Life and Thought in the Early Middle Ages

Life and Thought in the Early Middle Ages
172 pages

The period of the early Middle Ages - from the fourth to the eleventh centuries - used to be commonly called the dark ages.

Now that term has been discarded by scholars who reject its implications as they recognize increasingly the historical importance of the period.

In this volume eight historians in as many essays discuss various aspects of the life and thought which prevailed during the centuries which extended from the time of the establishment of Germanic successor states in the western provinces of the Roman Empire to the appearnce of some of the economic and feudal institutions which provided a basis for the civilization of the high Middle Ages.

The essay by showing that a process of assimilation and synthesis of the Roman Christian and barbarian elements characterized life in the early Middle Ages demonstrate that the significance of the period is far better indicated by words like transition or transformation than by the term dark ages.

Includes essays on:

• The Image of Christ in the Early Middle Ages
• The Barbarian Kings of Lawgivers and Judges
• Towns and Trade
• The Two Levels of Feudalism
• The Life of the Silent Majority
• Beowulf and Bede
• Viking - Tunnit - Eskimo
• The Church Reform and Renaissance in the Early Middle Ages

Approved by Englishcology