I thought it might be helpful to post, on a Monday, links to interesting or particularly helpful reviews of the latest books with a medieval flavour, subject matter or pertinence.
‘The Crusades: The War For The Holy Land’, by Thomas Asbridge
Asbridge was reviewed at the Guardian by Helen Castor (whose much anticipated book on medieval queens is due for release either this year or next). Castor found Asbridge’s work ‘grim and thought-provoking’, particularly in the light the human suffering contained therein sheds on the current example of mass suffering and death in Haiti. The only difference, as she points out, is that the hideous mortality caused by the crusades stemmed from deliberate human action, not the cruelty of the earth itself. (Though both could be called acts of God.)
Buy it on Amazon, here
‘On Monsters: An Unnatural History of our Worst Fears by Stephen T. Asma
This deserves a place in the medieval round-up since the medieval monster was so reliably bizarre and so vividly, almost lovingly, depicted in manuscripts from our period. Toby Clements, writing in the Telegraph, found Asma’s book ‘terrific… cogent and witty’, although he was perplexed by Asma’s reluctance to nail his colours to the mast and offer us a take-home, age-transcending definition of the monster. He lamented that Jo Jo The Dog-Faced Boy could be lumped in the same category as a monster more au courant such as Josef Frizl. (NB I had always thought Jo Jo was actually named Jo Jo The Dog-Faced B—h Boy, perhaps because I watched this show too much. Note: clip contains a great deal of Ari Gold, another monster, using curse-words.)
Buy it on Amazon, here
The life of a peasant in 2010
Describing unenlightened folk such as Islamic fundamentalists as ‘medieval’ is commonplace nowadays. Columnists do it out of idleness when they’re seeking a single word that implies unenlightened, old-fashioned and cruel. Politicians do it because they know it is controversial enough to make headlines, without actually being racist.
But sometimes, just sometimes, calling a modern society medieval is entirely accurate. Read this, from the English-language Pakistani news site The International News. There’s tantalisingly little reporting, but here’s the first line, just to whet your appetite:
“Twenty-eight bonded labourers, including women and children, were freed from the private jail of Haji Sher Jamali, a local PML-Q leader, police said on Tuesday.”