Favorite Medieval Book

I fell in love with the Medieval era back in 1986 while in college. I was introduced to Dante and became hooked. Now 20 something years later I am working on finishing my BA so I can earn my Masters in Medieval history. I want to teach at the college level. I have several books on the subject and am always up for more. What is your favorite book on Medieval history?
Thanks!

Only one book? Not possible, I'm afraid...

My favorite medieval history book, and one I would suggest is essential to any medieval historian, is Richard W. Southern's The Making of the Middle Ages. It is rather old (1953) but a classic and beautifully written to boot. It is thematic rather than a chronological history, so some basic knowledge is useful going into it, but many of its ideas remain relevant. Southern also wrote several other works, all recommended.

After Southern, I'd strongly recommend Robert Bartlett's The Making of Europe. Again, it is thematic rather than chronological, but is more recent and contains some fascinating and compelling ideas. For something lighter, Bartlett's recent The Hanged Man is a great example of how to take a small amount of evidence and analyze it for some super insights. If you are interested in England, his England under the Norman and Angevin Kings is also rather top-notch.

Lester Little's Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe looks dull and is a little dry, but is terrible important and ultimately worth the read.

Other recent scholarship that I have enjoyed include David Nirenberg's Communities of Violence - a examination of the persecutions of Jews and other minorities in Spain and Southern France - and Steven Justice's Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 - an analysis of the motives of the prime movers in the "Peasant's Crusade."

Finally, you might want to read Barbara H. Rosenwein's Debating the Middle Ages : issues and readings. It contains a collection of essays on the sort of debates that have medieval historians shouting at each other and nearly coming to blows.

I too am a great reader of Medieval history. This is a huge swathe of history but one recent read that brings out a strong flavour of one century from this period is A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman.

Thank you. I just ordered Southern's book. I can see I will be adding more and more to my growing pile.

Thank you! I had never heard of Tuchman. I went right back to B&N and ordered this book too! Now I know what I will be doing with my summer LOL

A Distant Mirror has a generally bad reputation among medievalists for factual accuracy and poor interpretations, Barabara was not a medieval scholar and she only spent a few years researching. The Making of the Middle Ages was the first medieval history book to connect Romanticism as the primary "creative spirit" of the "12th century Renaissance" - but it is not a survey by any means and although very readable its argument is very subtle and would be lost on most readers. It is a very important book for historiography reasons. These two books are often recommended to new medieval readers, sadly, when most people just need a solid survey. The two I recommend are Norman Cantor's The Civilization of the Middle Ages and Joseph Strayer The Middle Ages, 395-1500 - Strayer was Cantor's teacher and his book, now out of print, is really knock-out amazing - so is Cantor's. See also Norman Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages which has a list of book recommendations and famous medievalist bios.

One I enjoyed a lot was The Flowering of Mysticism byBernard McGinn. It is not a broad history, but it was an interesting and very thought-provoking read.

(edited for touchstone)

Thanks for the tip on Barbara. I bought it, and will read it, but I read all history with a critical eye. Not everything in print turns out to be accurate.
I have Cantor's book, Civilization of the Middle ages but find it very boring. I will look at Inventing the Middle Ages as I am always open to recommendations.

Thanks, this does look interesting. I have a Karen Armstrong (my favorite author) book on Mysticism that is very very good. If you like the subject I will be happy to find the title.

#6, I'd cut Tuchman a bit of slack. Sir Walter Scott's Rev. Dr Dryasdust as prototype has never been more in evidence than they are today. :)

Funny, b/c I'd never heard criticism of Tuchman for A Distant Mirror before, only for The Guns of August, where she apparently also made quite a few gaffes, as in claiming the Russian Army broadcasted radio messages "in the clear" when advancing on German positions when they really did no such thing.

Still, she can flat out write, and in a way the leaves the average Rev. Dr Dryasdust, well, in the dust.

Thanks, Sarij. I would love the title. I haven't read Armstrong yet, but would love to see what she has to say.

How about A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance — Portrait of an Age (1992) ISBN 0-316-54556-2 ? R W Southern is superb as in : Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe (1997) What a shame that the third volume was never completed.

*lol* Pactyas, that's not a very popular book around here...

In addition to Southern (which can work on various levels if I remember correctly) I would recommend Johan Huizinga's classic Waning of the Middle Ages also in English I think as Autumn of the Middle Ages.

