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llynn66 's review for:
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
by Barbara W. Tuchman
Imagine a time when corruption had soaked into every crevice of society...church and state were either aligned in machinations to control the populace and enrich themselves to unseemly heights or locked in public feuds and power struggles over this same popular influence. Imagine a time when discourse was often coarse and vulgar and professional moralists wrung their hands in exasperation and outrage. Imagine a time when youth reigned supreme and people between the ages of 15 and 30 had a disproportionate influence on the course of human events. Imagine a time when aggression and invasion were practically unending; where the King (who was the State) used empire building to gain status and treasure for himself and his small circle of wealthy nobles and billed the masses in taxes and blood.
In other words, imagine a time not unlike our own anxious and pessimistic century. And then consider that it has all happened before.
I purchased a used copy of Barbara Tuchman's panoramic history of the 14th century about 15 years ago and have finally gotten around to reading it cover-to-cover. It was a fantastic voyage to the depths of the Middle Ages. I am so glad that I saved this book for a time when I could read it slowly and with attention. A Distant Mirror is dense reading. The book is drenched in facts and detail. Yet Tuchman's lively writing style makes it an intriguing page-turner for anyone who has an interest in medieval history -- and may possibly win a few open minded readers who were not even aware they were interested before beginning Tuchman's book.
Tuchman traces the events of the 14th century, beginning with the incomprehensible ravages of the Black Death, through the life of a notable French nobleman named Engeurrand de Coucy. Coucy's lifespan covered the majority of this miserable century and his life was documented with more detail than many of his time. Coucy was involved with most of the major battles of his day, he was in the circle of the kings of France as well as having connections with the English royal family. His stronghold of Coucy was a strategic fortress and an amazing example of the finest of medieval architecture. (Much less primitive than one would expect.) Coucy was a man of his time...but a finer example of a medieval man. He appeared to be more rational, judicious and practical than the stereotypic knight errant. His story is, in itself, an epic adventure. The backdrop of 14th century Europe adds amazing drama to his biography.
The forces of plague, war, brigandage and religious crisis due to the unprecedented papal schism are the major dark themes of the age. So much death, destruction, abuse, chaos and woe were packed into the century that society seemingly spiralled out of control.
Entire books have been devoted to the subject of the plague (such as John Kelly's The Great Mortality.) Such is the scope of misery and misdeed in the 1300s that this unprecedented catastrophe, which wiped out as much as 50% of the population of Europe, is merely one on a laundry list of horror presented in A Distant Mirror.
War and the love of war consumes the bulk of any discussion of medieval public affairs. The modern reader pictures knights wielding mace and lance. In truth the military and engineering feats of this era were surprisingly sophisticated. The French army, for instance, prepared a portable wooden town to be transported across the channel to England and set up in less than 3 hours as a base of operations. This 'town' was to have a circumference of 9 miles and an area of 1000 acres surrounded by a 20 ft wall.
Military strategy, on the other hand was simplistic and wedded to the highly impractical concepts of 'chivalry'. Brute force combined with an overblown attitude of glorious battle were the rule. In Tuchman's words: "For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use."
The ruling/warring class was no longer keeping up the Arthurian facade by the latter part of the 14th century and the general population was beginning to turn on the concept. "Chivalry was not aware of its decadence, or if it was, clung ever more passionately to outward forms and brilliant rites to convince itself that the fiction was still the reality. Outside observers, however, had grown increasingly critical as the fiction grew increasingly implausible. It was now fifty years since the start of the war with England, and fifty years of damaging war could not fail to diminish the prestige of a warrior class that could neither win nor make peace but only pile further injury and misery upon the people."
Coucy was respected and well regarded by his fellow noble class as well as members of the lower classes. In this regard, he was a stand-out personality. If Coucy had been less the exception and more of the rule, perhaps the flowering of Europe 100 years in the future would have accelerated. However, rampant corruption, debauchery, casual violence and cruelty were still in full sway throughout the 1300s. The effects were more than a few sage leaders could combat: "Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot." (This jumped out of the page as counsel for our own era.)
The other cornerstone of medieval society...the Catholic Church...was, at the same time, undergoing cataclysmic upheaval in the form of the papal schism with a French imposed upstart papacy in Avignon battling the established Roman pope. Cynicism and despair were running high and reformers such as Jan Hus, Wyclif and Gerson each had an era of influence with the general population -- foreshadowing the rise of Martin Luther and the protestant movement.
