Abstract

The purpose of this book is expressed in its title. It is an essay, an attempt to explore the ways in which the medieval outlook on the world was changing and giving place to the fourteenth century to new consessions that were ultimately to bring its supersession. It is not a survey, still less a textbook, but rather a delineation of what seem to me to have been the areas of fundamental change. It is, therefore, one individual's interpretation, much though it owes to others.