W. Robert Godfrey

There was still an eastward look.

The recent Ligonier cruise some of us were on, I was really reinforced in the reality of that, that for centuries Venice, for example, remained largely a port looking east in the Mediterranean.

in contact with people in the East.

And so as we go along, although we'll often be looking more on a north-south axis in Western Europe, the truth is the reality of the medieval world, especially in the earlier part, is still very much east-west as well as north-south.

But the most important question, of course, is what were the Middle Ages?

What was the character of them?

In textbooks maybe a hundred years ago, they were often referred to as the Dark Ages.

And that was a wonderful way of being able to say nothing important happened and we can skip it.

And there's a particularly a Protestant tendency to do that.

Okay, Augustine died.

When exactly did Luther come along?

Let's go from one good guy to another.

And let's ignore the fact that there are only about 1100 years between them.

Surely nothing much can have happened in those 1100 years.

Let's get to the Reformation.

Well,

They weren't a dark age.

They were, in fact, an age of a great deal of cultural and intellectual and ecclesiastical accomplishment that is very important and we need to take a serious look at.

Now some have argued that the Middle Ages was a dark age.

Some, particularly Roman Catholics, have argued it's the age of faith.