A series of 12 lectures designed to cultivate an understanding and appreciation of the Middle Ages, looking at central themes in medieval culture, art, religion, literature, and history.

Historian Chris Wickham defies conventional views of the "Dark Ages" in European history with a work of rigorous yet accessible scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of new material and featuring a thoughtful synthesis of historical and archaeological approaches, Wickham argues that these centuries were critical in the formulation of European identity. Far from being a "middle" period between more significant epochs, this age has much to tell us in its...

Traces the history of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire in the late fifth century to the Viking invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries.

The Black Death was the great watershed in medieval history. In this compact book, David Herlihy makes bold yet subtle and subversive inquiries that challenge historical thinking about this disastrous period. As in a finely tuned detective story, he upturns intriguing bits of epidemiological evidence. And, looking beyond the view of the Black Death as unmitigated catastrophe, Herlihy sees in it the birth of technological advance as societies struggled...

Depicts life in a prosperous city of northwestern Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.