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mburnamfink 's review for:
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
by Barbara W. Tuchman
A Distant Mirror is a fascinating study of the time and culture of chivalry, as seen through the life of Enguerrand de Coucy, a powerful French baron, and last of his line. de Coucy left a relatively light mark on the historical record (his face is turned away from the viewer in the only extant portrait, his castle was razed by the Nazis in WW2), but this book is more about the entire time, and that time was a shitshow.
The central event of the 14th century was the Black Death, a wave of plague which reduced the population of Europe by between 30% and 40%. War was almost constant, and the superiority of walled cities and castles over armies of the time meant that war was fought by mass destructive raids. Men-at-arms, called to fight for France or England or Burgundy, would transition almost effortless to brigands during periods of truce. The Catholic Church was at its lowest ebb, split in the Great Schism between rival popes in Rome and Avignon. Chivalry had degenerated to a parody of high culture, with knights lavish dandies and dancers by night, and incapable of even moderate tactics in battle.
Tuchman's book is a masterful survey of the glamour of life at the top of Medieval society, and the oppression and suffering that support that glittering top.
The central event of the 14th century was the Black Death, a wave of plague which reduced the population of Europe by between 30% and 40%. War was almost constant, and the superiority of walled cities and castles over armies of the time meant that war was fought by mass destructive raids. Men-at-arms, called to fight for France or England or Burgundy, would transition almost effortless to brigands during periods of truce. The Catholic Church was at its lowest ebb, split in the Great Schism between rival popes in Rome and Avignon. Chivalry had degenerated to a parody of high culture, with knights lavish dandies and dancers by night, and incapable of even moderate tactics in battle.
Tuchman's book is a masterful survey of the glamour of life at the top of Medieval society, and the oppression and suffering that support that glittering top.