It is known to many historians that the names of epochs which they use to teach history are a double-edged sword, that helps get across some patterns of events, but obscures some other deeper ones. An example which interests me is the way in which the medieval western Europe's "modernity" is so misunderstood. A large number of reasonably educated people understand that the written constitutions and legal revolutions of modernity were very important parts of what makes our period different in practice. They also will know, many of them, that the great legislators of the French and American revolutions were inspired by examples from classical Greece and Rome. They were looking back past the darkness of the "middle" period in western Europe and trying to re-establish some virtuous aspects of those lost civilizations. But everyone seems to miss that a written constitution, a contract which aims to set rules for the benefit of a large free community, is as medi