I have to agree with RainMan on the last book recommended, The Autumn of the Middle Ages. One book I enjoyed much many a moon ago was Jacques Le Goff's "Les intellectuels au Moyen Age" which in English I am pretty sure will have been published as "The intellectuals in the Middle Ages." Eric Jager's "The Last Duel" is an interesting story, very late Middle Ages I believe, a look at how rape was treated and the rituals and meanings of a chivalric duel in order to prove the woman's innocence. It is a bit repetitive, but a good unearthing of a fascinating story.

The Autumn of the Middle Ages is definitely a classic, but historians really disagree with Huizinga now. He is very critical of the Middle Ages, and countless historians have written articles and books discounting his theories about why the Middle Ages collapsed. It's still a good read, but be forewarned that it's really outdated and largely discredited.

When people ask me to recommend a good medieval book, either for beginners or people who already know a lot about the Middle Ages, A Distant Mirror is always my first recommendation - it's not above criticism, but it's an enjoyable read, and covers so many different topics while still holding together as a coherent narrative.

I guess all books -- especially great books that people actually read -- will become outdated. Gibbon, for example? Burckhardt on the Italian renaissance? Southern and Huizinga are both good reads, and I like Tuchman too.

What about Morris Bishop's The Middle Ages? I have it by my bed side, but can't take time from bar studying to read it.

Incidentally, I tried to read Norman Cantor's Civilization of the Middle Ages, but decided to cut my losses a little more than half way through.

Also, can anyone recommend a solid book about post-middle age Europe? I'm looking for something general, comprehensive, and entertaining. Thank you.

The recommendations for Southern's The Making of the Middle Ages are reasonable, but it may not be a good place to start. First, it covers only the eleventh and twelfth centuries, so it leaves out an awful lot. Second, there's little narrative flow to the book. As someone mentioned, the book is organized topically, and Southern is as concerned with interpretation as with factual details. I think he assumes quite a lot of background on the part of the reader.

For a general history, the best I've read is Cantor's Civilization of the Middle Ages. It may be a bit dry, and it is certainly long, but it does cover the broad sweep of medieval history.

I've got A Distant Mirror sitting on my shelf. I've been meaning to get to it.

Medieval history is a tremendous, fascinating maze, one in which those who write about the subject are opinionated, diverse, interesting, sometimes dull, almost always full of insight into what is essentially another whole way of life and thought. This does make it difficult for those who are newly attracted to the subject to find out what is really going on, what is important and what is not. For that reason, I would suggest Nancy Partner, ed., "Writing Medieval History" a superior book on the historiography of the period which sorts out the various "schools" of thought that medievalists swim in. Cheers! Beauregard

For a wonderful read, I recommend Montaillou, by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. It's the story of a small village way up in the Pyrenees in the fourteenth century, based on inquisitorial records. The English translation is quite a bit shorter than the French original, but still a terrific book. If you don't fall in love with Béatrice de Planissoles or Pierre Maury, there's definitely something wrong with you!

I'm studying Medieval French lit. for a huge exam at the end of the month, so I'm currently digging La chanson de Roland. Worth a read if you're in to epic verse, or loved the strikingly similar tale of the film '300'. My true love, though is La commedia! I can tell everyone already knows of the genius of Dante, though, so I will chill out. Is anyone else interested in the various contributing illustrators such as Doré, Blake, Botticelli, etc.?

I tend to read fiction books that have a strong basis *in* medieval history, like "Catherine, Called Birdy" and "The Midwife's Apprentice" by Karen Cushman. I read "Beowulf," "Chronicles of the Crusades," and "History of the Franks" in high school, and "Tristan and Isolde" and "The Princess de Cleves" in college in a course about romance and personal identity.

I have two books that are favorites. The first is Gregory of Tours "History of the Franks" and the second is Snorre Sturleson's "Heimskringla".

I'm a big fan of pre-Tudor English history and finding a thrilling book that's well-written with lots of research information is key. I love the books by Alison Weir, her writing is very crisp and I found her book The Princes In The Tower (about the mysterious deaths of King Edward V and his brother Richard) to be a real page-turner. Currently I'm reading Queen Isabella, a biography of the wife of King Edward V, and I find that her writing would make even a non-history buff interested in the events.

