14th century reading list?

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14th century reading list?

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1baswood
dec 18, 2010, 6:33 pm

Over the last couple of months I have been reading The Riverside Chaucer which has sparked an interest in 14th century history and so far I have read:

the fourteenth century - May McKisack
The hundred years war: Trial by battle - Jonathan Sumption
The hundred years war: Trial by fire - Jonathan Sumption
The life and times of Chaucer - John Gardner
The time traveller's guide to medieval England - Ian Mortimer
Edward I: The great and terrible king - Marc morris

I now want to delve further and would welcome suggestions on where to go next still keeping in mind that I want to stick with the literature and history of the 14th century. I have noted that The civilization of the Middle Ages by Norman F Cantor might be good background reading particularly as a way of understanding why people in the 14th century thought the way they did.

I would also like to explore warfare in the 14th century. The countless sieges that happened in the hundred years war and what methods were used to win or raise the sieges sounds fascinating. Any suggestions please for further reading

2cemanuel
dec 18, 2010, 10:03 pm

The 14th Century isn't really my period but for warfare I'd suggest Cliff Rogers' War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy Under Edward III.

Richard Barber's Edward Prince of Wales and is also good.

For sieges, Bradbury's Medieval Siege is quite good. It's not specifically 14th Century but it will cover it.

I don't know if Cantor is the best - it's OK as an overview of the entire Middle Ages but if that's what you want, LeGoff's Medieval Civilization is better. And if you want to explore thought, I like David Lindberg's The Beginnings of Western Science. It covers much more ground than just the 14th Century but it's very good. It also covers how intellectual thought developed but nobody knows much about peasants because they didn't write many of the books.

My Touchstones are acting weird - I can only get them to work by entering a partial title.

3Nicole_VanK
dec 19, 2010, 5:15 am

The 14th century isn't really my thing either - so my knowledge is limited. But for cultural history I would still recommend The autumn of the middle ages - aka "The waning of the middle ages" - by Johan Huizinga, even though it's a bit dated.

4HarmlessTed
dec 19, 2010, 3:10 pm

5dkathman
dec 19, 2010, 4:55 pm

Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" isn't very well thought of by historians, but at least it's better than William Manchester's "A World Lit Only By Fire", which is universally reviled by medievalists.

For general intellectual background, you could try Marcia L. Colish's Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition. Also The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries in the Short Oxford History of the British Isles series -- not a narrative history, but a series of thematic chapters that are good if you're looking for an overview.

I have a bunch of books on medieval warfare, which you can see here:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dkathman&tag=medieval%2Bwarfare

A lot of them are about the Battle of Hastings, which is before the time you're talking about, but there are quite a few dealing with the fourteenth century. I also have my history books tagged by century, so maybe my books with the "history (1300-1400)" tag will give you some ideas:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dkathman&tag=history%2B%25281300-1400%25...

6baswood
dec 20, 2010, 7:25 pm

Thanks for all your suggestions. There is enough here to keep me interested for the next year at least. I have already bought the autumn of the middle ages and more will follow. I will give my thoughts and ratings of the books as I read them

7affle
dec 20, 2010, 7:52 pm

As you're in le Gers, you might like Montaillou by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie - the early fourteenth century in Ariege.

8cemanuel
dec 21, 2010, 6:51 am

Montaillou has some issues. You can check my comments on post #22 in this thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/53317

I've read it and liked it and think it probably does provide a good "feel" for the period and place but I always throw this warning out in case someone wants to directly cite something from it.

9Violette62
dec 24, 2010, 1:00 pm

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland takes place in 1384 England. It's about a group of strangers who meet while traveling as fast as possible away from the Black Plague as it spreads throughout England.

10timomara
jan 23, 2011, 6:33 pm

If you like fiction try Doomsday Book by Connie Willis: time travel back to the middle of the fourteenth century lands the heroine in a plague village - both moving and historically convincing

11baswood
jan 23, 2011, 8:23 pm

Thanks tinomara, I have been thinking oif reading something by Connie Willis as I like Sci-fi and your suggestion looks like a good place to start.

