Knights in shining armor, wandering minstrels and jugglers, elegantly robed lords and ladies, gentle friars and learned monks - tournaments and village fairs, crenellated castles, soaring gothic cathedrals - the Middle Ages was certainly a colorful and exciting period. But it was also a dangerous time of war, superstition, and pestilence - a time when chaos and ignorance threatened to destroy European society and would have done so, were it not for the power of the Catholic Church. Meet the heroes and heroines of medieval Europe and discover through them the many facets of the kaleidoscopic world in which they lived.