I have read the postings and have to agree about the Huizinga book which probably led me to my ongoing interest in all things medieval. I think A Distant Mirror is also a wonderful introduction to medieval history. To follow up I recommend highly C. V. Wedgwood's book The Thirty Years War. This is so well written that it reads like Tuchman. After you read it, you will understand how modern Europe ended up divided into small units that didn't coalesce until the wars of the 19th and 20 centuries brought countries and peoples back together.

#26 - you mean Edward II. I agree with your love of Weir's work. I look forward to reading her Katherine Swynford. I have enjoyed her Tudor stuff hugely but would like to see her write more on Medieval history in future (though she could tackle Henry VII as he is much less written about than other Tudor monarchs and bridges the two time periods).

John

I would also like to see her write about Henry VII. Most of what I've read about him (the main exception being John Guy's Tudor England) was in books about his son's famously numerous wives. He hardly comes off well in such a context, and I think there's probably much more to his life/reign than that.

didn't read to see if any one suggested Timeline by Crichton yet -- very cool! Never saw the movie though...

The movie of Timeline is pretty dreadful.... There are a few pages of the book I love, though, and I often use them in the classroom in conjunction with a chapter out of Marc Bloch's Feudal Society ("Modes of Feeling and Thought") that deals with some of the ways in which the medieval world was very different from ours. Michael Crichton mentions the overwhelming quiet of the 14th century, and the number of horses. Bloch talks about time, and language and cold, but the idea is the same: keep your eyes open for the ways in which the past surprises you.

#25 - Yes, Gregory of Tours History of the Franks is amazing! Once you skip past the obligatory-for-the-era history from Adam and Eve to the beginnings of living memory, it reads like a particularly lurid novel - tons of sex (if not explicitly described) and violence (rather more explicit sometimes).

I have been interested in world history since I was in school, but Medieval Europe has never been a priority. However, lately I have begun to read more about the Roman Empire and that has increased my interest in the Middle Ages. On the Folio Society website I came across a 5-book set that they published under the umbrella title “The Story of the Middles Ages”.

Two of the books they selected for the set have already been mentioned in this thread (The Making of the Middle Ages by R. W. Southern and The Waning of the Middle Ages by J. Huizinga), but not the other three books. I am interested in the set and would appreciate any and all comments those other three: The Birth of the Middle Ages by H. St. L. B. Moss; The Crucible of the Middle Ages (originally published as The Crucible of Europe) by Geoffrey Barraclough; and The High Middle Ages (originally published as Europe in the High Middle Ages) by John H. Mundy.

I really liked The Secret History:Penguin Classics by Procopius. Scandalous, and TRUE! ;)

I don't know John Hine Mundy's The High Middle Ages, but I do know others of his books. He was a wonderful writer. The book is a little out of date, now, of course, but I imagine it would be a good read, and reliable for its day. I've used Geoffrey Barraclough on Germany in grad school, but not this book. I seem to recall he was a bit dry, but it's possible that I'm maligning him!

I haven't read it myself, but I've seen that many colleges and universities assign Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth for history, architecture and art history classes. Does it deserve its apparent reputation for historical accuracy?

It also now has a sequel that takes place (I believe) in the 1400s.

Speaking of historical accuracy, why not read historians of the Middle Ages, like the Venerable Bede or Geoffrey of Monmouth? They are by no means accurate, but they give some insight into the medieval concept of history and they're full of amazing stories.

tom1066 - I confess that I haven't read Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, but I can tell you that it is not even remotely in any way historically accurate.

Apparently a lot of the detail about the architecture and the building of the cathedral is accurate, but Follett has made no attempt to get into the mindset of 13th-century England - his characters behave like modern people. Accusations of witchcraft play a big role in the story, about 300 years before witchcraft was considered a problem in England. It's also one of those books that portrays the Middle Ages as full of murder, rape, starvation, disease, lack of hygiene, and generally horrific - these are common perceptions of the Middle Ages, and not without some grain of truth, but the Middle Ages really weren't as bleak as popular culture would have us think. The main reason I haven't read this book is that I can tell from the reviews and plot summaries I have read that it is so full of historical inaccuracy that it will just make me mad to read it.

