Helen Castor explores how the people of the Middle Ages handled the most fundamental moments of transition in life: Birth, marriage, and death. In doing so she reveals how people in the medieval world thought and what they believed in. For the people of the Middle Ages, the teachings of the Catholic Church shaped thoughts and beliefs across the whole of Western Europe. But by the end of the Middle Ages, the Church would find itself in the grip of momentous change and the way of medieval of birth, marriage, and death would never be quite the same again.

Helen Castor explores how the people of the Middle Ages handled the most fundamental moments of transition in life: Birth, marriage, and death. In doing so she reveals how people in the medieval world thought and what they believed in. For the people of the Middle Ages, the teachings of the Catholic Church shaped thoughts and beliefs across the whole of Western Europe. But by the end of the Middle Ages, the Church would find itself in the grip of momentous change and the way of medieval of birth, marriage, and death would never be quite the same again.