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A review by angelofthetardis
Queens of the Age of Chivalry by Alison Weir
informative
slow-paced
2.5
The third in the series of Alison Weir's examinations of the Queens Consort of England from 1066, this volume focuses on the Queens of Edwards I, II and III, and the two Queens of Richard II.
I need to preface this by saying I think Alison Weir is an amazing historian and author; she is authoritative, knowledgeable and yet her works are easily digestible by a lay person. While this book absolutely does fit with that, unfortunately it fails to actually focus on the subject at hand; the women. I found that, throughout, it read like more of a general history of the period; the women are definitely there, and probably do appear more than in a traditional narrative of the period, but nevertheless it didn't tell their story so much as just slotted them into their place in history. I don't feel I learned very much about the women at all, and on numerous occasions found myself 'zoning out' as the book did not live up to what I was expecting from its pages. It almost feels like the author has had a loss of confidence in her own abilities to bring women's history to life.
When I reviewed the first book in this series, I commented that this issue was there too, but in that case I could sort of understand it given that primary source material from the 11th and 12th centuries is exceptionally rare. But, even in that book with little source material to rely upon, the author quoted such sources and pinpointed where a Queen was, and perhaps why she was there. In this book, it is clear that there is more primary source material to draw from, but it is the more mundane kind; accounts. As such, she is able to tell us what the Queen ate or wore wherever she might have been, but there is a complete lack of depth given to them as people. I appreciate that a historian deals in facts, but usually there are at least inferences made as to what the subject's motivations and thoughts may have been and this felt totally missing in this case.
The amount of time dedicated to each Queen also felt uneven to me. I vaguely recall the author making a comment at the outset of this series that, because she had already published standalone books on Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of France, she would not be dedicating that much space to them in these pages. However, Isabella's entry is roughly a third to a half of the length of this book. Her daugher-in-law, Philippa of Hainault, is vastly overshadowed, with much of her life being shoehorned into Isabella's entry due to their overlapping lives. Given the vast amount that has been written about Isabella, I would have preferred that the author stuck with her original plan and tell us more about the 'lesser known' Queens.
There is a small part of me that wonders whether the author has found that she enjoys writing fictionalised history more than the real thing. Although I certainly applaud the effort and the sheer amount of work that she must be putting into this much needed series to bring these women's stories to the masses, at the same time I cannot help but think this is far from her best work. I will definitely still keep buying and keep reading the series as new ones are released, particularly as we are due to enter the era for which the author is better known in the next book, but for now this one will simply sit in my bookshelf as a nice reference guide, but nothing more.
I need to preface this by saying I think Alison Weir is an amazing historian and author; she is authoritative, knowledgeable and yet her works are easily digestible by a lay person. While this book absolutely does fit with that, unfortunately it fails to actually focus on the subject at hand; the women. I found that, throughout, it read like more of a general history of the period; the women are definitely there, and probably do appear more than in a traditional narrative of the period, but nevertheless it didn't tell their story so much as just slotted them into their place in history. I don't feel I learned very much about the women at all, and on numerous occasions found myself 'zoning out' as the book did not live up to what I was expecting from its pages. It almost feels like the author has had a loss of confidence in her own abilities to bring women's history to life.
When I reviewed the first book in this series, I commented that this issue was there too, but in that case I could sort of understand it given that primary source material from the 11th and 12th centuries is exceptionally rare. But, even in that book with little source material to rely upon, the author quoted such sources and pinpointed where a Queen was, and perhaps why she was there. In this book, it is clear that there is more primary source material to draw from, but it is the more mundane kind; accounts. As such, she is able to tell us what the Queen ate or wore wherever she might have been, but there is a complete lack of depth given to them as people. I appreciate that a historian deals in facts, but usually there are at least inferences made as to what the subject's motivations and thoughts may have been and this felt totally missing in this case.
The amount of time dedicated to each Queen also felt uneven to me. I vaguely recall the author making a comment at the outset of this series that, because she had already published standalone books on Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of France, she would not be dedicating that much space to them in these pages. However, Isabella's entry is roughly a third to a half of the length of this book. Her daugher-in-law, Philippa of Hainault, is vastly overshadowed, with much of her life being shoehorned into Isabella's entry due to their overlapping lives. Given the vast amount that has been written about Isabella, I would have preferred that the author stuck with her original plan and tell us more about the 'lesser known' Queens.
There is a small part of me that wonders whether the author has found that she enjoys writing fictionalised history more than the real thing. Although I certainly applaud the effort and the sheer amount of work that she must be putting into this much needed series to bring these women's stories to the masses, at the same time I cannot help but think this is far from her best work. I will definitely still keep buying and keep reading the series as new ones are released, particularly as we are due to enter the era for which the author is better known in the next book, but for now this one will simply sit in my bookshelf as a nice reference guide, but nothing more.