Jacques Le Goff is a prominent figure in the tradition of French medieval scholarship, profoundly influenced by the Annales school, notably, Bloch, Febvre, and Braudel, and by the ethnographers and anthropologists Mauss, Dumézil, and Lévi-Strauss. In building his argument for "another Middle Ages" (un autre moyen âge), Le Goff documents the emergence of the collective mentalité from many sources with scholarship both imaginative and exact.

Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages

History

Le Goff, Jacques

Europe

University of Chicago Press

In The Birth of Purgatory, Jacques Le Goff, the brilliant medievalist and renowned Annales historian, is concerned not with theological discussion but with the growth of an idea, with the relation between belief and society, with mental structures, and with the historical role of the imagination. Le Goff argues that the doctrine of Purgatory did not appear in the Latin theology of the West before the late twelfth century, that the word purgatorium did not exist until then. He shows that the growth of a belief in an intermediate place between Heaven and Hell was closely bound up with profound changes in the social and intellectual reality of the Middle Ages. Throughout, Le Goff makes use of a wealth of archival material, much of which he has translated for the first time, inviting readers to examine evidence from the writings of great, obscure, or anonymous theologians.

The Birth of Purgatory

Religion & Spirituality

In The Birth of Purgatory, Jacques Le Goff, the brilliant medievalist and renowned Annales historian, is concerned not with theological discussion but with the growth of an idea, with the relation between belief and society, with mental structures, and with the historical role of the imagination. Le Goff argues that the doctrine of Purgatory did not appear in the Latin theology of the West before the late twelfth century, that the word purgatorium did not exist until then. He shows that the growth of a belief in an intermediate place between Heaven and Hell was closely bound up with profound changes in the social and intellectual reality of the Middle Ages. Throughout, Le Goff makes use of a wealth of archival material, much of which he has translated for the first time, inviting readers to examine evidence from the writings of great, obscure, or anonymous theologians.

To write this history of the imagination, Le Goff has recreated the mental structures of medieval men and women by analyzing the images of man as microcosm and the Church as mystical body; the symbols of power such as flags and oriflammes; and the contradictory world of dreams, marvels, devils, and wild forests. "Le Goff is one of the most distinguished of the French medieval historians of his generation . . . he has exercised immense influence."â€”Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books "The whole book turns on a fascinating blend of the brutally materialistic and the generously imaginative."â€”Tom Shippey, London Review of Books "The richness, imaginativeness and sheer learning of Le Goff's work . . . demand to be experienced."â€”M. T. Clanchy, Times Literary Supplement

The Medieval Imagination (English and French Edition)

Univ of Chicago Pr

To write this history of the imagination, Le Goff has recreated the mental structures of medieval men and women by analyzing the images of man as microcosm and the Church as mystical body; the symbols of power such as flags and oriflammes; and the contradictory world of dreams, marvels, devils, and wild forests. "Le Goff is one of the most distinguished of the French medieval historians of his generation . . . he has exercised immense influence."—Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books "The whole book turns on a fascinating blend of the brutally materialistic and the generously imaginative."—Tom Shippey, London Review of Books "The richness, imaginativeness and sheer learning of Le Goff's work . . . demand to be experienced."—M. T. Clanchy, Times Literary Supplement

The Medieval Imagination

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

In this brillant meditation on conceptions of history, Le Goff traces the evolution of the historian's craft. Examining real and imagined oppositions between past and present, ancient and modern, oral and written history,History and Memory reveals the strands of continuity that have characterized historiography from ancient Mesopotamia to modern Europe.

History and Memory

Americas

Columbia University Press

In this brillant meditation on conceptions of history, Le Goff traces the evolution of the historian's craft. Examining real and imagined oppositions between past and present, ancient and modern, oral and written history, History and Memory reveals the strands of continuity that have characterized historiography from ancient Mesopotamia to modern Europe.

We have long thought of the Renaissance as a luminous era that marked a decisive break with the past, but the idea of the Renaissance as a distinct period arose only during the nineteenth century. Though the view of the Middle Ages as a dark age of unreason has softened somewhat, we still locate the advent of modern rationality in the Italian thought and culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Jacques Le Goff pleads for a strikingly different view. In this, his last book, he argues persuasively that many of the innovations we associate with the Renaissance have medieval roots, and that many of the most deplorable aspects of medieval society continued to flourish during the Renaissance. We should instead view Western civilization as undergoing several "renaissances" following the fall of Rome, over the course of a long Middle Ages that lasted until the mid-eighteenth century. While it is indeed necessary to divide history into periods, Le Goff maintains, the meaningful continuities of human development only become clear when historians adopt a long perspective. Genuine revolutions―the shifts that signal the end of one period and the beginning of the next―are much rarer than we think.

Must We Divide History Into Periods? (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

Must We Divide History Into Periods?

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Le Goff, Jacques. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Le Goff, Jacques

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Le Goff, Jacques. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages

The Birth of Purgatory

The Birth of Purgatory

The Medieval Imagination (English and French Edition)

The Medieval Imagination

History and Memory

History and Memory

Must We Divide History Into Periods? (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

Must We Divide History Into Periods? (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

Must We Divide History Into Periods?