An Authoratative history of the middle ages in Europe. In 1100 Europe was open in boundaries, faith and outlook. By the middle of the 14th century it was closed - by Mongol & Turkish invasions, by the rift with Byzantium, by the intollerant dogmatism of the church. Friedrich Heer's tour de Force of scholarship and orginality recreates that world : the daily life of aristocrats and peasants, town dwellers and countryfolk; the growth of serfdom and the flowering of chivalry; the roles of cleric and courtier, painter and poet, King and Philosopher. In it we can see our own world in embryo. As Professor Heer writes: History is the present, the present is history'