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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
Tuchman takes narrative history to times of social upheavel and instability. Like "Guns of August", the gritty details come across. Instead of war generals, it's knights, popes and kings. Tuchman writes for the detailed reader, and demands a strong attention. I really enjoyed reading about the rumblings of change with the Catholic Church and John Wycliffe's role. Also, why it was shakey to keep track of all the alliaces and changes in kingship, it was amazing to see how leadership was challenge by foreign leaders and civilians. I think the book is first-rate for anyone who wants to dive into medieval history.
challenging
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
This is sitting on the far side of my nightstand. it's great cocktail party conversation fodder (for example: there used to be laws prohibiting work after dark because it compromised the quality of the good produced. hmm.), but could have used a couple more editors. Like sports, this is a topic I prefer to see on screen. All of those counts and duchesses get blurry so fast without faces to accompany their titles!
Listening to this book about the Middle Ages made me ashamed to be a human. What a horrible, terrible time to live. Constant war, heavy taxes to fund the few elite rich, plague, religious and political corruption, greed, violence and early death for most. Even with Tuchman writing, I had to trudge my way through because it is so depressing.
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Beautifully written and persuasive view of the 1300s. Helped stabilize my sleep patterns. If you are interested in this period of history, it is well worth the effort.
"It was a time of default. Rules crumbled, institutions failed in their functions. Knighthood did not protect; the Church, more worldly than spiritual, did not guide the way to God; the towns, once agents of progress and the commonweal, were absorbed in mutual hostilities and divided by class war; the population, depleted by the Black Death, did not recover."
The 14th Century. Dark, violent, calamitous. Tuchman paints a dismal picture in what is one of her weaker, yet still good, histories.
Sources are scanty and conflicting:
Isabella of Bavaria, Queen of France, is described by one historian as a tall blonde and by another as a "dark, lively, little woman.""
Those that do exist do not engender confidence in those (barely) living through the period:
"A Bishop of Durham in 1318 could not understand or pronounce Latin and after struggling with the word Metropolitanus at his own consecration, muttered in the vernacular, "Let us take that word as read.""
Tuchman hangs the story around Enguerrand VII de Coucy (1340-1397), a Lord in Picardy, France who was an active player in events, including the Hundred Years War, Swiss Indpendence and the final sputtering of the Crusades. It is solidly, if a little stolidly, done. De Coucy rides off in pursuit of yet another tenous family claim to land, whether his own or one of his lieges, occasionally mixed in with fruitlessly pursuing heathens. France had a habit of invading Italy for centuries, generally each time ending in tears for centuries, and de Coucy has his fair share of mixed results. Because of the focus on France, alot gets excluded or briefly alluded to, but a hundred years spent on any one place turns out to be a long time.
Constrained by the sources she chooses, Tuchman is mainly concerned with the high and mighty, but there is time for some discussion of social and economic trends, along with manteled chimneys. Apparently "No other invention brought more progress in comfort and refinement, although at the cost of a widening social gulf."
Tuchman takes a few shots at chivalry and the military incompetence wrought by it, culminating in the disaster at Nicopolis. The beginnings of the Reformation are also heavily hinted via the Schism and Wycliffe:
"Everybody scolded Avignon and everybody came there"
I am not sure how correct a reading all this is, Tuchman has come into criticism for her sourcing and conclusions, however I haven't delved further as yet. She knew how to pick the writings though that evoke her view of the age:
It is a month today
Since my lover went away.
My heart remains gloomy and silent;
It is a month today.
"Farewell," he said, "I am leaving."
Since then he speaks to me no more
It is a month today.
Maybe one to read with a fair bit of patience as it does occasionally become, like history, one damn thing after another.
The 14th Century. Dark, violent, calamitous. Tuchman paints a dismal picture in what is one of her weaker, yet still good, histories.
Sources are scanty and conflicting:
Isabella of Bavaria, Queen of France, is described by one historian as a tall blonde and by another as a "dark, lively, little woman.""
Those that do exist do not engender confidence in those (barely) living through the period:
"A Bishop of Durham in 1318 could not understand or pronounce Latin and after struggling with the word Metropolitanus at his own consecration, muttered in the vernacular, "Let us take that word as read.""
Tuchman hangs the story around Enguerrand VII de Coucy (1340-1397), a Lord in Picardy, France who was an active player in events, including the Hundred Years War, Swiss Indpendence and the final sputtering of the Crusades. It is solidly, if a little stolidly, done. De Coucy rides off in pursuit of yet another tenous family claim to land, whether his own or one of his lieges, occasionally mixed in with fruitlessly pursuing heathens. France had a habit of invading Italy for centuries, generally each time ending in tears for centuries, and de Coucy has his fair share of mixed results. Because of the focus on France, alot gets excluded or briefly alluded to, but a hundred years spent on any one place turns out to be a long time.
Constrained by the sources she chooses, Tuchman is mainly concerned with the high and mighty, but there is time for some discussion of social and economic trends, along with manteled chimneys. Apparently "No other invention brought more progress in comfort and refinement, although at the cost of a widening social gulf."
Tuchman takes a few shots at chivalry and the military incompetence wrought by it, culminating in the disaster at Nicopolis. The beginnings of the Reformation are also heavily hinted via the Schism and Wycliffe:
"Everybody scolded Avignon and everybody came there"
I am not sure how correct a reading all this is, Tuchman has come into criticism for her sourcing and conclusions, however I haven't delved further as yet. She knew how to pick the writings though that evoke her view of the age:
It is a month today
Since my lover went away.
My heart remains gloomy and silent;
It is a month today.
"Farewell," he said, "I am leaving."
Since then he speaks to me no more
It is a month today.
Maybe one to read with a fair bit of patience as it does occasionally become, like history, one damn thing after another.
DNF because I needed to return it to the library, but the section on the plague was illuminating. I was less invested in the parts written about the hundred years war.
It is hard to imagine a work of history more relevant to our own time than this one. We are beleaguered by COVID-19, the 14th century by Bubonic Plague. In the US, we have spent 20 years watching our tax dollars pay for what seems like an endless adventure on the other side of the world, with no real goals or gains. The Hundred Years War was felt by the populations of France and England to be equally fruitless, and the burdensome taxation that financed it a source of deep resentment. The Papal Schizm and clerical excess caused many to distrust the church, much the way sexual abuse and the ridiculous prosperity gospel drive people to disaffiliate with religion today. And of course the conflict between Islam and Christianity never really went away. 40 plus years after its original publication, the mirror of the 14th century has only grown closer.