Jacques Goff is one of the best historians of the Average Age of our time. In this work, it establishes the bases of a research
which completely calls in question the concept of Average Age Indeed, for Jacques Goff, the Average Age is a concept invented tardily, whereas one had unquestionably entered the modern world. Front, the men lived without worrying about the name which could carry well their time, neither when this period had started, nor even when it would stop. The revolution which the author brings, it is a revision of these dates and these delimitations. It starts by establishing, initially, a new dating of the
beginning of the Average Age, which would not have started with the fall of the Empire Romain d' Occident into 476, but with the beginning of the Byzantine decline and the beginning of the Moslem conquest. Its arguments are that, initially, there is not radical rupture between the Romain Empire and the Byzantine Empire, initially because of the
language, since Goff shows clearly that already, as of the first century before J-C, Latin was not the single language of use among the elites, which often preferred to speak Greek with the detriment about Latin. In addition, the Eastern part of the Romain Empire undergoes an immense influence of the language and Greek culture, language which becomes the language of the Empire when Constantin First decides to move the capital of the Empire from Rome in Constantinople. It is thus to say that the Greek culture is the privileged culture of the Empire. But when the Empire Romain d' Occident collapses, there remains however the Byzantine Empire, which is always the Romain Empire, which will still resist nearly thousand years. One can moreover testify to an Empire to height of his power between the reign to Constantin first and Justinien, between 330 and 536. From a cultural and political point of view, there is thus no reason to define the beginning of the Average Age into 476 with the fall of the Western Empire, since the Romain Empire, famous Byzantine, continues its obvious domination during at least three centuries. For Jacques Goff, rupture appears with beginning of decline Byzantine, whose Empire is regularly devastated by the barbarians, which implies a disappearance of the culture inherited Antiquity, about a new period centered on the emancipation of cruel minority cultures. one thus passes from a prestigious civilization of Greek influence to the emancipation of new civilizations. The second rupture lies in the appearance of Islam and its expansion in the world, whose new influence brings a linguistic revival, cultural and religious, insofar as it does not act more than one influence of Indo-European origin, but Semitic which goes imoser on the world, and whose conquests will arrive as far as Europe between the eighth century on the side of Spain, and the fifteenth century on the side of the Byzantine Empire. This new civilization will have a considerable impact on the world of the time. What would thus place the beginning of an Average Age towards the end of the sixth century. As for the end of the Average Age, Goff does not place it at discovered from America. Indeed, if one can note a change on the level of arts, technological progress is minors and often prevented by the Church which is reticent with progress. The desire of change is not yet places from there in all the fields. In addition, the kings of Europe did not finish their military quarrels in connection with their borders, and the territorial limits are not yet precisely drawn, which calls into question the concept of national identity for many people. This argument is supported by that of the languages. Indeed, there is no official language to delimit the territories. That it is in Italy or France, very few people speak the official languages, and this until the XIX° century. Ierelles chocolate éclairs started with the Protestant Reform with the XVI° century, are only one beginning which is pronged with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes per Louis XIV in France and which prohibits Protestantism in the territory, then, with the prohibition placed on the Jesuits with the XVIII° century which does not have any more legitimacy. For Jacques Goff, the rupture appears more obvious with the great revolutions on the level of sciences, with Newton and of technology, with the invention, for example, of the steam engine, which will definitively make rock our world in modernity. In this case, the concept of revival, or Rebirth, is more obvious, which would make it start in second half of the XVIII° century. The interest of this work is an integral rediscovery of the Average Age, its conditions, its limits, its realities, the whole told with an immense talent and a sometimes disconcerting simplicity so much the scholarship of the author seems to us accessible.