The millennium that elapsed from the collapse of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Reformation was full of transformations, and therefore it is not so easy to describe it within the framework of one book. Nevertheless, British historian Chris Wickham accepted the challenge. He shows the Middle Ages as a dynamic period of large-scale change, focusing on such significant events as the fall of Rome, the reforms of Charlemagne, the spread of Christianity in Europe, the decline of the Byzantine Empire, the epidemics of the Black Death, etc. Analyzing them, the author tells what changes they caused in the social, economic and political spheres, as well as in the private life of people. A panoramic picture of the life of the states and cities of medieval Europe unfolds before the reader's eyes, a gallery of images of emperors, kings, church leaders, knights, peasants, merchants passes. This informative and captivatingly written analytical work will be of interest to both specialists and those who turn to the period of the Middle Ages for the first time.