The Closing of the Mediaeval Frontier, 1250–1350

• Published in: Speculum 1958-10, Vol.33 (4), p.475-483
• Main Author: Lewis, Archibald R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural land; Government crises; Merchants; Muslims; Peasant class; Popes; Roman Catholic Church; Taxation; Towns; Western civilization
• ISSN: 0038-7134; 2040-8072
• DOI: 10.2307/2846901

Historians whose field of study is American history have long found the concept of the frontier useful and meaningful in explaining the American past. In a recent important book an American historian, Walter Prescott Webb, has extended this concept to include the entire Western European world during the period from 1500 to the present. On the whole, however, historians whose interest is the Middle Ages have made little use of a frontier thesis to explain developments in Europe during the mediaeval period, except in regard to the German advance into Slavic Europe beyond the Elbe. This is a surprising fact, for few periods can be better understood in the light of a frontier concept than western Europe between 800 and 1500 A.D. This article is then an attempt to open up what appears to be a fruitful field for historical speculation by examining a crucial period of Western European history in the light of a frontier thesis.