Overview
The “Middle Ages” pose a problem in grand narratives of Western Civilization. Composed of a seemingly murky labyrinth of dynastic successions, strange wars, and obscure controversies, they are often glossed over as a dull intermission between Antiquity and the Renaissance. From its first formulation, the term medieval was deployed as a slur imputing barbarism, ignorance, and superstition.
Yet, by the logic of the traditional, tripartite division of history—ancient, medieval, modern—the Middle Ages occupy the central position. If antiquity marks Western Civilization’s birth and infancy and modernity its maturation into full manhood, then the Middle Ages are left with everything between: exploratory adolescence and vigorous, blooming youth.
But modern ignorance of the medieval story obscures its significance in the formation of Western Civilization. In Taking Heaven by Violence, Charles Yost tells that story, ultimately demonstrating that the Middle Ages were the crucible of our civilization—the dynamic surge during which Germanic warlords and Roman priests forged from the wreckage of an ancient empire the vibrant new cosmos of Christendom, the cradle of Europe. In these pages, Yost guides readers from the fifth to the fourteenth century via a riveting gallery of spectacles: from the desperate grip of battle, to the high corridors of sacred power, to the secret intimacies between man, woman, and God. Generous quotations from primary sources throughout allow the medieval dead to appeal directly to the reader as witnesses to the vitality of their age. By the end, Yost may just convince modern readers that it is we, not they, who see reality in boring beige: Medieval man saw everything in searing contrasts, the vivid colors of cathedral glass and manuscript miniatures; they loved and hated with feelings and passions of which modern people seem scarcely capable; they were young, heroic, and strong.
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