The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe

I'm a big fan of enthusiastic medieval histories - books like Jean Gimpel's The Medieval Machine or C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image. Books like this avoid looking down their nose at the so-called Middle Ages and illustrate how there's really no dividing lines in Western European history - the Roman era never really ended, it segued into the medieval era - which segued into our era. This book appears to be a happy addition to books which accurately reframe the Middle Ages.However, one caveat is apparent right from the introduction. This book will be readily understood by a general audience, which is a good thing. But it's not written for one. Already in the introduction, you'll find scattered postmodern and critical theorist buzzwords being dropped every few paragraphs. If you are familiar with postmodern studies, you'll be pleased; if you're anyone else, you'll be a little bewildered.An early, startling paragraph ridicules "modern thinkers" who "look to the European past" and "imagine they find white faces" and "the fiction of Europe." This is followed by a reference to Covid-19 (which I feel will date the text unnecessarily, but who knows). Europeans are a thoroughly modern invention and myth, they explain - along with whiteness and Western civilization. Re-reading the paragraph, I realize they launched this by talking about 18th and 19th century imperialist philosophers.Did I purchase a delightful-looking book about the medieval era so I could be sternly reminded that anthropologists and sociologists in the 1800s were racist? Not really. But those guys are a preoccupation of modern academics - 18th and 19th century academia and its racism consumes their thoughts. They are constantly trying to escape the history of their chosen fields. But as a regular lay reader, dead white anthropologists are not my obsession nor my interest. I entered this book being interested in the medieval era.The introduction is disappointing. I hope the rest of the book will not be so, and will update this review when I have completed it.

While a very interesting book, The Bright Ages is somewhat mistitled. It’s not really A New History of Medieval Europe as much as it is a survey of The New History of Medieval Europe.By this I mean that it’s not in any sense a thorough history of medieval times. It is instead slices of medieval history that show that the fine arts, philosophy, architecture and other elements of classical civilization continued into the medieval era.Above all, it shows that the study of the Middle Ages is no longer hampered by Protestant/Catholic and Romantic/Enlightenment polemics. Now scholars can now study this as an era, like most in human history, that had great cultural successes and failures. To paraphrase Dickens, it was simultaneously the darkest and brightest of times.The topics covered range from the well known like the Crusades and the plague to biographies of those known mainly by scholars like Hildegard of Bingen and Moses Maimonides.It’s also written in a light tone accessible to all readers. Given the sometimes ponderous writings on this era, this should come as somewhat of a relief.Finally, the book contains a useful guide to contemporary scholarship on the subjects discussed in each chapter. If you do want to read about what contemporary medievalists are writing this is a useful guide.Readers looking to see what contemporary historians now make of the Middle Ages will find this a pleasant surprise. Those looking for a general history of the era might choose one of the many books recommended in the appendix. Recommended for those willing to open their minds to revisionist history at its best.

Initially I was very excited when I purchased the book. Relooking at the past is always a good idea and certainly from a fresh perspective. While the authors tell some very interesting stores like Galla Placido, Abul-Abass, the Ruthwell Cross, the Jelling Stones and many others, I can't help but feel they forced the narrative to conform to their stilted views of western history. That is, Europeans are very, very bad people. No good came from them. No good will come from them. Disappointing really. Of the hundreds of history books I have read over my seventy years, this is the the first to be "ethically responsible". Whatever that is...

I came to this book already having a decent understanding about the so-called "Dark Ages," a time period I understood as having both wonderful and horrifying events. As a middle school teacher of world history, I strive to teach my students about the complexities of human beings during this time period. With amazement and wonder, we examine how technological achievements affected the expansion of agriculture, cities, and human population, how kingdoms and empires gained power over people, how religions spread to multiple cultures, and how cultures were interacting heavily during this time period. Likewise, with horror, we analyze the atrocities from these interactions and their effects on certain populations. What this book did for me was to illuminate these themes even more and expand on my understanding in a way that I can explain to my students. The authors share stories and perspectives that I did not know before reading their book, and are ones that give me great pause and, quite frankly, rattle me a bit. This book is going to allow me to do a much better job presenting the complexities about the Bright Ages to my students and, importantly, how this impacts us today. I loved this book and I especially appreciate how accessible the writing is. The Further Reading section is fantastic, too. Highly recommend.

