Description

"This is the work of a man with a rare historical gift: the imagination to recreate the world of which he writes and the critical scholarship to make the exercise of imagination fruitful. . . . One of the most exciting books on history to appear in recent years."--The Economist

A distinguished historian presents an absorbing study of the main personalities and the influences that molded the history of Western Europe from the late tenth to the early thirteenth centuries--the formative period of modern Western civilization. R. W. Southern describes the chief forms of social, political, and religious organization, analyzing a wealth of concrete, highly significant episodes. He recaptures the personal experiences and the individual consciences of the men who guided "the making of the Middle Ages."