Because of this emphasis on mentalités, Le Goff preferred to speak of birth and genesis rather than origins, decline, or decadence. Hence he wrote The Birth of Purgatory (1981) and The Birth of Europe (2003) (the French title posed a question: L’Europe est-elle née au Moyen-Age?) to communicate the gradual emergence of mental structures within societies in terms of continuity rather than discontinuity. His preference was for “a history of the evolution of deep structures, both material and psychological” over against what he considerd a cursory examination of rapid-moving events. This did not mean that there could be no intellectual revolutions, but such transformations must be viewed as organic extensions within rather than volcanic upheavals of society.

— Dale Coulter, “The Good Historian Resembles An Ogre”

Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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