Medieval CivilizationRecommendations

This one-thousand-year history of Western Europe's civilization has already been acknowledged in France as a high-quality scientific contribution and a popular classic. Jacques Le Goff has developed a book that will thrill and instruct all those interested in the history of mediaeval Europe. It will be read by generations of students and historians. Part one, Historical Evolution, is a narrative history of the whole time, from Roman Europe's barbarian settlement in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries to Christian Europe's war-torn crises in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Part two, Medieval Civilization, is an analytical section that looks at the roots of early mediaeval conceptions of culture and religion, the restrictions of time and space in a pre-industrial world, and the reconstruction of people's lives and sensibilities through time. The narrative and descriptive strength of Anglo-Saxon research is combined with the sensitivity and understanding of the French historical tradition in Medieval Civilization.