Audiobook · read by volunteers
Story of the Middle Ages
Samuel B. Harding (1866–1927)
Read by Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023) · 19 chapters · 5 h 31
About the book
Samuel B. Harding wrote this history for a young audience, and it shows in the best way: the pace is brisk, the explanations are clear, and the great events of a thousand years are told as a story rather than a list of dates. The journey begins with the Germanic peoples on the edge of the Roman world and follows the slow collapse of the western empire. It then moves through the rise of the Christian church, the Franks, the reign of Charlemagne, the Northmen and the Crusades. Along the way it pauses to show how people actually lived: inside a castle, in a village or town, behind monastery walls. The closing chapters turn to the struggles between popes and emperors and to the Hundred Years' War. It is a friendly, wide-ranging introduction to a period that still shapes the modern world.
Introduction
Samuel B. Harding (1866-1927) wrote The Story of the Middle Ages for young readers, and it appeared in 1906. Books of this kind were common in the early twentieth century, when schools and families wanted narrative histories that a student could follow without a teacher at every page. This one was meant to be simple and entertaining, and to explain how the medieval centuries still bear on the modern world.
The strength of the book is its balance. Nineteen short chapters, beginning with a brief introduction, give political history its due: the migrations of the Germanic tribes, the end of the western empire, the Franks and Charlemagne, feudalism, the Crusades, the long contest between papacy and empire, and the Hundred Years' War. But three chapters are devoted to ordinary surroundings, the castle, the village and town, and the monastery, so the listener meets lords, peasants, townspeople and monks as well as kings and generals.
The recording runs for about five and a half hours and was read by a LibriVox volunteer. It is a pleasant way to put a thousand years in order before turning to more specialised studies, and the plain, storytelling style carries well when heard aloud. Scholarship has moved on since 1906, but as a clear outline of the medieval story, the book still does its job. Parents and teachers will find it useful as a companion to school history, while adult listeners may enjoy it as a relaxed refresher. Its short chapters make it easy to take in small portions, one episode at a time.
Public domain
Samuel B. Harding died in 1927: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text