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
Climate change camp v proper rebellion
Here’s an exercise in (un)historical imagination. It is June 1381. You are Wat Tyler, leading a ragtag army of villagers from Kent and Essex on a righteous crusade of justice against corrupt government, punitive taxation and social injustice.
You are on the way to Blackheath, where you intend to set up camp. But on the way there, you step through a wormhole in the fabric of space-time and end up in August 2009.
When you arrive at your destination, you are startled to find that the whole place has been taken over by a load of Hampstead hippies, with foldaway Brompton bicycles, buck-teeth and deferred places to study PPE at Oxford.
Several of them are strumming guitars and a working group is pitching a wigwam, using the camp-building skills they picked up doing their Duke of Edinburgh bronze award.
Tell me seriously that you do not feel your hand tighten around the handle of your pitchfork.