What are the best books to learn about the high Medieval period? (especially social and cultural history?)

by Replicator2900

I know it's a bit of a generalized book request, but I'm interested in say, the period from circa 800 to 1400 (ending just a bit before the start of colonialism)... of feudal kingdoms, Muslim-Christian religious conflicts, etc, you get the point.

Crusades, the Reconquista, the Viking raiding, etc, are the specific topics I'm interested in, etc, but I'd also be open to history of specific countries like, say, the Venetian Republic, biographies of important people, social or cultural histories, comparative volumes, primary sources, general overviews, essay collections, etc, whatever.

I'm especially interested in primary sources, social and cultural histories - how the people of the past lived, their social and cultural perceptions regarding gender, religion, race, etc, and their own thoughts on their world. That

A caveat; I am mostly looking for European and Middle Eastern history - not that interested in what was going on in, say, Asia-east-of-Persia or Africa-south-of-the-Sahara at the time, unless 1. the books in question are, say, comparative and have something to do with Europe and the Middle East, 2. The book in question is really good, or discipline-defining, or revolutionary, or some combination of the three.

Anyone got any good suggestions?

The majority of AH's book list on European Middle Ages in fact mainly focus on the High Middle Ages (and in Latin West). The selected books in list also tend to include some cultural/ social history books.

The following is copy & paste from my previous post in: What books are best for Medieval European history? (800s-1500s).

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I also recently personally compiled and posted a small list of the (mainly) single and hopefully introductory overview book that covered whole medieval period (about 500-1500) in: Best Medieval History books?

(Added): As for the introductory books for individual sub-period (High and Later Middle Ages), the following previous posts of mine might also be interesting:

Just in case for more specific theme-oriented books on OP might be interested in, I make and post a short list of such books (perhaps not for the total beginner on the topic) below, and especially make a note of names of the relevant scholars like Robert Bartlett, David Crouch and/or Constance Bouchard.

Bartlett, Robert. The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950-1350. Penguin/ Princeton UP, 1993: Bartlett's this book is not about the details of the event in chronological order, and thematically arranged arguments on some important topics occurred in the High Middle Ages that would contribute to the formation and spread of the more uniform 'European' culture also into its fringe part. Aristocratic diaspora like the Norman Hautville family played an important role in the process, he argues.
________. Blood Royal: Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2020.
Bouchard, Constance. "Strong of Body, Brave and Noble": Chivalry and Society in Medieval France. Princeton, NJ: Cornell UP, 1998.

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primary sources, social and cultural histories - how the people of the past lived, their social and cultural perceptions regarding gender, religion, race, etc, and their own thoughts on their world.

While I'm not specialized (flaired) for medieval Iberian studies, the following two source books (collection of the excerpted primary texts) mainly on medieval Iberia might hopefully satisfy OP's curiosity:

As for a supplementary reader for these source books, in addition to Catlos' book in the book list, the books by David Niremberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (1996, 2nd ed. 2016) might also be interesting.