Boringly blighted by a matched suite of 'wokeish' presuppositions, presented - as usual- as established certainties with not a trace of proof, or even evidence, adduced to speak for their validity. If you are conversant with the 'woke' litany (and , God help us, who isn't) you will find the author's opinions and conclusions yawningly obvious, long before he ever gets round to stating them. For a vastly more original, imaginative and intelligent take on the period in question, go for 'The Discarded Image' by C.S. Lewis.

This was a very disappointing book. I had expected it to be highlighting the many achievements of the early Middle Ages, whether in art, technology, law, architecture, philosophy etc. etc. Instead it turned out to be a series of lightweight essays in which the authors continually make assertions without providing any justification. Spoiled further by a continual tendency to make judgements according to 21st century feelings which are irrelevant to the period. An understanding of history can only come from an understanding of people and attitudes, and the authors sadly seem unable to understand any attitudes but their own. I read the first few chapters and gave up. After a while I thought I would give it another go and read a few more. I do not think I will bother finishing the book.

Many many years ago, I read an article on how the primate research of Jane Goodall, Birute Galdikas and Dian Fossey changed the views of the power structures and interactions within primate families by virtue of one thing: they brought a female viewpoint to a male-dominated field, and saw cooperation where their predecessors had seen competition. While no doubt simplistic, it is true that in any field of study, every individual brings a set of preconceived ideas through which they not only interpret, but use too to sort and sift, choosing what fits within their constructs, discarding outliers. (As I was taught to, in applying statistical analysis to my own graduate research.)In the past decades, and accelerating in the 21st C, many historians and archaeologists are interpreting the events of the past through different lenses, challenging long-held views. Facts are looked at in different lights, or new techniques: warrior burials thought to be men are women; DNA studies change what we know about how Yersinia pestis spread across the world. But not just through science, but through viewpoints from different traditions and scholarship, and by listening to voices marginalized or dismissed, another picture can and does emerge.In The Bright Ages, authors Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry use these new interpretations and new knowledge to give us an overview of the time known until recently as ‘the dark ages’: from the decline of Rome’s power in Western Europe to the beginning of the Renaissance. Choosing a series of events on which to focus, ones that may be familiar to readers with an interest in this time period, they illustrate how interconnected the world was. Aggression and conquest were part of this time; atrocities on all sides happened. But so did the exchange of knowledge and ideas, whether in technology or philosophy, theology or medicine: men and women met in person or by letter to debate, challenge, and change the interpretations of secular and religious thought and practice, enlightened by the exchange across cultures, beliefs, experiences -- just as is happening today.The Bright Ages is an eminently readable book, the style casual enough for a non-specialist reader but with enough rigor to make it a starting point for more investigation. (Helpfully, the authors provide a section on further reading for each chapter, which may strain my book budget.) It is a solid, useful adjunct to scholarly research (not easily accessible to many) re-evaluating knowledge, thought and belief about medieval Europe.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the middle ages in Europe, and this book is a mythbusting romp. It does an excellent job of bringing a lot of disciplines — art, history, religion, music, literature — together in a very accessible way. This is a fresh look at the medieval period that challenges old stereotypes and makes the complexities of these centuries easier to understand. History is a discipline and a craft, not a static structure; we see it differently as new evidence becomes available, and as our own position shifts. This is solid history-making, and it will treat you to a surprisingly beautiful and complicated Middle Ages. Highly recommended.

Cultural prejudices and religious narratives – earlier forms of ‘fake news’ - have left us with a distorted view of the past. This book successfully challenges many previous preconceptions about the dark ages. As examples, the authors present significant evidence that: Islam in Western Europe was quite tolerant of Judaism and Christianity; women had a significant role in power and politics; cities practised democratic forms of government; Rome did not ‘fall’. The breezy anecdotal style of the writing – it’s very accessible – at first made me a little suspicious of its scholarship. But the evidence and references are detailed and convincing.Small criticisms would include: an excess of information about religious history (just one chapter) and a tendency to de-emphasize the violence of the period.One line of argument just touched upon, but not explored (Is there another book here?): the so-called Age of Enlightenment was in fact an age of intolerance.Overall, I was delighted to have so many assumptions swept away. The “Bright Ages” may present too Pollyanna a perspective, but they certainly were not the dark ages either.