The Age of Faith

“I cannot imagine anyone so erudite that they cannot learn a great deal from this monumental work.” —from the foreword by Richard Smoley

The great series The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant is one of the most monumental achievements in historical writing. In its eleven massive volumes, it tells the story of Western civilization from its origins to the age of Napoleon.

This volume, The Climax of Christianity, is taken from The Age of Faith, the fourth in the series. It covers the years between 1095—the launching of the First Crusade—and 1300: the age of Dante Alighieri, whose epic poem Divine Comedy is one of the greatest treasures of our civilization.

In between is a drama of world proportions: the struggle between Christendom and Islam over the Holy Land, leading first to warfare, then to interaction the conflicts between the peoples and the Holy roman Emperors over sacred versus secular power; the brutal suppression of heretics such as the Cathars and Waldensians and above all, the rise of the Catholic church to spiritual, intellectual, and moral dominance of the whole of Western Europe.

Durant’s history is not just a matter of kings and popes. He delves into the everyday lives of the people of those times, including their dress and entertainments, their morals and manners. He shows how the economic ascent of medieval Europe from the ruins of the Roman Empire created the Western society that we know today. He also describes the class struggles between nobles, merchants, burghers, and peasants.

Most impressive, perhaps, are Durant’s verbal portraits of great historical figures: the English archbishop Thomas à Becket, murdered in his own cathedral; Abelard, a subtle theologian undone by his love for his beautiful student Héloïse Richard the Lion-Heart, king of England, who preferred adventure to the throne and Dante, who turned the Catholic theology of the Middle Ages into some of the sublimest poetry ever written. 

Anyone who wants an enjoyable, fast-paced, enlightening, and elegantly written history of the Middle Ages could do no better than to turn to this great book.