ABSTRACT
IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE, as in other traditional societies, short-term changes occurred rapidly, violently, and unpredictably. Fire, famine, pestilence, or war might destroy in one locality with the suddenness of a judgment of God, while in another all remained peaceful. The uncertainties of life in the world were accepted as natural; the rituals of the Church gave meaning to the accidents of nature or of history. No one supposed that the present differed radically from the past; mutability in the realm of nature resolved itself into cycles, and God’s providence determined the fall of empires no less than the yield of the earth. Medieval historiography reflected the fact that chronological change did not necessarily imply fundamental historical change.
