Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

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Summary: A Medieval History Must-Read!
Review: Famous for her engaging, narrative style that makes history flow like a thrilling novel, Barbara Tuchman presents a comprehensive review of 14th century Europe (mainly France, the dominant European power at the time). She emphasizes three main events that dominate the lives of Europeans in the 14th century: the Plague, the Hundred Years' War and the Papal Schism. Despite this large-scale vision, she also succeeds in bringing this "distant mirror" as close to the reader as possible.

One way she does this is by following the life, as much as possible, of one man, neither extraordinarily good nor evil but nonetheless very capable and active, whose name is Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy. He was a shrewd and practical politician as well as courageous warrior, and his life spanned most of the 14th century. As conqueror, mercenary, crusader and diplomat, he was active all over the known world of medieval Europe and participated in most of its historic moments. This means the historian's case study is not limited to one country or culture and makes her research more comprehensive and accurate as well as interesting.

The only difficulty I had with the book was its maps. Just for the ease of reference, I had wished the maps were all located in one place. Otherwise, I couldn't hope for a better and more enjoyable account of medieval Europe!

Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Book by a Brilliant Mind
Review: I have to admit that Barbara Tuchman is one of my favorite history authors and it was this book that introduced me to her. This book tells the truth about that time period, a time of turmoil, illiteracy, wars, bloody mercenaries roaming and pillaging. A lot of people when they think back to this time period they have these romantic notions of dashing knights, damsels in distress, wonderful luxury and refinement, and noble wars. These people are totally ignorant of the subject and time and I would definitely recommend for them to read this book to open their eyes to a time period that, thank god, is in the distant past. However, if we are not careful this same chaos and substandard living could return and modern chaos is a lot more destructive and dangerous than 14th Century chaos.

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Summary: Polished and Shiny
Review: "A Distant Mirror" is about as entertaining as a history book can get. Barbara Tuchman is a captivating storyteller, and it speaks for the quality of her narrative history of France in the 14th century that the book remains in print after 25 years.

The red thread that runs through her book is the folly, pride and irrationality of behavior that she sees as characteristically human: "For mankind is ever the same and nothing is lost out of nature, though everything is altered," as the quote from John Dryden says on one of the first pages of the book. The title itself reflects this philosophical position: the 14th century as a distant mirror for the 20th century. To be honest, I found this a bit far-fetched. The two centuries do not share that many similarities. Of course, human nature as such has not changed in the course of six centuries, and the madness of the two world wars is comparable to that of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). But the 20th century, for example, saw no epidemic like the plague that killed off more than one third of the population; on the contrary, the discovery of penicillin in 1928 and its application as an injectable drug in 1941 improved the chances of surviving a serious illness dramatically. More importantly, the 20th century did not see the first signs of disintegration of an established political order that would later give rise to a new one (the replacement of feudalism by the nation state); on the contrary, democratic states successfully withstood the challenge from totalitarian systems.

Where the book really shines, is the narrative. Barbara Tuchman gives a vivid and detailed picture of life in the 14th century, in particular the life of the nobility. She does not leave out the scandals or the slaughter of battles, the machinations of nobles greedy for power and the suffering of the peasants. Her style is descriptive and detailed. She does not simply tell that, say, realism was the desired effect of miracle plays and mysteries staged for the populace in the 14th century, she shows it in unforgettable detail: "When John the Baptist was decapitated, the actor was whisked away so cunningly in exchange for a fake corpse and fake head spilling ox blood that the audience shrieked in excitement."(311/312) Her style is also not without the occasional wink at the reader. A fine example for her subtle sense of humor is the list of possessions of the Duc de Berry (famous for the illustrated book "Les Tres Riches Heures" he commissioned): "He owned one of Charlemagne's teeth, a piece of Elijah's mantle, Christ's cup from the Last Supper, drops of the Virgin's milk, enough of her hairs and teeth to distribute as gifts, soil from various Biblical sites, a narwhal's teeth, [and some more unique curiosities]"(427).

While I found the story telling absolutely captivating, there are two things about "A Distant Mirror" that made me choose four rather than five stars. One is the lack of analysis, the other Ms. Tuchman's occasional lapses into pop psychology.