Public morality was suffering: "The young...rarely went to church except on feast days and then only to see the painted faces and decollete gowns of the ladies and the spectacle of their headdresses 'immense towers with horns hung with pearls.' People kept vigils in church not with prayer but with lascivious songs and dances, while the priests shot dice as they watched. Gerson deplored the same laxity: men left church in the midst of services to have a drink and 'when they hear the bell announcing consecration, they rush back into the church like bulls.' Card-playing, swearing, and blasphemy, he wrote, occurred during the most sacred festivals, and obscene pictures were hawked in church, corrupting the young. Pilgrimages were the occasion for debauchery, adultery, and profane pleasures."
Since A Distant Mirror presents the 14th century through a French prism, I will reach for the French language to underscore a major theme in the book: "la plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose". It is not difficult to see the threads of human folly and greed and capacity for base behavior running in a direct line across the chasm of 700 + years.
"Mankind was at one of history's ebbs." writes Tuchman. "At mid-century the Black Death had raised the question of God's hostility to man, and events since then had offered little reassurance. To contemporaries the miseria of the time reflected sin, and, indeed, sin in the form of greed and inhumanity abounded. On the downward slope of the Middle Ages man had lost confidence in his capacity to construct a good society."
Yet throughout this litany of despair and miscreant behavior, the occasional burst of light will emerge from the miasma of the century. The life of Coucy, for example, punctuates events with examples of a man who, by and large, treated his family and associates fairly, led by example, counselled wisely, provided loyalty and courage in his affairs and seemed to be a man of relative enlightenment. Coucy's role is to remind the reader that all eras have their villains and heroes, their high cultural points as well as their lowest common denominator excesses, their sages and visionaries who can see farther down the road of history than the average soul.
My review is lengthy because, there is so much to say about the nearly 600 pages of this fascinating look backward and eye opening look at our own times. Although Tuchman wrote this book in 1979, no doubt mired in pessimism over the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, the stagnant economy and the general social ennui of that period...the entree into the 21st century has only given rise to larger global problems and yet more uncertainty and anxiety in the populace. Perhaps reading A Distant Mirror will provide some balance and a longer view of how societies can (and do) bounce back from seemingly insurmountable odds.
As bad as the New Depression, the Climate Crisis, the rise of global terrorism and the ravages of reality television may be...it could always be dirtier and more painful. A Distant Mirror is not your grandma's Society For Creative Anachronism. It presents an era of mad kings, drunken emperors, lusty priests, scheming queens and brutal brigands...stripped of their romantic trappings and presented as highly modernist characters.
In other words, imagine a time not unlike our own anxious and pessimistic century. And then consider that it has all happened before.
I purchased a used copy of Barbara Tuchman's panoramic history of the 14th century about 15 years ago and have finally gotten around to reading it cover-to-cover. It was a fantastic voyage to the depths of the Middle Ages. I am so glad that I saved this book for a time when I could read it slowly and with attention. A Distant Mirror is dense reading. The book is drenched in facts and detail. Yet Tuchman's lively writing style makes it an intriguing page-turner for anyone who has an interest in medieval history -- and may possibly win a few open minded readers who were not even aware they were interested before beginning Tuchman's book.
Tuchman traces the events of the 14th century, beginning with the incomprehensible ravages of the Black Death, through the life of a notable French nobleman named Engeurrand de Coucy. Coucy's lifespan covered the majority of this miserable century and his life was documented with more detail than many of his time. Coucy was involved with most of the major battles of his day, he was in the circle of the kings of France as well as having connections with the English royal family. His stronghold of Coucy was a strategic fortress and an amazing example of the finest of medieval architecture. (Much less primitive than one would expect.) Coucy was a man of his time...but a finer example of a medieval man. He appeared to be more rational, judicious and practical than the stereotypic knight errant. His story is, in itself, an epic adventure. The backdrop of 14th century Europe adds amazing drama to his biography.
The forces of plague, war, brigandage and religious crisis due to the unprecedented papal schism are the major dark themes of the age. So much death, destruction, abuse, chaos and woe were packed into the century that society seemingly spiralled out of control.
Entire books have been devoted to the subject of the plague (such as John Kelly's The Great Mortality.) Such is the scope of misery and misdeed in the 1300s that this unprecedented catastrophe, which wiped out as much as 50% of the population of Europe, is merely one on a laundry list of horror presented in A Distant Mirror.