Much more fun to read Geoffrey of Monmouth. :)

As we seem to have a very erudite historial bunch here - could anyone tell me their opinion of The Elizabethan Underworld by Gamini Salgado

I second Gwyndydd's analysis of Pillars of the Earth. It applies to Follett's new novel, World Without End, too, though he does depict life in the 14th century as somewhat less dreary. He has clearly done a lot of research about specific details of life in the Middle Ages, especially technology, guild rules, architecture and the like, and that is where he shines. However, his characters often display inconceivably modern attitudes. In World Without End, a pair of nuns go traipsing through France in the wake of the English army without even a single man-at-arms as escort. A healer expresses scorn for the practice of bleeding (which the latest research suggests may actually have been effective to some extent) and hopes people will "stop believing in mumbo-jumbo medicine".

One of the things I did like in World Without End was the depiction of how life changed for the peasantry after the plague depopulated much of the country. Follett does a nice job of showing the tensions between serfs and free laborers who were now in a better position to bargain for greater freedom and/or higher wages and the nobility who had lost many of their laborers but remained reluctant to give up their privileges and power.

For people who have never read a historical novel or studied history with any pleasure, Follett's novels could be a very accessible introduction to the Middle Ages. But the characters will grate on people who know too much about the period.

If you are going to read Huizinaga be sure to get The Autumn of the Middle Ages instead of The Waning of The Middle Ages which is an older less accurate translation.

One of my favorite authors on medieval topics is Barbara A. Hanawalt especially Growing up in Medieval London. Though her use of coroner's rolls can at times make for disturbing reading she is a vivid writer who studies overlooked populations.

#41 - I have that book but have not got round to reading it yet - perhaps I'll try to push it up the list.

John

I join the chorus against Tuchman and especially against Manchester. I'd steer away from Huizinga as well.

Even though he's an older historian, I was strongly influence by Marc Bloch. His book on Feudal Society is fascinating and elegant, but I'll also recommend The Historian's Craft, The King's Touch, and Strange Retreat (the latter a compelling account of the French collapse in WWII; Bloch himself was executed by the Nazis in the last days of the war).

I also really liked one of Bloch's heroes, Henri Pirenne.

Someone asked about later works. The guy is quirky, but Fernand Braudel has some good work on the Mediterranean region in the early modern period. There really aren't any good general surveys in the way there are for the Middle Ages.

-= Skip =-

Skip (and others), you mention that there are many good general surveys of the Middle Ages. I tried to read Norman Cantor's Civilization of the Middle Ages, but had to quit while I was ahead. I also had by my bedside Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror and found it too dense with trivial material (although she can write circles around Cantor). I loved Morris Bishop's The Middle Ages, but it's less a historical survey than a collection of snapshots of medieval life. I think at this point I would prefer to move on to Renaissance European history, and ultimately to the Revolutionary and Industrial periods, but even so, I have been unable to find good surveys of European history for any of these periods. Any thoughts?

#44 Asabel,

You might check out Warren Hollister. He wrote a number of survey books --like Medieval Europe : a short history and The making of England, 55 B.C. to 1399 and The Twelfth Century Renaissance-- which are short and to the point.

They give a good overview and I think he's even got a sourcebook reader that goes along with them so you can read short sections of primary (original to those times) writings to get the flavor of what actual people were thinking and feeling.

I like Tuchman's Distant Mirror which was full of detail as well as providing a broad historical narrative - yes, you could say some of it is trivial, but I prefer to see that as adding colour to the narrative, rather than detracting from it. It's not dryly academic.

I haven't tried Norman Cantor's Civilization of the Middle Ages, but I was put off this author by his awfully written book on the Black Death, so I can't see myself trying it.

I also have on my TBR list a book by Friedrich Heer, the Medieval World 1100-1350.

In general, I would say that I have to be in the right mood for general thematic history. I usually prefer somethign more concrete, a biography or look at a more specific, limited period of time.

Probably the best recent book on Medieval History is Wickham; 'Framing the middle ages', PB 2006. It focuses on the period 400 - 800 AD, and the transformation from Ancient World to the Middle Ages.

Another one that comes to mind is Jacques Le Goff. 'The Medieval World'. Ha was, together with G.Duby founder of the French History "School" Les Annales. They started putting more emphasis on the common man and daily live in history.

I really enjoyed Abelard: A Medieval Life by Michael Clanchy. A biography of Peter Abelard (of Abelard and Heloise fame), the book gives a wonderful sense of early 12th century Europe and the social and intellectual issues that were important at the time. I also found it very readable (and re-readable).

As an Antonia Fraser freak I have to say anything where she has added her two cents or written herself is my absolute favorite. "The Middle Ages" (edited by Lady AF herself), and "The Renaissance" by Wallace Ferguson are big faves of mine.