The peripheral role of analysis in the book is perhaps a consequence of her narrative style. While Ms. Tuchman feasts on descriptions and details, she does not really want to dwell on the technicalities of changes in technology (other than those in the art of battle), medicine and economics, or on theories that try to put these developments in a broader perspective. At its worst, the reluctance to use analytical tools produces a kind of historical mysticism: "Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years [after 1400] until at some imperceptible moment, by some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected."(581)

The lapses into pop psychology happen when Ms. Tuchman generalizes; for example, when she concludes, "Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves, the bad times in history come when they cannot."(451) Or when "pride and folly" become driving forces of history, because "Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex."(577)

On the whole, though, "A Distant Mirror" is a pleasure to read, and I am sure the book will continue to find readers who enjoy the colorful and vivid stories Ms. Tuchman unfolds about the "calamitous" 14th century.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating but impossible to get through
Review: I've tried reading this book repeatedly over the last two years and, although the material is interesting, just find it a slog. Tuchman presumes a lot of knowledge about the 14th century on the part of the reader which, combined with the often dense writing, makes it difficult to get through. Tuchman's clever twist is to focus on the life of one French nobleman. This should make the narrative more personal, but frequently results in portions of history, especially outside England and France, feeling short-changed or forced, and making the narrative difficult to follow. If you have some basic understanding of the middle ages in France or England and can get through it, though, it gives a great overall impression of what life in 14th century Europe must have been like.

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Summary: Things Fall Apart...
Review: With painstaking detail and bittersweet humour, Tuchman delves into the history and events surrounding one of the greatest of the French knights. Enguerrand de Coucy is a knight caught between old and new world orders. Perhaps the highest example of a crumbling ideal - chivalry - he shows the fatal flaws in an oppressive system beginning to decay before his birth, leading to some of the greatest excesses within his lifetime, and finishing with the fall of the French monarchy in the 18th century.

Parts of Tuchman's tale are more gripping than an adventure novel, more humourous than a comedy, and more unbelievable than fiction. In fact, her story is so engaging because of its truth.

Anyone intersted in the Avignon Papacy, the Great Schism in the Church, Popes and Antipopes, the Black Plague, Feudalism, Protestantism, the persecution of witches and sorcery, the prelude to the Renaissance, Italian banking, Antisemitism, and the Medieval in general should adore it.

I must admit, my jaw dropped several times while reading this book, particularly during the chapters focusing on the schism in the church. It is not easy to escape the image of a furious Pope screaming anathema and excommunication from the walls of the Castel Sant'Angelo upon the beseigers below. Unbelievable arrogance and mercilessness seem the hallmark of the times, and Tuchman captures the essence of these with great alacrity.

Following de Coucy lets us experience life through the attitudes of someone placed firmly in the time. While many of his attitudes may seem foreign to us, his more modern qualities allow us to identify, if perhaps not sympathize, with him.

I highly recommend this book both as an introduction to the study of the 14th century, and as fascinating reading for anyone interested in the human condition.

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Summary: The Lord of Coucy
Review: There are few, if any, historians who have attacked so many different periods with as much zeal - and success - as Tuchman. Having traversed World War One, Palestine, China policy and other realms, she travels to fourteenth century France for an epic narrative of the Hundred Years' War and the Great Plague - loosely formatted around a biography of Edward de Coucy, a great baron of Picardy (and crusader against the Turk). The great players of the time, from the Black Prince to the ineffectual French Kings to the schismatic Papacy to the true villain, the flea-borne bubo, all feature in this rich tale. Perfect for a reader's first foray into late medieval history.

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Summary: Chaos theory, unexplained
Review: Over-structured, yet at the same time disorganized, this book is often boring where it should not be. I found that Tuchman's use of the Sire de Coucy as a scaffolding device, merely because he left a good paper trail, odd and ill-advised. It is an artificial construct that results in an often disjointed, distracting and, worse, drab read. Coucy begins, and remains, as two dimensional as the paper he left behind. Warned to be patient for his arrival at the very beginning, one learns to dread his flat and dull appearances. The kings and other assorted royalty, [especially the dreadful Charles of Navarre] clergy, peasant and bourgeois, are much more colorful and more importantly, alive.

I assume available 'paperwork', as well as historic import, is the reason the Church plays too big and, at the same time, too small a role in the book. The hierarchy in Rome must have kept good records, although they rarely seem worth mentioning in such tedious detail, while the local clergy, infinitely more interesting, evidently did not. Sadly, volume wins.

The reliance on paper trails must be unavoidable for historians, but in a work not aimed at historians, it quickly becomes tedious, especially if it is simply reported and not interpreted, injected but not synthesized. I found the beginning of this overly long book readable, but that it quickly became bogged down in the battles, kings, nobles, royalty, political crises, and other chaotic detail that it lists rather than explains. As the century wore on, it wore out my interest and my patience. If the fourteenth century was indeed a 'colorful' and tumultuous century, in this book it frequently appears black and white and, all too often, static.

