Preface and Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION From Heaven to Earth 1 CHAPTER ONE A Taste for the New: Commerce, Property, and Language 12 CHAPTER TWO The Evidence of Wills 37 CHAPTER THREE Property: Wills and the Law in Medieval Castile 54 CHAPTER FOUR Itemizing the World: Boundaries, Consolidation of Property, and Rights of Way 67 CHAPTER FIVE Family and Property: Lineages and Primogeniture 87 CHAPTER SIX Heavenly Concerns: Charity and Salvation 110 CHAPTER SEVEN Toward a New Concept of Power: Unsacred Monarchy 133 Conclusion 151 Appendix 155 Notes 163 Bibliography 199 Index 215
This book describes changes in the material world and in attitudes toward the spiritual world that took place in medieval Castile--changes that resulted from a shift in values toward a more practical, quantitative, and secular point of view. No one knows this material with the effortless intimacy Ruiz demonstrates. His scholarship is impeccable, and his argument is presented in a compelling and attractive manner. -- Paul Freedman, Yale University This marvelous book asks large questions of vital importance to all the humanities and social sciences. Professor Ruiz has produced an eloquent and intellectually elegant work of tremendous range. -- David Nirenberg, The Johns Hopkins University
Teofilo F. Ruiz is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he chairs the history department. He is the author of several books, including "A Social History of Spain, 1400-1600".
"As usual, Ruiz's style is clear and at times witty."--Choice "Teofilo R. Ruiz demonstrates the sort of erudition that comes only from experience, discretion, and hard work. The result is a book that will likely stand for many years as an authoritative "must-read" for all historians of medieval Europe."--David Coleman, American Historical Review "From Heaven to Earth is a thought-provoking and remarkable book, integrating a great deal of evidence in a carefully delineated, broad intellectual framework. Fluid and readable, it should be of considerable interest to historians of social and cultural life in Iberia and throughout the medieval West."--Michelle Herder, Speculum
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