This classic study by a distinguished scholar surveys the major philosophical trends and thinkers of a vital period in Western civilization. Based on Maurice DeWulf's celebrated Princeton University lectures, it offers an accessible view of medieval history, covering scholastic, ecclesiastic, classicist, and secular thought of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. From Anselm and Abelard to Thomas Aquinas and William of Occam, it chronicles the influence of the era's great philosophers on their contemporaries as well as on subsequent generations.