Episode numbers 1 and 2 of Series “Civilisation”.
Part one. Sir Kenneth Clark looks at the Dark Ages and unravels the extraordinary story of how European thought and art were saved by “the skin of our teeth”, travelling from Byzantine Ravenna to the Celtic Hebrides, from the Norway of the Vikings, to Charlemagne’s chapel at Aachen. Part two. Traces the sudden re-awakening of European civilisation from the first manifestations at the Abbey of Cluny in France to its high point, the building of the Chartres cathedral.