The millennium that passed from the collapse of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Reformation was saturated with transformations, and therefore it is not so easy to describe it in one book. Nevertheless, the British historian Chris Wickham accepted this challenge. He shows the Middle Ages as a dynamic period of large-scale changes, 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, 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. Before the eyes of the reader, a panoramic picture of the life of states and cities of medieval Europe unfolds, there is a gallery of images of emperors, kings, Church leaders, knights, peasants, merchants. This information-rich and fascinatingly written analytical work will be of interest to both specialists and those who will turn to the period of the Middle Ages for the first time.