Strategies of Sanity and Survival

Book excerpt: It is an unusual book in many respects. It is a specific study based on original and in most cases unedited sources, but it can also be read as a general introduction. It crosses boundaries between different fields of learning and traditionally accepted time periods of history. Even if it is essentially a book on medieval man, it stretches far beyond the middle ages as conventionally understood. The final chapter traces the slow disappearance of the medieval mentality until the early nineteenth century.