Books like An Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe

This is one of the most boring and beautifully soporific pieces I've come across. Ever. Only my interest in the subject matter kept it from getting the lowest rating.I have been interested in Medieval Europe since reading Roselynde by Roberta Gellis over 35 years ago, and find historical fiction much more to my taste than history. I am, however, interested in learning more about the background of the settings of these stories I so love. This is not the way in which to do so.For over a year now, this has been my go-to book when sleep is difficult. A page, a few paragraphs, and boom I'm out like a light. It contains such gems as:"The bases of Hanseatic trade in Western Europe were the London Steelyard, established in the middle of the twelfth century, and above all the kontor at Bruges. In the East, they possessed another at Novgorod, by which they drained the trade of Russia. By the Weser, the Elbe and the Oder their trade penetrated into continental Germany and by the Vistula they dominated Poland and pushed their operations to the confines of the Balkans. On the other hand, the great commercial road, by which in the past the Baltic had communicated with Constantinople and Baghdad via Russia, had been closed since the establishment of the Patzinaks on the shores of the Black Sea and the Caspian in the twelfth century, thus giving the Mediterranean the monopoly of relations with the Byzantine and Moslem East."There are no maps for reference, no explanation of who the heck the Patzinaks were. It is assumed we know. There are no illustrations or line drawings or charts. Just the same horrid prose page after page after page.I inherited the book from my boss's wife, who must have been assigned it as reading for a course when she attended some college class or other during the Great Depression. Her pencilled underlines and margin notes are on every page. It surely does not appear to have been opened since.The most frightening part is the note above the publication date: "First appeared in 1933 in volume 8 ... of 'Histoire du Moyen Age'." How many volumes were there?I hope nobody nowadays is assigned to read it.