost destitute of a national government.

In the Middle Ages and beyond, the target was the Court Jew who had the ear of the ruler; during the Inquisition it was the Spanish Jews who thrived after their conversion to Christianity.

No student of Chinese history can say that the Chinese are incapable of religious experience, even when judged by the standards of medieval Europe or pious India.

From an English perspective King Richard the Lionhearted was not even English. He was French. He grew up in the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. He spoke no English.

The most interesting letters I received about 'The Name of the Rose' were from people in the Midwest that maybe didn't understand exactly, but wanted to understand more and who were excited by this picture of a world which was not their own.

I can find my way from 500 A.D. through to 1066 pretty well as an amateur historian.

This (Vietnam) was a land of rebellious barons. It was like Europe in the Middle Ages. But what were the Americans doing here? Columbus had not yet discovered their country.

So many of the fantasy stories I encountered growing up were set in worlds that were largely modelled on medieval Europe in one way or another. Lots of white folks in feudal societies, castles and kings, that kind of thing.

I'm really enamored with the idea of a reformed society, and I've always been fascinated with the Dark Ages as well as the power vacuum that followed the fall of the Roman Empire.

Whether you're a history buff or a fantasy fan, Druon's epic will keep you turning pages. This was the original game of thrones. If you like 'A Song of Ice and Fire', you will love 'The Accursed Kings'.

The Germans at first regard the crusaders as madmen … Consequently the many legions of horsemen who passed through their land [largely French], the hosts of people on foot, the crowds of country people, women and children, were viewed by them with contempt as persons who had altogether lost their wits.

I would love to make some kind of film about the witches and the Inquisitions. That would be really fun because I don't think their stories have been told enough.

There are Arthurian legends in 14 or 15 medieval European languages. They are the product of no one time or place. On the contrary, in sum they represent a tremendous mine of human understanding, rather as the Bible does.

When I moved to Wales more than twenty years ago and began to research 'Here Be Dragons,' I was fascinated from the first by the Welsh medieval laws, by the discovery that women enjoyed a greater status in Wales than elsewhere in Europe.

The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.

Civic rationality and modern capitalism triumphed in the medieval northern European cities – but not in Chinese, Indian or Muslim cities

Medieval Europeans did not much fear witches until they created an inquisition to find them.

Charlemagne either died or was born or did something with the Holy Roman Empire in 800.