The Pillars: Jerusalem, Athens, and the Western Mind

The Northern Renaissance may be infused with the same spirit as the Italian Renaissance, but it manifested in uniquely northern European ways.

Modern politics cannot be fully understood without Machiavelli.

The notion of human dignity takes center stage as humanism comes to the fore with Petrarch and Pico.

A new era dawns on history as the Renaissance begins.

Chaucer is arguably the most famous writer of the Middle English period.

Dante and Bocaccio did more to develop vernacular writing than perhaps any other writers of their era.

Tales of knights, lords, and ladies have held a prominent position in the western imagination since they were first told.

Passion, love, and romance take center stage in Medieval chivalric literature.

The tragic heroes of the classical era now give way to the new type of hero who will arise in Medieval literature.

The worlds of legal structures and romantic entanglements take a huge step forward during this time period.

The next great philosopher in the tradition of western thought was Thomas Aquinas.

Maimonides arguably was the greatest philosopher of the twelfth century.

The Medieval Islamic world was very advanced in its scholarship and studies, and in some instances surpassed the scholars of Europe.

Life as a Jew in the Middle Ages was difficult across both Christendom and Islamic lands.

When it came to establishing the doctrine of the Catholic Church, there are few quite as important and influential as Augustine.

The disasters of the fourteenth century triggered reactions that involved and impacted the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church.

The greatness of the thirteenth century will collapse into the disasters of the fourteenth.

The Middle Ages were marked by a contradiction between the stability of settling down and a dynamic spirit that inspired greatness.

The tension between intellectual reason and divine revelation stands at the heart of the Medieval spirit of inquiry.

The Middle Ages will see the continued development of the relationship between God and man.

The structures of government in the Middle Ages are quite different from what we have today.

The next chapter in the story of the west is the Middle Ages, centered around Catholic Europe.

As the sun set on the Greco-Roman era, a new dawn will break over Christian Europe.

The Jewish population of Spain thrived under Muslim rule.

Islam has been making headlines since it was founded in the seventh century CE.

The codifying of the Talmud marked a major turning point for Jewish life and law.

As the western half of the Roman Empire fell apart, the eastern half remained a dominant force.

The instability that became the hallmark of the late Roman Republic rears its head again in the late days of the Empire.

There are many ways to explain a text, yet Midrash remains one of the most important.

Tacitus and Juvenal are vastly entertaining in their critiques of the world around them.