Well documented are his brief education at Oxford (I was surprised how many monks were allowed to study there, even if they did not study for the full seven years), research and duties at St. The main focus is on the extraordinary life of John of Westwyck, monk, astronomer and astrologer (the distinction was much less clear then) and general polymath, who appears in the records intermittently, with the author making a highly plausible stab at filling in the gaps.

Of course, it is not hard to find examples of these in the medicine, technology and religious belief of the period, but the same can be said of any age including our own and, as the author points out, intolerance of religious and political belief (including burning of witches) worsened in the early modern period. It quite properly challenges the increasingly untenable notion that the Middle Ages was a period of ignorance, superstition and darkness. This is an exceptional achievement for a first book, featuring some great research. An enthralling story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man and an extraordinary time, The Light Ages conjures up a vivid picture of the medieval world as we have never seen it before. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy and the Persian polymath who founded the world's most advanced observatory.

We travel the length and breadth of England, from Saint Albans to Tynemouth, and venture far beyond the shores of Britain. Following the traces of his life, we learn to see the natural world through Brother John's eyes: navigating by the stars, multiplying Roman numerals, curing disease and telling the time with an astrolabe. In this book, we walk the path of medieval science with a real-life guide, a fourteenth-century monk named John of Westwyk - inventor, astrologer, crusader - who was educated in England's grandest monastery and exiled to a clifftop priory.

They gave us the first universities, the first eyeglasses and the first mechanical clocks as medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky. Chosen as a Book of the Year by The Times, Daily Telegraph, TLS, BBC History Magazine and Tablet 'Compulsive, brilliantly clear and superbly well-written, it's a charismatic evocation of another world' Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England The Middle Ages were a time of wonder.

The light ages seb falk