When the Roman Empire declined, Britain went backward. As the Roman villas crumbled, the people built one-room wooden dwellings without chimneys. The technology of Roman pottery - important for storing food - was mostly lost. Literacy declined. This period is sometimes called the Dark Ages, and progress was painfully slow for five hundred years. Then, at last, things started to change... In this prequel to the monumental The Pillars of the Earth,...

"The history of Mount Angel Abbey as the history of a pilgrim Church, a steady and transformative sign of God's kingdom on earth"--