For those who imagine the medieval period along the lines of Monty Python and the Holy Grail — knights, castles, fair maidens, filthy peasants and buckets of blood and gore (you know, all the fun stuff) — Johannes Fried’s version may come as something of an aesthetic shock. His interests lie in the more rarefied world of theologians, lawyers and philosophers.
Sean Mcglynn
The forgotten flowering of the medieval mind
Johannes Fried’s newly translated history proves that the Middle Ages were not an ideas-free zone

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