Once begun, however, this book is best finished, if only for those rare instances of Tuchman's insightful comments and incisive wit.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books of all time
Review: Whenever I meet someone who enjoys reading history, this is the book I always seem to recommend first (I love reading history). It is so beautifully written. It has the drama and intrigue of a novel, yet Barbara Tuchman, as she notes in her book Practicing History, always worked from primary resources. This work of history is accurate. And all of her books are great: Guns of August, Proud Tower, Zimmerman Telegram, Stillwell, to name a few. A Distant Mirror stands out, in my opinion, because it vividly describes how difficult, how different and, indeed how "calamitous" Western Civilization was in the 14th century. From reading this book, I am more thankful to live today and not then. Yet, how exhilirating it was to read and really feel how it was. I defy anyone who starts it to put it down easily.

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Summary: History as a living story - better than fiction.
Review: Tuchman tells history's stories like novels. This book would make anyone interested in Medieval History.

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Summary: They didn't know 'twas pivot between medieval and modern
Review: This is one of the best histories I've ever read. Ms. Tuchman was a stellar historian with the research skills to match. More to the point, she took the intensive layman-friendly time and effort to communicate to the general readership this vastly informative and even fun historical introduction, overview, and royal's-eye-view (more on that later) of the Bubonic Fearful Fourteenth, when most of Civilization (for them, Western Europe) was quite sure the end was at hand. But, just like us, they tried to carry on as best they could.

To call Tuchman just an "historian" is wrong if that limits our understanding of her career; she could not have written A DISTANT MIRROR without a thorough grounding in sociology, economics, antiquarianism, oral history of course, and even outside disciplines like accounting and the use of legal documents. As far as this reviewer knows, nobody's done it better! Tuchman was of the school of intellectuals who believed in writing for the laypeople, at least sometimes. (Would there were more today. ;) )

Some histories are inherently interesting (British Reforma-tion, African slave trade, the World Wars), but I had been taught under the old school; namely, that after Rome Collapsed the Dark Ages set in, redeemed only by the Italian Renaissance. The 1300s were no barrel of laughs, but the human spirit endured (trite, but accurate) and the era is not easily stereotyped. Whatever their station, this book's inhabitants are a mixture of the brutish, sullen, mean, wretched, politically disempowered, yet in some ways surprisingly smart, enlightened, canny and with a "Waltons" type extended family security.

Civilization had moved just a tiny, almost imperceptible notch beyond our view of the Dark Ages oaf in burlap who blindly obeyed everything he was told, sacred and secular, even if contradictory. We have to squint really hard to see anything in that foggy historical and cultural mirror that resembles us pre-Chaucher, but Tuchman puls it off brilliantly and in a different society, too. Tuchman gave me "graduate" insight in spite of my "general-track" background, so I'm very grateful.

So much depends on context. Did everyone drop work and rush to church all day? Get real: hoe that wheat or starve. Lacking mechanical clocks, on a typically overcast W. Eur. day, only the local church steeple accurately chimed the hours as a by-product of announcing matins, lauds, etc. In general our populace are different; but judge for yourselves whether their habits are common-sense, pragmatic but strange to us, or just plain weird!

Presentation is key: Tuchman avoids the traditional "big man" school of historicism (that kind of history is writ about the pertinent big shots: Talleyrand, Chairman Mao, whoever). A DISTANT MIRROR isn't truly a grass-roots social history. Even though peasants far outnumbered merchants, there was no bourgeoisie to speak the literate lords left behind the best historical documentation. Tuchman limits her research area to a blah corner of northern France (if you're tired of seeing tourists, visit the region). Her lead character is nobility (had to be, they were most of the literates and as Tuchman explains, this one in particular threw off lots of paperwork as lord and liege, a treasure trove.

In essence, Tuchman is turning away from the distractions, glam-by-deceit and geometric increase in documents -- say, Manhattan; she chooses instead a sociologically normal and not overly complex representation of the whole -- like Muncie, IN, pet of sociologists now for 80 years. Tuchman turns this kind of model to her advantage: one 14th-Century ducal holdout against subsumation by greater powers becomes a metonymy for all of France, indeed all of what then would probably been called "Christendom," or perhaps the "Holy Roman Empire." The society she chronicles is stratified, but less so than a simple scheme of peasant/merchant/cleric/nobility might suggest.

Our Ruler Himself is no Big Man; he's sort of a B- sovereign who seemed most of the time to enjoy literal wars against the same or higher nobility trying to poach his turf as opposed to placating the peasants at home. (Not a word more, smalling.) He's a very human person and, adjusting for 1300 statecraft, people may love him or hate him or both.

With its meticulous research, felicitous prose, tapestried, user-friendly structure and an almost Homeric intensity of storytelling that's hard to resist, I give A DISTANT MIRROR the highest commendation. Truly, with Tuchman, one word can equal a thousand pictures, but the book has more than an adequate amount of B&W photos and drawings. No wonder it's still in print and no wonder so many people like me rush to read her other works such as THE PROUD TOWER.