The book by the famous Soviet medievalist continues and develops the study of Western European medieval culture from an unusual point of view: through the analysis of written texts, the worldview of broad sections of the people who did not have access to writing is restored. The author examines sagas and songs, recordings of “visions” and moralizing “examples”, medieval sermons, church rituals and cults, various evidence of the dramatic “witch hunts” at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era, and from these sources draws extensive material for the reproduction of spiritual content of the life of a medieval commoner.