13erilarlo
jan 29, 2011, 7:56 pm

Although I understand Huizinga is considered a bit out of date in light of more modern research, I've also heard he's rather readable.

14JimThomson
jan 29, 2011, 11:47 pm

Isn't it interesting that none of the books listed here concern the most influential event of the fourteenth century, the Black Death, which reduced the population of Europe by sixty per-cent by the end of the century. The population of Europe did not return to that of 1345 for FIVE CENTURIES.

15Nicole_VanK
jan 31, 2011, 7:53 am

> 13: He is, on both counts. Yeah, first published 1919 - it's a classic in its field. But research wasn't ended then.

16baswood
Bewerkt: feb 2, 2011, 9:49 am

#13 & #15
The autumn of the middle ages, Johan Huizinga. This is a wonderful book that has kept me enthralled over the last four days. The version I have is a 1996 translation by Rodney J Payton and Ulrich Hammitzsch which flows beautifully. I was looking to read something that would give me some idea of the mindset of people in the 14th (15th) century ands this fits the bill. It does concentrate on the nobility which Huizinga says retained their relevance to society although they no longer dominated it and I understand that research and opinions on the period have moved on since it was written in 1919. I found much to discover in it and believe it still has relevance today and on top of that, it is such a brilliantly written book.

Thanks to all those people that recommended it. Next up for me to read is Chronicles, Froissart the penguin classics edition.

17baswood
feb 13, 2011, 7:36 pm

Chronicles, Froissart
Just finished reading this version in Penguin Classics. It is a selection from each of Froissart's four chronicles, which have been translated by Geoffrey Brereton. The chronicles are contemporaneous documents written by Froissart when he was attached to the courts of Edward III, Richard II and The Count of Foix as well as when travelling around France and England during the 100 years war. He has been described as one of the first journalists and much of the writing has a breathless lively quality to it.

I know that some of what he wrote was very inaccurate and at times he made it up, however his accounts of the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, Sluys and the peasants uprising of 1381 have been extensively used by modern historians and it is great to read the original accounts by a 14th century writer which are steeped in the culture of the late middle ages. He was writing for a knowledgeable contemporary audience and so his accounts had to be realistic.
He attached himself to the courts of the great and the good and so his writing always took the viewpoint of royalty and the nobility, however there is plenty of social detail here and and some real insight into how people lived and how they reacted. Recommended reading for anybody interested in this period.

18Badger1492
jul 5, 2011, 5:33 pm

"Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" isn't very well thought of by historians..." I've heard this too, but not sure where it is attributed to. This is one of my favorite books, though. I've read it several times. Her chapter on the Black Death alone stands out as a masterpiece.

19baswood
jul 5, 2011, 5:55 pm

Badger 1492. A distant mirror certainly has divided the critics. I think now there is only one way to find out and that is to read it. I have ordered it today.

20nathanielcampbell
jul 6, 2011, 12:39 pm

For a more cutting-edge look at 14th-century England, I would suggest the excellent recent book by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Books Under Suspicion. For a comparative view of continental movements, see John Van Engen's most recent, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life. Both of these deal with the intersections of religious and lay cultures.

Two books that shouldn't be missed, especially if you're interested in how women fared in high and late medieval England, are Judith Bennett's Ale, Beer, and Brewsters and Ruth Mazo Karras' Common Women.

Finally, another classic that shouldn't be missed (though it covers a broader range of time than just the 14th century) is Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies.

Good luck!

21erilarlo
jul 6, 2011, 5:03 pm

A Distant Mirror is very readable, and if you know nothing about the subject of the book, you'll find it informative and interesting. What it is not is a really scholarly and multi-sourced book, and that's why opinions are so split. I knew next to nothing of the period when I read it many years ago and quite enjoyed it. I've studied a lot of medieval history in the interim and would, I'm sure, feel differently if I first read it today.

22baswood
jul 6, 2011, 5:07 pm

#20 Some very interesting book recommendations there. I will turn to these soon when I have that need to dig a little deeper.

