Travels with a Medieval Queen

Rating:
Summary: A charming narrative!
Review: I am an academically trained and practicing medieval historian who has written some "serious" stuff on medieval queens, and I was enchanted with this author's approach. It isn't a traditional biography -- it isn't supposed to be...it's part travel journal, part memoir, part tribute to the marginalized women of th European past; part talented amateur engagement with the middle ages.
The author's attempts to engage with and appreciate Constance of Sicily are wonderfully narrated, and I think very effective over all. I am giving a copy to each of my female grad students to read over spring break.

Rating:
Summary: A charming narrative!
Review: I am an academically trained and practicing medieval historian who has written some "serious" stuff on medieval queens, and I was enchanted with this author's approach. It isn't a traditional biography -- it isn't supposed to be...it's part travel journal, part memoir, part tribute to the marginalized women of th European past; part talented amateur engagement with the middle ages.
The author's attempts to engage with and appreciate Constance of Sicily are wonderfully narrated, and I think very effective over all. I am giving a copy to each of my female grad students to read over spring break.

Rating:
Summary: A charming narrative!
Review: I am an academically trained and practicing medieval historian who has written some "serious" stuff on medieval queens, and I was enchanted with this author's approach. It isn't a traditional biography -- it isn't supposed to be...it's part travel journal, part memoir, part tribute to the marginalized women of th European past; part talented amateur engagement with the middle ages.
The author's attempts to engage with and appreciate Constance of Sicily are wonderfully narrated, and I think very effective over all. I am giving a copy to each of my female grad students to read over spring break.

Rating:
Summary: Quick Read?
Review: I'm glad somebody found this to be a quick read. I found it to be hard going with a lot of " maybe -this -happened" in the text, which the author acknowledges. It seemed to jump from one year to another and back to the first year and if you were not familiar with the characters became very confusing. Parts of it were interesting, mostly the last 50 pages. The pictures were nicely done. There was a small error in the Family Tree at the beginning. Eleanor of Aquitaine did not die the same year as Richard the Lionheart.

Rating:
Summary: Quick Read?
Review: I'm glad somebody found this to be a quick read. I found it to be hard going with a lot of " maybe -this -happened" in the text, which the author acknowledges. It seemed to jump from one year to another and back to the first year and if you were not familiar with the characters became very confusing. Parts of it were interesting, mostly the last 50 pages. The pictures were nicely done. There was a small error in the Family Tree at the beginning. Eleanor of Aquitaine did not die the same year as Richard the Lionheart.

