Incorporates current research, recent trends in interpretation, and novel perspectives, especially on the foundations of the Middle Ages to A.D. 450 and the Later Middle Ages of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as well as a sharper focus on social history, Jewish history, women's roles in society, and popular religion and heresy.

Discusses the age of knighthood, covering such aspects as arms, armor, training, ceremonies, tournaments, the code of chivalry, and the Crusades.

Provides information on the training, traditions, and life of knights during the Middle Ages for a young boy who thinks that that is what he wants to be.

"A lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages, showing the beauty and communion that flourished alongside the dark brutality--a brilliant reflection of humanity itself."--Dust jacket.

A study of the northern peoples and kingdoms of Ireland, Greenland, Britain, and Christian Europe and their culture, society and livelihood.

A description of buildings, houses, shcools, ports, , and markets in use of quotations, case studies, and contemporary illustrations.