23EduardoT
jul 7, 2011, 5:51 pm

There are so many titles out there but one that keep your eyes open is The Last Duel by Eric Jager,

It tells the story of the December 29, 1386 trial by combat between Norman knight Jean de Carrouges and the squire Jacques Le Gris. Carrouges had accused Le Gris of raping his wife Marguerite de Carrouges, and had gone to King Charles VI seeking an appeal to the decision handed down by Count Pierre d'Alençon, whom Carrouges believed favored Le Gris. Whichever combatant still alive at the end of the duel would be declared the winner as a sign of God's will. If Jean de Carrouges lost the duel, Marguerite de Carrouges would be burned at the stake as punishment for her false accusation.

This was the last officially recognized judicial duel fought in France.

24PhaedraB
jul 7, 2011, 7:52 pm

23> Don't leave us in suspense -- who won?

25EduardoT
jul 7, 2011, 11:28 pm

sorry PhaedraB don't want to spoil the great ending.

27cemanuel
jul 8, 2011, 12:16 pm

#18 - I only know of A Distant Mirror by reputation but historians don't give it very good reviews: http://www.librarything.com/topic/53317#1072500

The biggest criticism seems to be that she relied heavily on Froissart and took everything he said as true which resulted in a fairly distorted account.

28EduardoT
jul 8, 2011, 1:01 pm

26 Donogh, thanks for the link, when I was reading the Last duel, I ask myself Why not a novel instead of a history book.

29cemanuel
jul 22, 2011, 6:05 pm

I saw A Distant Mirror in the clearance section of a used bookstore and bit the bullet and bought it.

Wasn't much of a bullet. Only $1. I'll read it eventually though I doubt it will offer the amusement of A World Lit Only by Fire.

30erilarlo
jul 24, 2011, 2:35 pm

Curt, it's more one-sided than wrong, unlike the unmentionable one you mention.

31nathanielcampbell
jul 27, 2011, 11:42 am

Despite the debate (and in order to be informed of what goes into the popular perceptions of the Middle Ages), I went ahead and grabbed both A Distant Mirror and A World Lit Only by Fire this weekend from the Borders closeout sale.

I decided this morning that someone needs to write "A World Lit by the Sun: The Other Middle Ages" to point out all of the things that were not backwards about the Middle Ages. Do some Carolingian Renaissance, some 12th century renaissance and reformation, explain why the 13th century universities weren't nearly as bad as everyone poo-poos them to be (and why the Franciscans and Dominicans were actually quite extraordinary and revolutionary), explore why the plague in 1350 didn't actually cause the collapse of all civilized and rational thought. Probably structure the book according to the hours of the day (dawn, morning, midday, make the heat of the afternoon the chapter on the plague), and have the final chapter be "The Dark, Partisan Night" that explores how the Reformation and Counter-Reformation actually plunged Europe into more than a century of the bitterest and most devastating wars and hardened both sides into ideological fortresses that blocked any attempt at rational, ecumenical dialogue well into the 20th century.

Add it to my ever-dreamt to-do list...

32agorelik
okt 25, 2011, 4:08 pm

As always, I'm late to the discussion, but here goes:

1. Giles of Rome - De regimine principum. The standard political theory book of the late Middle Ages
2. Jean Buridan - Summa de dialecteca
3. Catherine of Siena - Dialogues
4. Raymond of Capua - Life of St. Catherine of Siena
5. Sigrid Undset - Catherine of Siena
6. John Gower - Confessio Amantis
7. Nicole Oresme - De moneta
8. Petrarch - Il Canzioniere
9. Marsilius of Padua - Defensor pacis
10. Dante - Convivio, La vita nuova, De Monarchia
11. Christine de Pizan - The book of the city of ladies
12. Boccaccio - Decameron, Il Filostrato

33AngelaB86
okt 25, 2011, 6:36 pm

31: Have you read Mysteries of the Middle Ages? It's still on my TBR pile, but I think it follows what you're looking for pretty closely.

34nathanielcampbell
okt 26, 2011, 9:55 am

33: I haven't, but then, I haven't usually had the time to read more popular history on the Middle Ages, being so often stuck amongst the obscure monographs to which my job as an academic seems to have consigned me. But I'll add it to the list of TBR when I have that kind of time (which doesn't seem to be anytime soon, but there you go).