What else should I read about science, business and technology in the High Middle Ages?

by banbourg

A few months ago I stumbled on a recommendation for Alfred Crosby's The Measure of Reality on this subreddit. It blew my mind and I've been trying to read around it (mainly the authors it references), but I'm keen for more recommendations from people in the know - especially since most of the books I've ended up with are 30 to 40 years old.

Particular areas of interest: General economic history for the period, La Société du Bazacle and anything like it that might have existed at the time, development of double entry bookkeeping, the Bardi/Peruzzi generation of bankers, Robert Grosseteste/Roger Bacon, the Cistercians, Norman/Gothic cathedral building

What I've read so far:

  • Alfred Crosby, The Measure of Reality
  • Jean Gimpel, The Medieval Machine
  • Jacques le Goff, Pour un autre Moyen Age
  • Frank Swetz, Capitalism and Arithmetic: The New Math of the Fifteenth Century
  • David Landes, Revolution in Time
  • David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science

I've also just ordered Edwin Hunt's A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200-1550 and Otto Mayr's Authority, Liberty, and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe, but have not yet had the opportunity to read them.

Any advice welcome! Can be in either English or French.

Flubb

You might enjoy Joel Mokyr's The Lever of Riches. If you like Lindberg, then James Hannam's The Genesis of Science (it might have a different title depending on whether you're buying in the States or Europe). If you don't mind slightly older work, then Lewis Mumford's The Pentagon of Power and Technics and Civilization are classics.

Itsalrightwithme

While this is a bit outside your focus area, both geographically and time-wise, I highly recommend Fernand Braudel's La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen à l'Epoque de Philippe II (1949), or en Anglais The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. You can read it in both languages and compare ;-).

Enjoy!

Rittermeister

It's a bit older (1978), but I highly recommend Georges Duby's Early Growth of the European Economy.