It may be taken as axiomatic that any statement of fact about the Middle Ages may (and probably will) be met by a statement of the opposite or a different version. Women outnumbered men because men were killed off in the wars; men outnumbered women because women died in childbirth. Common people were familiar with the Bible; common people were unfamiliar with the Bible. Nobles were tax exempt; no, they were not tax exempt. French peasants were filthy and foul- smelling and lived on bread and onions; French peasants ate pork, fowl, and game and enjoyed frequent baths in the village bathhouses. The list could be extended indefinitely.

Contradictions, however, are part of life, not merely a matter of conflicting evidence. I would ask the reader to expect contradictions, not uniformity. No aspect of society, no habit, custom, movement, development, is without cross currents. Starving peasants in hovels live alongside prosperous peasants in featherbeds. Children are neglected and children are loved. Knights talk of honor and turn brigand. Amid depopulation and disaster, extravagance and splendor were never more extreme. No age is tidy or made of whole cloth, and none is a more checkered fabric than the Middle Ages.

The period of active assault began with the age of the crusades, when all Europe’s intramural antagonisms were gathered into one bolt aimed at the infidel. On the theory that the “infidel at home” should likewise be exterminated, massacres of Jewish communities marked the crusaders’ march to Palestine. The capture of the Holy Sepulcher by the Moslems was blamed on “the wickedness of the Jews,” and the cry “hep! hep!” for Hierosolyma est Perdita (Jerusalem is lost) became the call for murder.