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Can the medieval world still speak to the modern? The implicit answer in Bede Jarrett's remarkable work, Social Theories of the Middle Ages, is a resounding "yes". Fascinating as a purely historical study, it serves also to present the foundation whereby Christendom began to articulate the vision of a different kind of common life.

Embedded in medieval doctrines regarding law, women, Christendom, art - and especially just war, property, money-making, and education - are principles that we would well relearn in the present age. By rediscovering the inner structure of such a society, we might forge our own adaptation of these principles in a new embodiment of distributist order. And in shaping such an alternative vision - one which can transcend the division and dehumanization of present political, economic, and social structures - there is no better starting-point than Social Theories of the Middle Ages.