The thing with "The Renaissance" is that it offers an ample background on the Middle Ages, complete with the rise and collapse of the feudal system, to rites, and plenty more. In time all that good information blends beautifully with this transport into the Early Renaissance and it all makes gorgeous literary music.

"In the Wake of the Plague" is another great book, particularly from the socio economical analysis of how the plague benefited the lower classes and served as sort of an economic stimulus, if you look at it a certain way.

To 44, 46, and those looking for late Medieval/Renaissance books...

There are actually a number of enjoyable books for the Renaissance and Pre-Industrial (Enlightened) Ages. I should mention, though, that I read a lot of fiction. Consequently, I like my history full of anecdotes and quotes, rather than a thematic narration...All textbooks, for me, tend to go something like this:

"The economic policies of the Blah Empire were belligerent, a multicausational program determined largely by the Triad of Hanover, in 1872 (this will be on the test). Large numbers of ships followed trade routes established by the pirates, who were quite interesting, but didn't cause any political or economic developments, so we shall leave them to their swords and treasure chests. Women and minorities did many off-the-wall things they don't get credit for, like inventing night vision goggles...In Summary, Many Things Happened and affect the world we live in today. End Chapter."

Ah, my college history classes. Excepting 'Russian History to 1860' and 'History of the Early Modern Era in Europe', they were dreadful.

For the Renaissance, I really enjoyed John Addington Symonds' The Renaissance in Italy. It's from the 19th century, so has very likely been superseded by better scholarship, but Symonds writes extremely well (something many modern historians should look into) and his opening chapters, dealing with the numerous Italian tyrants of the era, is a lot of fun to read. He's sort of a pseudo-aesthete. The original edition was split into many volumes, but there's a 2-volume Modern Library edition that's much better and has translated footnotes.

Speaking of which, why not read Walter Pater's beautifully written essays on the Renaissance? His essay on the Mona Lisa is reprinted in textbooks in English AND history classes. Pater influenced Oscar Wilde with his Greciophilia and Aestheticism. It's available on gutenberg.org...in fact, Symonds is too, I think.

Of course, another classic 19th century text, equally well-written and broad in scope is Jacob Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance. The fact that a TRANSLATION of a 19th century Swiss historian's personal (personal in the sense he's not afraid to opine whether someone was an asshole or not) history is still in print and available in bookstores should say something about it.

Let's see...then there's Will and Ariel Durant's The Civilization of the Renaissance. It has lots of anecdotes (though few quotes) and generally moves geographically through Italy. It's a thick book, and some sections were boring--particularly those concerning some minor Italian state that had 5 years of glory then sunk into ignominy. Plus it's a bit old, and one can occasionally sense a bit of hesitation in reporting some of Italy's more outrageous incidents. Not sure if this one is available for free...Burckhardt is, though.

Of course, the Renaissance in Italy was followed by a more general European renaissance in France, England, and the Netherlands. John Hale's The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance is a wide-screen view of Europe as it began to enter the modern age. He discusses some things I've never even thought of, such as the proliferation of translation dictionaries, the development of national feeling and stereotypes (the French are sluts, the English are gluttons), and even includes quotes from Jesuits impressed with China and Japan. Europeans were quite puzzled by Japan, and realized that here was a civlization that was just as developed as theirs...yet was different. Oh the horror! Actually, now that I think of it, he spends a bit too much time writing about travel. It's certainly a part of the Renaissance, but really, at some point you've gotta move on. Hale died before the book could be finished so it's hard to say what the author might have wanted excised or included. Give it a whirl anyway.

For the English renaissance, try A.L. Rowse's Elizabethan Renaissance. It tends to focus on the upper classes, but they were responsible for a lot of the things we associate with the age--Shakespeare's plays, the Tudor architecture, Holbein portraiture. There's also Liza Picard's Elizabeth's London, which isn't really "Great Events and Great People" history. More like "How they ate, How they Entertained, How they..." History. Some people consider the English renaissance to have started with Henry VIII, but most link it to the reign of his daughter Elizabeth I. Alison Weir's Henry VIII: The King and His Court isn't a bio of Henry so much as it is a description of the sudden influx of culture, beauty, and architectural magnificence into England over the course of Henry's life. She does a great bit on Holbein and his revolutionary portraits.

