Aristotle's Children, by Richard Rubenstein

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I just finished this amazing intellectual history of the Middle Ages. The unifying theme of the book is Western Europe's incorporation of and reaction to the works of Aristotle, which were rediscovered in the West in the 11th century. It's so interesting to see that past generations wrestled with the same issues that we do. And it's always surprising to learn the little-known stories of the past.

I tended to think of the medieval period as largely and simply Catholic. But there was always, always, resistance and diversity. Sometimes it came from within the Church, from reformers who urged the Church to give up its manors and wealth to embrace apostolic poverty and eschew the power that inevitably corrupts. Other times it existed outside the Catholic power structure, as in the case of the "counter-church" of Cathars that existed in cultured, wealthy Languedoc in southern France. When the Catholic church's attempts to (re)convert the population through preaching failed, Innocent III announced a crusade against the Cathars and told soldiers they could keep whatever they took from Languedoc. A bloody land grab ensued, and the armies of northern France killed everything in their path, bragging of the 20,000 men, women, and children they chopped down in one day.

This makes it sound like the book is anti-Catholic, but it isn't. Rubenstein gives full credit to the good people within the Church who pushed for justice, social welfare, and intellectual freedom. The great heroes of this time period are precisely those churchmen and monks who pushed time and again to explore the ramifications of classical knowledge and thus started Europe down the path to modern science.
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