A personal view by Kenneth Clark
This celebrated 13-part series, first shown in 1969, has been seen all over the world and become a landmark in television history. It is now being repeated as a tribute to Lord Clark who died in May. In each programme he examines the ideas and values which to him gave meaning to the term 'western civilisation'

In programme 1: The Skin of Our Teeth, Lord Clark looks at the Dark Ages, the six centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Travelling from Byzantine Ravenna to the Celtic Hebrides, from the Norway of the Vikings to Charlemagne's chapel at Aachen, he unravels the extraordinary story of how European thought and art was saved 'by the skin of our teeth'.
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