Church and Society in the Medieval West

Our knowledge of all periods of history is changing rapidly, though not equally so. Perhaps four areas of knowledge have been transformed most in the past four decades: very early classical history, as a result of new archaeological finds and more sophisticated interpretation of old ones; the awareness of the richness of Byzantine and early Islamic history, which had been relatively dismissed by nineteenth-century historians who, for reasons of their own, sought their roots in the classical past; major debates and concepts about the Middle Ages; and social history in general, and the study of the family, women, ethnic communities, sexuality, and the management of disease in particular. All these subjects have influenced our view of the Middle Ages.