Book Description
In this engrossing study of an 1,100 year period that transformed ancient Europe, celebrated medievalist Jacques Le Goff explores the startling contradictions that helped to forge a durable civilization. It was a period of violence and bloodshed, in which plague and harsh natural conditions conspired against progress. It was also a period of nation-building and considerable achievements in the arts, sciences, and technology. Thirty-two pages of photo illustrations and eighteen maps give visual depth to the author's flawless scholarship and persuasive writing style, making Medieval Civilization an immensely vivid account of the triumph of Western man - a testament to his tenacity, imagination and faith.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this engrossing study of an 1,100-year period that transformed ancient Europe, celebrated medievalist Jacques Le Goff explores the startling contradictions that helped to forge a durable civilization. It was a period of violence and bloodshed, in which plague and harsh natural conditions conspired against progress. It was also a period of nation-building and considerable achievements in the arts, sciences, and technology.

Le Goff - director of the Group for the History of the Medieval West at L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris - has skillfully constructed this exceptional work. Medieval Civilization is both a straightforward history and an investigation of particular crucial aspects of feudal society, such as its social attitudes and mental framework. Le Goff discusses medieval conceptions of time, space, work, ritual, and taste, and fosters a new understanding of the period's material culture and the roles that men and women played in its alliance system - family, kinship, and lordship.