The fourteenth century saw both heights of extravagance and depths of agony as the middle ages drew to a close. Barbara Tuchman examines the century through the lens of the life of one of the prominent French noblemen of the period, Enguerrand de Coucy VII. Tracing the rise of the bourgeois and the decline of chivalry, Tuchman takes as her theme the disorders of a society in ‘a period of unusual discomfort’, much of it manmade, as a ‘distant mirror’ on the similar disarray and disaster of the mid-twentieth century.[1]
Tuchman’s choice of the life of Enguerrand de Coucy as a normal representative person is justified, because as a member of the nobility, enough records survive that we can understand his life better than the innumerable bourgeois and peasant figures who are lucky to be mentioned once in surviving documents. De Coucy’s mother died in the first cycle of the Black Death; upon reaching majority, he was involved in the opening stages of the Hundred Years’ War and, during the first truce, married the daughter of the English king. The ensuing double allegiance kept him out of renewed hostilities, but his valuable expertise did not allow him to sit out the fight for long. He was a reasonable and experienced man of his time who played a key role in most of the major events of the last half of the fourteenth century. Along the way, Tuchman detours to discuss practically every topic of interest in understanding fourteenth-century society, including fashion, trade, food, literature, language, marriage, medicine, art, and myriad surrounding figures. These tangents are helpful and interesting instead of distracting because Tuchman has chosen to study a remarkable and fascinating era. Beginning with global famine and the removal of the papacy to Avignon, the century witnessed the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453); the Black Death; rampant banditry, interminable conflict, and corrupt government; bourgeois and peasant uprisings against the nobility’s fantastic wealth; the rule of kings and princes who ranged from heroic but vainglorious to literally mad; France’s prideful intrusions into Italy and the disastrous last crusade; and the Great Papal Schism during the death throes of the age of chivalry.
The book’s scope is vast and well-researched, although it does have some flaws. Unfortunately, it ends before the end of the Hundred Years’ War, leaving the reader feeling rather tense despite an epilogue which aptly summarizes events over the next century; after nearly 600 pages of explicit detail, the short 16-page explanation doesn’t quite fill the gap. I would warn the reader that the book is full of descriptions of very graphic violence, which one shouldn’t leave out of a history book when they happened, but which make this book inappropriate for youthful readers. Ultimately, my biggest quarrel with the book is that Tuchman frequently shrugs off beliefs or actions that she does not understand as just ‘what they did in the 14th century’ – which is odd for someone making the argument that ‘[t]he interval of 600 years permits what is significant in human nature to stand out’.[2] A better path would be to seek to understand instead of to dismiss.
A Distant Mirror is a fascinating history of the fourteenth century. For an introduction to the period that has both good storytelling and lots of historical detail, I certainly recommend it!
[1] Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, xiii.
[2] Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, xiv