Suggesting new approaches to the period when written history begins and the early medieval states emerge, the book examines early European ethnic formations and states, the demography of medieval populations and the nature of rural settlement and urban development. There are chapters on the contact between Byzantium and medieval Hungary and Scandinavia. There is also analysis of the medieval populations of Czechoslovakia and Denmark, of social organization in Poland and cultural conflict in Livonia. Studies of early settlements in Bohemia and the Danube are complemented by detailed accounts of the origin and growth of three great medieval cities--Lubeck, Prague and Kiev.
