Las edades brillantes

The word "medieval" conjures up images of the Dark Ages: centuries of ignorance, superstition, stagnation, savagery, and unhygienic conditions. But the myth of obscurantism clouds the truth, since that was a remarkable period in human history. This work returns the European Middle Ages to its true place, portraying that age of a millennium in all its complexity and basic humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages guides us through ten centuries, zigzagging across Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, shedding new light on familiar people and events. We will look with new eyes not only at the fall of Rome, Charlemagne, the Vikings, the Crusaders and the Black Death, but also at the multi-religious experience of Spain, the rise of Byzantium, the genius of Hildegard of Bingen and the power of queens. We will begin under a canopy of golden stars built by an empress with Germanic, Roman, Spanish, Byzantine and Christian backgrounds, and end nearly a thousand years later with the poet Dante, inspired by that same scintillating heavenly ceiling, writing an epic saga of paradise and hell that survives as a current masterpiece.