War and the love of war consumes the bulk of any discussion of medieval public affairs. The modern reader pictures knights wielding mace and lance. In truth the military and engineering feats of this era were surprisingly sophisticated. The French army, for instance, prepared a portable wooden town to be transported across the channel to England and set up in less than 3 hours as a base of operations. This 'town' was to have a circumference of 9 miles and an area of 1000 acres surrounded by a 20 ft wall.
Military strategy, on the other hand was simplistic and wedded to the highly impractical concepts of 'chivalry'. Brute force combined with an overblown attitude of glorious battle were the rule. In Tuchman's words: "For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use."
The ruling/warring class was no longer keeping up the Arthurian facade by the latter part of the 14th century and the general population was beginning to turn on the concept. "Chivalry was not aware of its decadence, or if it was, clung ever more passionately to outward forms and brilliant rites to convince itself that the fiction was still the reality. Outside observers, however, had grown increasingly critical as the fiction grew increasingly implausible. It was now fifty years since the start of the war with England, and fifty years of damaging war could not fail to diminish the prestige of a warrior class that could neither win nor make peace but only pile further injury and misery upon the people."
Coucy was respected and well regarded by his fellow noble class as well as members of the lower classes. In this regard, he was a stand-out personality. If Coucy had been less the exception and more of the rule, perhaps the flowering of Europe 100 years in the future would have accelerated. However, rampant corruption, debauchery, casual violence and cruelty were still in full sway throughout the 1300s. The effects were more than a few sage leaders could combat: "Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot." (This jumped out of the page as counsel for our own era.)
The other cornerstone of medieval society...the Catholic Church...was, at the same time, undergoing cataclysmic upheaval in the form of the papal schism with a French imposed upstart papacy in Avignon battling the established Roman pope. Cynicism and despair were running high and reformers such as Jan Hus, Wyclif and Gerson each had an era of influence with the general population -- foreshadowing the rise of Martin Luther and the protestant movement.
Public morality was suffering: "The young...rarely went to church except on feast days and then only to see the painted faces and decollete gowns of the ladies and the spectacle of their headdresses 'immense towers with horns hung with pearls.' People kept vigils in church not with prayer but with lascivious songs and dances, while the priests shot dice as they watched. Gerson deplored the same laxity: men left church in the midst of services to have a drink and 'when they hear the bell announcing consecration, they rush back into the church like bulls.' Card-playing, swearing, and blasphemy, he wrote, occurred during the most sacred festivals, and obscene pictures were hawked in church, corrupting the young. Pilgrimages were the occasion for debauchery, adultery, and profane pleasures."
Since A Distant Mirror presents the 14th century through a French prism, I will reach for the French language to underscore a major theme in the book: "la plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose". It is not difficult to see the threads of human folly and greed and capacity for base behavior running in a direct line across the chasm of 700 + years.
"Mankind was at one of history's ebbs." writes Tuchman. "At mid-century the Black Death had raised the question of God's hostility to man, and events since then had offered little reassurance. To contemporaries the miseria of the time reflected sin, and, indeed, sin in the form of greed and inhumanity abounded. On the downward slope of the Middle Ages man had lost confidence in his capacity to construct a good society."
Yet throughout this litany of despair and miscreant behavior, the occasional burst of light will emerge from the miasma of the century. The life of Coucy, for example, punctuates events with examples of a man who, by and large, treated his family and associates fairly, led by example, counselled wisely, provided loyalty and courage in his affairs and seemed to be a man of relative enlightenment. Coucy's role is to remind the reader that all eras have their villains and heroes, their high cultural points as well as their lowest common denominator excesses, their sages and visionaries who can see farther down the road of history than the average soul.
My review is lengthy because, there is so much to say about the nearly 600 pages of this fascinating look backward and eye opening look at our own times. Although Tuchman wrote this book in 1979, no doubt mired in pessimism over the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, the stagnant economy and the general social ennui of that period...the entree into the 21st century has only given rise to larger global problems and yet more uncertainty and anxiety in the populace. Perhaps reading A Distant Mirror will provide some balance and a longer view of how societies can (and do) bounce back from seemingly insurmountable odds.
As bad as the New Depression, the Climate Crisis, the rise of global terrorism and the ravages of reality television may be...it could always be dirtier and more painful. A Distant Mirror is not your grandma's Society For Creative Anachronism. It presents an era of mad kings, drunken emperors, lusty priests, scheming queens and brutal brigands...stripped of their romantic trappings and presented as highly modernist characters.