Michel Pastoureau (b. 1947), medievalist historian, head of the department of history of Western symbolism at the Practical School of Higher Studies (Paris), vice-president of the French Society of Heraldry, stands at the origins of a relatively new discipline - symbolic history. Trials of animals , the mythology of flowers and trees, the fable bestiary, the emergence of chess in Europe, the archeology and semantics of color, the emergence of coats of arms and flags, the iconography of Judas - these are some of the topics covered in this book, the material for which was collected over thirty years. In "Symbolic History European Middle Ages" Michel Pastoureau summarizes his works on the history of medieval symbolism, which brought him fame and glory as a discoverer. Some works were revised by the author specifically for this publication.