I can't really think of a book on the French Renaissance. Most people consider there to have been 2 of them: the first was the introduction of chansons gestes, of courtly love songs and stories, of lady-worship, that spread across Europe in the 12th century. The second was the Italian-influenced one. Your best bet would be to pick up the out-of-print Prince of the Renaissance by Desmond Seward. It's easy to find. Lots and lots of color pictures. It's a biography of French King Francois (Francis) I, who was king of France while Henry VIII ruled in England. Francis I deserves more notice, I think. He invited DaVinci to live free of expense at his court and basically do whatever he wanted. He managed to acquire the Mona Lisa and many other of DV's works after he died. He supervised construction of Fontainebleau and invited Cellini to visit. Andrea del Sarto was his court artist, and, to top it all off, he modernized medieval dress. But whew he was strange looking--huge schnoz, eyes a little bulging...but then again, you should see his dad...

I'll stop before I cramp up my fingers. Pre-industrially, you can't miss with The Lunar Men. It sticks to England but details a group of gentleman scientists who include Darwin's grandfather Erasmus, pottery expert Wedgwood, steam maven James Watt, rich industrialist Matthew Boulton, and a few others. Funny, lots of fascinating science, etc. Tons of research.

Also, I really liked Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire. I can't help it, it was so juicy and scandalous. I also liked Tuchman's Calamitous Mirror, though I agree it sorta pick and chose incidents, almost as though Tuchman had picked a title and was bound to it come hell or high water. There's a section where she describes this castle in France where life was not a despairing race towards death, where the plague didn't kill everyone, where the English didn't pillage and rape and burn during the 100 Years War...A place where there were books and songs and life was fairly normal.

...And Tuchman makes it sounds like she's rather bothered by its existence.

Hope this helps!

I have always loved The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages by Norman Cohn. Captures the colorful millenarian and utopian movements of the Middle Ages.

>52 stellarexplorer: You're right, it's absolutely fascinating. If you like that one, you'll probably also be interested in his Europe's Inner Demons.

Thanks, I'll check that out BarkingMatt!

Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory
Georges Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy
Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process

I'd recommend Jacques LeGoff's Medieval Civilization. Nice overview. Cantor is actually quite good with one major flaw - lack of footnotes though he does have a very good (though by now somewhat outdated) reading list.

I echo the anti-Tuchman, Manchester and Cahill sentiments. They are all populizers who never seem to have too much trouble stretching the truth or applying inferences not supportable by historical evidence.

The problem with any overview is you're talking about a thousand-year period which encompassed dozens of societies. It's when you start diving into a topic in more depth that the real fun begins.

As for my favorites - I could list a dozen but Michael McCormick's _The Origins of the European Economy_ and James Brundage's _Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe_ are two I really like - neither should be your first book on the Middle Ages though.

Except that scholars have also pointed out that Cantor's personal opinions sometimes affect his presentation of facts. 8-) As for Tuchman. . . well, you've mentioned that. Nevertheless, she's a good entry point for people just edging into actual medieval history, because she is certainly quite readable. Heer's Medieval World would be a good one for a more solid presentation.

Ah, but the best read attributed to Snorri is Egil's saga, one of the three greatest Old Norse sagas! 8-) And it's not a lot more fictional than the accounts of the earlier kings in Heimskringla(which I also have, of course)

Oh, Crichton can write fairly well, but he doesn't necessarily know much about what he's writing ABOUT. Timeline can be extremely irritating if you actually know very much about the time he sends his time travelers into. Ouch!!

Using it for architecture or art history classes I can see, and back when I read it, I didn't know enough about the period to cavil, but a history teacher who uses it must not know that much about the period. It has a number of historical flaws.
As for the "sequel", I gave up on it about a hundred pages in. The characters he had associating with each other were just screaming "historical fiction" too loudly.

