Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics and Artists in the Middle Ages

In Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics, and Artists, medieval historian Arno Borst offers at once an imaginatively narrated tour of medieval society. Issues of language, power, and cultural change come to life as he examines how knights, witches and heretics, monks and kings, women poets, and disputatious university professors existed in the medieval world.

Clearly interested in the forms of medieval behavior which gave rise to the seeds of modern society, Borst focuses on three in particular that gave momentum to medieval religious, social, and intellectual movements: the barbaric, heretical, and artistic. Borst concludes by reflecting on his own life as a scholar and draws out lessons for us from the turbulence of the Middle Ages.