If you take a guided tour through the bleached-white columns and ruins of Ancient Rome, your guide will be sure to tell you that the image of brilliant white Roman monuments is a modern invention. Today's neoclassical monuments are famous for their stark façades — just look at the White House itself. But this is an accident of history. Roman monuments were painted in brilliant colors, matching the colorful fashions and decorations of the Roman people. But those colors were lost with time, leaving behind blank stone.

I love to think that the past was more vibrant and lively than we can possibly imagine. This article describes Medieval Europe in the same way as a tour guide might describe ancient Rome. We imagine medieval castles and churches as grey, cold, dreary spaces — which probably just reflects how they appear today. But many centuries ago these same spaces were filled colorful light, filtered through stained glass, which played across the brilliant tapestries that adorned the walls, which themselves were painted in bright colors. In the evening, the spaces would have been filled with warm candlelight, illuminating ornate religious shrines filled with ornaments. Perhaps their inhabitants rested on plush furniture underneath lush canopies — all details lost to time.