Note: Alison Weir may be fun to read, but don't ask a historian about her historical reliability 8-)

Coming back to see how this works, I realized that my posts which replied to specific messages look pretty weird all lumped at the end. I'll try to refer more specifically to the message that sets me off in the future 8-)

There seems to be an assumption underpinning some of the recent posts that historical writers who write popular (i.e. non-academic) history are, ipso facto, not proper historians and therefore unreliable. This may be true in some cases (Cantor, perhaps, on the strength of the one awful book of his I have read about the Black Death), but I don't think it applies to others such as Alison Weir or David Starkey and probably not to Barbara Tuchman either. The differences amount more to pitch and tone of delivery as well as level of detail. A very detailed academic work might still be mistaken in terms of interpreting some of its details, while a popular historian can communicate historical ideas to a wider audience in a more accessible way. Historians of all types can always differ hugely with each other in interpretation, of course, and the existence of such differences says nothing in itself about the reliability of any of them. And, finally, historians like anyone else can sometimes make mistakes; depending on the nature of those mistakes, that needn't write off the whole of their oeuvre.

Actually, there are historical writers who write fiction who are real historians and ARE reliable, but one needs to know which ones they are. And medieval historians whom I've heard(or read comments by) on the subject of Weirs' reliability find her quite UNreliable. Cantor, on the other hand, can be good if you know and allow for his biases 8-) Opinions on Tuchman(whose Distant Mirror I quite enjoyed back when I first read it and knew less about medieval Europe than I did later) seem to be less that she is unreliable than that she is rather superficial and relies herself on too few sources. Some agree that she can be of value for beginners because she's easy to read and this could lead to more serious reading.

Perhaps, then, the question to ask is what makes one a 'proper' historian at all?

Is it purely a question of academic qualification? In that case, Cantor is unquestionably a 'proper' historian. He had a Ph.d in History and studied under Southern for a year at Oxford. Does it get any better? And yet, the view of him in my department is dim at best, and his last books were very poorly written.

So then -- open question to anyone: What, in your mind, makes one a "real" historian?

Different people are going to describe "real historian" quite differently. There are people with all the degrees available who propose and defend some quite remarkably odd theses. There are people, like Cantor, it seems, whose writing seems to worsen with age, while others may begin weakly and improve impressively. There are some with fewer qualifications who are quite knowledgeable in narrow niches they have studied intensively. What I do is listen to/read the opinions of people I believe know more about reliability than I do. I know some places where I can ask them personally, which is an advantage not everyone has.

One general requirement I do have: a real modern historian is familiar not only with multiple primary literary sources relevant to his subject, but also with applicable archaeological discoveries.

A "real" historian? Good question.

From someone who isn't one, someone who provides logical, supportable evidence for what he or she argues. Since there are no truths in history, that's what we have to go on.

As for works, my rule now is that it has to have footnotes. If an author wants to put forward a serious historical work, then he or she has to provide the roadmap so I can follow the trail if I'm so inclined.

Mary, I would argue that every historian has personal biases. What I hope is that those biases are born of research and experience. The value of Cantor's _Civilization_ is that it is a massive overview, something which is difficult to do very well but, if it wants to be taken seriously, must have footnotes. Also, for that work, I've seen little argument dating from around when it was published (remember, this is 1963, obviously a great deal of new scholarship has come forward since then), with the major ideas he put forward. However there are numerous "off-the-cuff" statements which really should be footnoted.

The most memorable for me is, referring to St Paul, "There is some evidence that Saul was an epileptic and there is speculation that his vision occurred during a seizure." p35

This statement requires a footnote - what is the evidence? But the work isn't footnoted. It was the first major medieval work I read and it obviously has flaws, however it did add to my interest - and also taught me that if I was reading a book to enhance my knowledge, part of the enhancement meant I would examine how the author reached his or her conclusions. To do that properly meant footnotes. I haven't read any of his other works and I'm certainly not a Cantor groupie. But I think, at least when it comes to that work, some of its flaws have been overemphasized.

Oh, in my opinion, any work without footnotes is NOT a serious historical work. If that book didn't have them, I would find it seriously suspect and might not even bother to read it! I also prefer them at the bottom of the page, and except for a high school "research" paper, am continually irritated by having them relegated to the end of the chapter or worse, end of the book. There is no excuse for this when anyone can do it on a home computer with no effort and publishers continually hide them. I have found some extremely valuable books in other people's footnotes! And of course, I REALLY want them when something suspect is claimed by the writer.

At this point, footnotes are a must. Two things I check for before I buy are those and the bibliography. I also take the writer's background into account but it's not a 100% go/no-go.

I am guilty of buying non-footnoted books in two cases. One is if I see something I'm mildly interested in at a Borders or B&N Bargain Books section - if I can get something for $4.97 and it's written by a reputable author I'll live without the fn's - and if it really interests me I'll go buy something else later to fill in the blanks. The other is used books. I have quite a few things I've picked up in used book stores and quite often works 50 years old or older aren't footnoted.

