A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Only the Church offered an organizing principle, which was the reason for its success, for society cannot bear anarchy.

That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.

Of all the characteristics in which the medieval age differs from the modern, none is so striking as the comparative absence of interest in children.

Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.