My Quest for the Middle Ages

This is a translation of a series of five edited interviews with Jean-Maurice de Montremy, each touching upon one of the central themes of Le Goff’s work. In it he reveals to us an unknown, innovative Middle Ages, frightened by various apocalyptic ideas and yet largely inspired by hope. With immense skill, Jacques Le Goff shows that humanism existed before the Renaissance, re-iterating his well-known argument that the Middle Ages were essentially a long series of ‘renaissances’. He also makes it clear that the Europe of the future cannot be constructed on the basis of forgetting the past.