First Sentence

"For historians the year 1000 is usually of interest for one of two reasons: either it serves as a shorthand designation for the debate over la mutation de l'an mil, the argument that the turn of the eleventh century signaled a drastic and dynamic period of social and economic change (or else a slow adjustment to a process of change already substantially underway), or that it served as a focal point for the current stage of the old debate as to whether it did or did not witness widespread concern-even terrors-about the end of the world."