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THE “MIDDLE AGES” POSE A problem in grand narratives of Western civilization. Composed of a seemingly murky labyrinth of dynastic successions, strange wars, and obscure controversies, they are often glossed over as a dull intermission between antiquity and the Renaissance. From its first formulation, the term medieval was deployed as a slur imputing barbarism, ignorance, and superstition.
Yet, by the logic of the traditional, tripartite division of history—ancient, medieval, modern—the Middle Ages occupy the central position. If antiquity marks Western civilization’s birth and infancy, and modernity its maturation into full manhood, then the Middle Ages are left with everything in between: exploratory adolescence and vigorous, blooming youth.
But modern ignorance of the medieval story obscures its significance in the formation of Western civilization. In Taking Heaven by Violence, Charles Yost tells that story, ultimately demonstrating that the Middle Ages were the crucible of our civilization—the dynamic era during which Germanic warlords and Roman priests forged from the wreckage of an ancient empire the vibrant new cosmos of Christendom, the cradle of Europe. In these pages, Yost guides readers from the fifth to the fourteenth century via a riveting gallery of spectacles: from the desperate grip of battle, to the high corridors of sacred power, to the secret intimacies between man, woman, and God. Generous quotations from primary sources throughout allow the medieval dead to appeal directly to the reader as witnesses to the vitality of their age. By the end, Yost may just convince modern readers that it is we, not they, who see reality in boring beige: medieval men saw everything in searing contrasts; they loved and hated with feelings and passions of which modern people seem scarcely capable; they were young, heroic, and strong.
Charles Yost’s highly accessible study of medieval Europe, from the fall of the Roman Empire down to the disaster of the Black Plague, is packed with luminous insights. Yost traces how the medieval synthesis of Germanic traditions and Roman Latin institutions took form during a thousand-year period to mark what became a recognizable Western civilization. He is especially conversant with theological disputes and shows how the separation of the Western and Eastern Churches had critical impact on the subsequent political and cultural development of the two parts of Europe. Unlike other histories I’ve read over many decades, Yost’s study never leaves the reader word-weary or tired of the subject being addressed. He has a knack for combining demanding theological discussions with unexpectedly lively prose. His book should appeal to both scholars and educated lay readers.
—PAUL GOTTFRIED, editor of Chronicles and Raffensperger professor of humanities emeritus, Elizabethtown College
A rare accomplishment—a lively and coherent account of a complex age. Yost interweaves his narrative of political history with an insightful discussion of the significant movements in theology and philosophy to make an ideal introduction to the Middle Ages.
—THOMAS FLEMING, classical philologist and the author of several books on ethics, politics, and history
Even thinly educated people know something about Greek and Roman classical antiquity and the Renaissance. But the period in between—dismissively known as the Middle Ages, or condemned as the Dark Age—is neither remembered nor understood, thereby making the rebirth of Western civilization an inexplicable mystery. Charles Yost provides the missing explanations, not in a series of pictures that may be striking but necessarily lacking in the details of reality, but in a series of mosaics which tell their stories in the rich detail of their many separate tiles, each one of them richly informative of particular and personal realities. This remarkable book thereby explains the slow-motion cultural revolution that brought us into the still advancing modernity in which we now live.
—EDWARD N. LUTTWAK, author of The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire
A spirited introduction to the main events and characters of the fascinating, yet ever-elusive, Middle Ages. Taking Heaven by Violence invites readers to dig deeper into the sources and scholarship, while giving a clear and enticing overview of the main threads of medieval Europe’s great historical tapestry.
—RACHEL FULTON BROWN, associate professor of medieval history, fundamentals, and the college, University of Chicago