The Bright Ages has an interesting premise with merit – that the popular understanding of the Dark Ages is the effect of an effort to create the myth of darkness from the past century, and it obscures the truth of this period in human history. The Bright Ages attempts to show the Middle Ages for what it was, a much more nuanced time than the general perception. To do that it examines the histories of many of the known, including Charlemagne, the Crusades, and the Black Death, but also to the slightly less known –the multi-religious experience of Iberia, and the genius of Hildegard of Bingen and the power of queens.   I wanted to love this book, but I just liked it. There […]