This is the first single-author study in over fifty years to offer anintegrated appraisal of the early Middle Ages as a dynamic and formative periodin European history. Written in an attractive and accessible style, it makesextensive use of original sources to introduce early medieval men and women atall levels of society from slave to emperor, and allows them to speak to thereader in their own words. It overturns traditional narratives and insteadoffers an entirely fresh approach to the centuries from c.500 to c.1000.Rejecting any notion of a dominant, uniform early medieval culture, it arguesthat the fundamental characteristic of the early middle ages is diversity ofexperience. To explain how the men and women who lived in this period orderedtheir world in cultural, social, and political terms, it employs an innovativemethodology combining cultural history, regional studies, and gender history.Ranging comparatively from Ireland to Hungary and from Scotland and Scandinaviato Spain and Italy, the analysis highlights three themes: regional variation,power, and the legacy of Rome.The book's eight chapters examine the following subjects: Speaking and Writing;Living and Dying; Friends and Relations; Men and Women; Labour and Lordship;Getting and Giving; Kingship and Christianity; Rome and the Peoples of Europe.Collectively, they establish the complex cultural realities which distinguishedEurope in the period between the end of the central institutions of the westernRoman empire in the fifth century and the emergence of a Rome-centred papalmonarchy from the late eleventh century onwards. In the context of debates aboutthe social, religious and cultural meaning of 'Europe' in the early twenty-firstcentury, this books seeks the origins of European cultural pluralism anddiversity in the early Middle Ages.