[1] Le Goff championed the Annales School movement, which emphasizes long-term trends over the topics of politics, diplomacy, and war that dominated 19th-century historical research.

Le Goff argued that the Middle Ages formed a civilization of its own, distinct from both Classical Antiquity and the modern world.

He was well known for contesting the very name of "Middle Ages" and its chronology, highlighting achievements of this period and variations inside it, in particular by attracting attention to the Renaissance of the 12th century.

[2] Alexander Lee argued in History Today, "This innovative use of popular culture to uncover the roots of a central idea in the religious thought of the Middle Ages was firmly within the Annales tradition, but extended the boundaries of the Annalistes’ approach in such a way that its broader potential as an historiographical methodology was almost beyond question.

"[3] An agnostic, Le Goff presented an equidistant position between the detractors and the apologists of the Middle Ages.