History Lesson

I have always liked history, but, like many teenagers, much of what I learned in high school spilled out of my brain onto my final exam, and that was that.

Being in the SCA, I have learned much about history, but in a very scattered way - this dress pattern from then, that calligraphic hand from there, etc. I have learned what goes with which *culture* but really need to learn to connect the dots across the European continent and beyond.


So, I decided to hit the books. Names and dates are important, but they are just more dots, and I needed LINES; HOW things connect, and WHY.
Norman F Cantor's The Civilization of the Middle Ages seems to be fitting the bill; I'm about 20% through it, and I'm actually finding it hard to put down!

I've been reading about the tangled influences of Roman politics on the early Christain church, and about how Germanic legal practice set the stage for the later British Parliament. The man actually knows how to write so I want to read - I'm enjoying getting educated!