One of the world's greatest authorities on the Middle Ages, Professor Robert Bartlett of St Andrew's University, investigates the intellectual landscape of the medieval world. 　　In the first programme, Knowledge, he explores the way medieval man understood the world - as a place of mystery, even enchantment. The world was a book written by God. But as the Middle Ages grew to a close, it became a place to be mastered, even exploited. 　　In Sex, he unearths remarkable evidence of the complex passions of medieval men and women. The Church preached hatred of the flesh, promoted the cult of virginity and condemned woman as the sinful heir to Eve. Yet this was the era that gave birth to the idea of romantic, or 'courtly' love. 　　In Belief, the supernatural comes under the spotlight. The medieval dead shared the world with the living: the cult of the saints, encounters with the dead, and visions of the next world were all seen as proof of a two-way traffic between this world and the next. 　　In the final programme, Power, Professor Bartlett lays bare the brutal framework of the medieval class system. Inequality was a part of the natural order: the life of serfs was little better than those of animals, while the knight's code of chivalry was based more on caste solidarity than morality. The class you were born into determined who you were.

长久以来，史学家一直怀疑有好机千艘船，堆出了一条从中东通往中国的海上丝路，这些船经历遥远的路途、越过滔滔白浪，但时间和深海早已将证据销毁殆尽…直到今日。1998年，德国工程师提尔曼华特方，发现了一艘公元九世纪的船只残骸，船上尽是完好如初的黄金、白银和瓷器。当证据一一揭晓，我们终于挖掘出这艘沉船的故事，透过实境重演，我们将穿越时光隧道，回到辛巴达的时代，当时险恶的大海可以把木造船只轻易摧毁。透过和海洋考古学家与瓷器专家的访谈，仔细检视从沉船上取回的特殊对象，我们把这些角色重现在观众面前，生动地呈现出公元九世纪唐朝的繁华中国。

目前中央新影集团已邀请了康洪雷、车径行、韩刚、陈燕民、濮存昕、伊能静等80多位影视文化名人担纲导演；同时引纳了当今众多的书法和美术大师，如：刘大为、欧阳中石、张海、陈谋、陈家泠、吴山明、方增先等共同演绎和解读作品，每首唐诗均配作一幅书法和情景画作品；邀请音乐人士为108首唐诗创作歌曲，作为每部微电影的主题曲。