Originally published in English in 1985, this book concentrates on the people of the Middle Ages and how they saw the world they lived in. Medieval behaviour - social, economic, political and religious, was regulated by the Medieval picture of the world. This book discusses the most important concepts of medieval culture - space and time, law, the attitude towards work, wealth and poverty - as they are reflected in the vernacular literature of the age: sagas, epics, courtly romances, the love songs of the troubadours, and the works of Dante, as well as numerous Latin writings. This enables the reader to reconstruct the culture of the Middle Ages, revealing it as a culture which resulted from the meeting of several traditions - Christian, classical and barbarian.

A. J. Gurevich (1924-2006) was a Russian medievalist historian. George L. Campbell (1912-2004) was a Scottish linguist who worked for the BBC World Service from 1939 until 1974.