Rating:
Summary: Creative and imaginative biography of a little-known queen!
Review: It's a daunting task to attempt to write a biography of someone when few primary sources exist. Constance, the last child of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily was an intriguing woman whose personal story teased, eluded and captivated author Mary Taylor Simeti for years, as she states in the pages of this biography-cum-travelogue-cum-personal memoir, but with whom she felt a strange kinship. Both were strangers in a strange land---Constance in her 10-year exile from her Sicilian homeland when she married Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI---Simeti when she married a Sicilian, settled there, and raised her children far from America. Simeti happily found a home in Sicily (and this is her 4th book dealing with Sicilian subjects); Constance finally returned, in triumph, to the land of her forebears, having borne a child along the way (a first child, at the age of forty!), the infant who would become Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and Sicilian King. Simeti flatly states that she did not know if she had enough material to write a biography. She then takes the daring chance of fleshing out her thin material by musing about a fictitious (though likely) Arab nursemaid, a possible (though unlikely) relationship with a German courtier, and a close friendship (most plausible) with an Italian abbess, and sets out to reconstruct Constance's final trip home to Palermo, using logic, old documents, and intuition, to guess the actual route of the journey south. Simeti takes the further leap of relating to Constance as a woman and mother whose hopes, fears, and ambitions for her child were not so different from those of any other mother, despite the yawning chasm of centuries and cultures. Not a traditional biography, or history, by any means, and some points are surely controversial, but this is a compelling narrative that makes this little-known queen come alive as a personage in her own right. Simeti freely admits that although she was a history major, she is not an historian, but she shows great powers of empathy with Constance. Moreover, living in Sicily for 40 years has made her quite knowledgeable about and sensitive to the people, the land, and its ancient history. (I wish only that Simeti had taken more time in her journey to visit more sites and take more photographs!) The story of the Norman conquest of Sicily, when the House of Hauteville wrested control of this rich kingdom from Arab control, and what happened when Teutons from the North stepped in two centuries later at the death of Constance's young nephew, William II, after the throne was claimed by an illegitimate grandson of Roger II, isn't well-known, but it is highly dramatic, replete with colorful characters, intrigues, and adventure. I look forward to more explorations of Sicilian history from this talented writer, someone who loves what she does and has the ability to make otherwise dusty history come alive for her readers. A final note---Simeti talks about her own life and experiences in this unusual book but never in a jarring manner---which makes one wonder at the disturbing ad hominem remarks addressed to the author in the previous reviews---rather, the contemporary travelogue-cum-memoir has its own charm and nicely brackets the trip and experiences of Queen Constance, who becomes ever more human to us as she makes her crucial life's passage from the cold, monochromatic German castle of Trifels to the warmth and beauty of the colorful Mediterranean island her heart never really left. And there is never any question of where Simeti's heart is.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not essential
Review: The book was a quick read (so I don't regret having read it) but it is rather an odd mix. The story of the "medieval queen" in question (Constance of Sicily, mother of Frederick II, the HRE) is based on very litte historical information (since none exists and the author doesn't appear to be a particularly strong scholar) and for some unfathomable reason she feels the need to "make up" imaginary characters to accompany the queen on her journey. The queen does nothing on this particular trip except travel very slowly from point A to point B, giving birth along the way. She is not an active power and indeed, like nearly any royal woman of the period, was little more than a slave to her husband and her "duty." Nevertheless, the author tries to make a case for her undergoing some kind of "empowerment" through giving birth and returning to her native land as Queen. There isn't any evidence to support this assertion, and the amateur psychology (based on the author's own experience of being a mother) is not attractive.

At the same time as she tells the queen's story, the author and a friend are retracing the queen's route (based on sheer guesswork). One doesn't know whether to applaud that some buildings still exist 900 years later or bemoan the fact that so much of the medieval legacy was bombed to hell in WWII.

Then, to fill in for all the nonexistent information, we are treated to a wide range of facts about various royal houses, medieval life, etc. For me, the best part of the book was learning something about the Norman Sicilian monarchy, and its relationship to the royal houses of Germany and England.

As a light, quick read you may enjoy it, but this book really did not need to be written and there are many other, better books on women in the Middle Ages. Also, the jacket copy on this book is particularly misleading. The visuals (art/photos) in the book are well chosen.

Rating:
Summary: Nice pictures, but . . .
Review: This book tries to be three things: -- a popular account of the life of the Empress Constance, a modern-day travelogue of the author's journeys through Germany and Italy, and a historical novel -- and, unfortunately, succeeds at none of them. The author makes little effort to lay out clearly the complex historical facts of the twelfth century that are the backbone of her book, and the reader is often left confused by the sheer number of persons mentioned without adequate explanation. It doesn't help that amid the genuine historical figures in the book are studded wholly imaginary people, or that even some authentic characters are given relationships and attributes that have no known basis in fact. The author is upfront about her fictionalizations, but they really serve no purpose except to muddy an already complicated picture.

Even less interesting are the travelogue sections, which describe the journey of two middle-aged ladies (the author and a friend) on the modern highways of Europe as they visit sites that have something to do with Constance. Their biggest problem is finding a parking garage for the car at night; high drama occurs when these grumpy women find themselves carping over who suffers more from empty-nest syndrome. Added to this is the author's irritating tendency to recount subtly self-aggrandizing episodes from her past and present (her famous father; her extensive travels throughout Europe at an early age; her son's success as a sculptor, and so on) -- the result is a less than enthralling narrative.

However, the pictures are beautiful and well selected -- particularly those in the color insert.