This 1000-year history of the civilization of western Europe has been recognized in France as a scholarly contribution of the highest order and as a popular classic. Jacques Le Goff has written a book which will be read by generations of students and historians. Part one is a narrative account of the entire period, from the barbarian settlement of Roman Europe in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries to the war-torn crises of Christian Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Part two is analytical, concerned with the origins of early medieval ideas of culture and religion, the constraints of time and space in a pre-industrial world and the reconstruction of the lives and sensibilities of the people during this long period. Le Goff combines the narrative and descriptive power characteristic of Anglo-Saxon scholarship with the sensitivity and insight of the French historical tradition.--From publisher description.