History often identifies the Middle Ages as barbaric, superstitious, and bloody. Many secular historians classify the Catholic Church of the time as omnipotent and overbearing. In reality, the Church provided the world with a common way of life, a common purpose, and unity. In The Church and the Middle Ages (1000-1378), historian Steve Weidenkopf explains that the medieval people were intensely faithful and that it was an era of grandiose...