Medieval worlds: Barbarians, heretics, and artists in the Middle Ages

This book takes a broad, philosophical view of the Middle Ages. It shows how the barbaric vitality of the invaders of the Roman Empire was curbed and formalized in the routines of the High Middle Ages. It goes on to show how this closed intellectual system was broken down by the upsurge of heretical movements, and finally how the chaos and distress resultant upon this breakdown of the old system was redeemed by the flourishing of artistic virtuosity. The author is concerned in these essays to give the reader a perspective of the Middle Ages that will enlighten and inform his or her notions of present predicaments.