The book by the famous French culturologist and historian Bernard Guenet is dedicated to the formation of history as a science in medieval Western Europe. The author traces from century to century who the people who wrote history were, and who read (or listened to) their works, the goals and needs that guided them; analyzes topics that at different times aroused the primary interest of the public and historians, their characteristic system of values and authorities, problems of social order and the author’s bias; examines the sources they used and the methods of their criticism, genres of historical works, “technical” methods of writing historical works, criteria for their success, ways of distributing manuscripts, etc. - all those questions that a modern historian is faced with .