Authors: Mary Dove
ISBN-13: 9780521129824, ISBN-10: 0521129826
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date Published: February 2010
Edition: (Non-applicable)
This is an investigation of one particular aspect of what is usually called the Ages of Man. Human beings seem always to have divided up their lives into separate stages: this book argues that the medieval understanding of the age in the middle of man's life was very different from our own. Middle age in the Middle Ages did not have dim and negative associations. Instead, it was typically perceived as a 'perfect' age, an age of fulfilment which reached its consummation in the redemption brought about by Christ in his perfect age. The implications of this for medieval understanding of the series of the ages are discussed here for the first time.