Richard the Lionheart by John Gillingham is very well written and forcefully argued. He was responsible for the new, revisionist version of Richard that is taught at universities nowadays. It would have to be my favourite medieval history book.

I'm sure Runciman's History of the Crusades has been mentioned before but it is a masterpiece, particularly the third installment, even if he is biased towards the Byzantines.

I have a soft spot for William of Malmesbury and William of Tyre's Histories as primary sources.

I've heard people say good things about Francis Gies and Joseph Gies, including some of my university teachers. At this point though the only book I've read by them is the Life in a Medieval Village, although I just got the Life In A Medieval City today.

A great book is "Religion and the decline of magic" by Keith Tomas. It's really a classic. It gives so many interesting details and insights.
I will have a look at the other suggestions in the messages above.
Seasons greetings to all of you.

I agree it's a fascinating book, but its focus is on the 16th and 17th centuries (which I wouldn't generally call medieval).

I completely agree, it isn't exactly medieval history, but it gives a wonderful overview of the transition from middle ages to modern thinking.

The Gies... Yikes!

I'm afraid their book on Medieval women turned me off of them forever. Their grasp of reality seemed very tainted by modernities to me. 'Women were oppressed then because they are oppressed now'. Their approach seemed uninspired in general. They didn't seem to have any understanding of early Germanic law and society and how that might have given a different interpretation to events.

I'd second the anti-recommendation of the Gies' books. Francis Gies biography of Joan of Arc is quite good, but other than that, their books tend to be rather poorly researched. They might be good for 10-12 year olds, but if you're any older, there are much better sources of information out there.

I'll also second the anti-recommendation of Keith Thomas's book - it was very important when it was written, but he is actually very disdainful of the Middle Ages, and his area of expertise is the early modern period, so he doesn't really understand the Middle Ages at all. He is trying to make a point about the early modern period, and completely misrepresents the Middle Ages in the process.

I wouldn't go as far as anti-recommending "Religion and the Decline of Magic" by Thomas. He's simply not a medievalist, but it has fascinating insights for the early modern period.

Note on Runciman: I just read his Sicilian Vespers * and have to recommend him for real readablilty. I've also just ordered the first volume of his Crusades via ILL after asking some experts I know. Some of his conclusions have been disputed over time (he's a bit biased in favor of Byzantium), but I can't recall a historian easier to read off-hand. It was rather like reading a novel. Note on Vespers, though: be sure to read the Appendix.
* footnote 8-) I hadn't read it before because my main focus is earlier, but I'm visiting Sicily in the spring.

Has onyone read "The Monks of war", by D. Seward? It does begin with the crusades and covers the origin of the Templars, Teutonic and Hospitaller knights. It looks a bit outdated.

I rather liked Christopher Tyerman's God's War: A New History of the Crusades -- though I'm still digesting its enormity.

My favorite medieval history book for the medieval student would have to be Daily Life in the Middle Ages by Paul B. Newman (not the actor).

Steven
http://steventill.com

My favorite book is: The Black Death: A History of Plagues 1345-1730, by William Naphy.
In my former job at the catalog department of an antiquarian bookseller, we bought a Book of Hours from Northern Italy, which was manufactured about 25 years after the the Black Death of 1347.

At the moment I'd have to say that my favorite in this category is actually a trilogy. A Rose for the Crown, The Kings Grace, and Daughter of York all by Anne Easter Smith. While the latter of the three is not the best of the set, I think it was a nice addition to the trilogy. I am also eagerly awaiting the next book in the series Queen By Right.

I recently read Le dimanche de Bouvines by French historian Georges Duby and really enjoyed it. I almost forgot that historical works can be both accurate and so much fun to read. By analysing the echo of the battle of Bouvines in medieval french historiography he draws a lively picture of the french society of the 13th century (or, rather: of how 13th century french elites understood their society).

I think it's a highly recommendable work though it's already been more than 3 decades since it was released.

I met Anne Easter Smith at the Newburyport Literary Festival last year. She is a charming person and I enjoyed talking to her briefly about her books, Richard III, her views on him and the Richard III Society. I have been meaning to read her books but almost a year later my signed copy of A Rose for the Crown is still in my TBR pile.

84> It's been years but I also have fond memories of The Legend of Bouvines.