Perspective

C.S. Lewis is a famous Protestant Christian writer and as the Middle Ages are so closely associated with the Christian religion, a reader must be aware of Lewis' religious background. Lewis' work is certainly revisionist. The prevailing view that he is combating is that the Medievals were backwards and unthinking, and thus hardly worthy of modern consideration. While he readily admits that the majority of beliefs described in this book are not true, his purpose is to show that they were not stupid. For what the Medievals had access to (that is, not very much), many of their scientific beliefs were quite justifiable. The first point made in the book is that the belief system of the Medievals was fundamentally different from the belief system that spontaneously arose in many barbarian cultures, because the Medievals were fundamentally scholarly (to a fault, perhaps). They were obsessed with books...