 De Situ Britanniae
By Richard of Cirencester (purportedly) or Charles Bertram (alleged) Published in the 14th century (purportedly) or 1757 (alleged) 81 Pages Thibault’s Score: 5/5 This is the strangest book review that I have ever written - so buckle up. I was reading an early 19th century edition of a crusades Chronicle of Richard of Devizes. My edition included a reprint of another medieval text - De Situ Britanniae by Richard of Cirencester. Without any context, I read Richard of Cirencester’s De Situ Britanniae. I will now tell you what De Situ Britanniae contains. De Situ Britanniae is (supposedly) a medieval monk’s attempt at reconciling Roman place names with the medieval place names of his own day. It is mostly a geographical work that contains some crude maps. He also includes some ethnographic information which he supposedly gathered from various classical texts as well as interviews with Welsh bards. De Situ Britanniae was a very interesting text. The first thing that struck me was how clearly written it was compared to other medieval texts. It includes one of the best descriptions of classical druids I had come across. It also includes some interesting scientific observations about the size of planet earth and Britain’s climate. The edition I had was bilingual - it contained the original midieval Latin, as well as the English translation. Then I sat down to write the book review. This is when things get really, really weird. I pulled up the Wikipedia page to get some historical context. It turns out that the book was actually an 18th century forgery. My 19th century edition was printed before the forgery was uncovered, so does not mention this. The allegation is that a British historian living in Denmark in the 1700s called Charles Bertram had an academic dispute with another historian. The two were debating some obscure geographical details. Then, Bertram “won” the debate by producing this book which he had found. In 1838, the text was studied at length and many anomalies were discovered. Since 1838, the academic consensus is that the text is a forgery. However, because I was reading a reprint from before 1838, I had no clue of this. One telltale sign is that the text quotes Tacitus. However, the version of Tacitus quotes came from a 16th century Venetian mistranslation, which had introduced mistakes into the text. Because Richard of Cirencester lived a century prior to this mistranslation, he couldn’t possibly have had access to this mistranslation. There were also many other geographic and linguistic errors. But then, things get stranger. Later in the 19th century, other historians debunked the debunking. They argued that although Charles Bertram had altered parts of the text to win his historical argument, other parts were in fact authentic. Charles Bertram was a historian and had access to many authentic and obscure primary materials. He inserted many of these materials into his forgery. Today, all historians accept that either all or the majority of De Situ Britanniae is a forgery. But there is still debate as to whether the forgery might contain bits and pieces of evidence from the 14th century. Just because of the sheer strangeness of this book, I recommend at least reading the Wikipedia page.
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 Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi
By Richard of Devizes Published in 1198 82 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 Usually, modern people over-estimate how bloodthirsty and savage medieval writers are. If you want to find an example of a medieval author who conforms to all of the worst modern stereotypes about the Middle Ages, read Richard of Devizes. This is actually the second time that I’ve read Richard of Devizes - last time was a couple years ago when my knowledge of the period was less advanced. Richard of Devizes was a monk and political pundit who wrote texts to defend the regime of Richard Lionheart and Aliénor of Aquitaine. What is striking about Devizes' account is how bloodthirsty he is. He is constantly calling for and celebrating violence against Lionheart’s political enemies in England; against Muslims; against Italians; against Greeks; and most importantly, against Jews. His style of writing (or my early 19th century translation) makes him very hard to read. The book is also disorganized, with different pages jumping around at random times. This is a far cry from other more rational medieval authors. Two passages struck me in particular. The first is how he describes Lionheart’s arrival in the Norman kingdom of Sicily. Instead of respecting his Sicilian Norman allies, Lionheart starts ravaging the countryside and extorts his Norman cousins for money and supplies. Instead of condemning this attack against a fellow Christian, Richard of Devizes enthusiastically praises Lionheart. When I first read this chronicle, I just assumed that medieval people were savages. Having read more primary source materials, I now understand that Devizes’ endorsement of bloodshed against fellow Christians was not mainstream. The other notable passage is his description of the mass murder of Jews in celebration of Lionheart’s coronation. He is the first author to use the word “holocaust” to describe the murder of Jews. This passage is well known, and I noticed it last time. What I didn’t remember or notice was another passage later in the book where he describes a Jewish pedophile who lures a French boy to England to molest and kill him. The story is lurid and very detailed. This is the first primary source example of what historians assume is “blood libel” that I have come across. Historiographically, it is hard for me to judge whether or not Richard of Devizes is lying about his description of the Jews. At first, when I came across the passage about the boy killed by Jews, I assumed it was blood libel. The main reason behind my assumption was that the chronicler seems like he is writing specifically for the purpose of justifying atrocities in Greece and elsewhere. It wouldn’t be out of character to take an isolated incident out of context, and amplify it to justify his “holocaust.” However, there could be more to it. In the middle ages Jews were a “ghetto minority.” Low trust ethnic minorities in high crime areas often have this kind of social problem. Nearly a thousand years later, in the very same city of Winchester, there are Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs that rape and traffic young British girls. Similar conditions could lead to similar circumstances. The story could be completely real. I don’t recommend reading Richard of Devizes for the average reader. It is difficult material. It also makes for somewhat dull reading. But if you are serious about studying history, you need to read primary sources. Devizes isn’t the first source I would recommend, but for more advanced readers or for those interested in Jewish history, his chronicle might be of interest.  How to Plan a Crusade: Religious War in the High Middle Ages
By Christopher Tyerman Published in October 2017 432 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 My thoughts on this book can be summarized in four words: Fascinating topic; mediocre execution. The book advertises itself as focusing on the details of how leaders planned, financed, and executed crusades. The problem is that only roughly half of the book actually covers this topic; and the other half goes into semi-relevant side topics. The author is further hampered by an annoying academic writing style artificially inserts “big word fluff,” rather than focusing on clarity and concrete details. More than half of the book covers the ideological, psychological, religious, cultural, and social aspects of crusade planning. I found this frustrating, as many books already cover this when discussing the crusades. The truly unique parts of the book which focused on the details of financing, recruitment, transportation, and logistics were completely buried. The book was also not written for the right reasons. The author focused on trying to prove the obvious: that medieval people were rational actors. His reason for covering the planning of the crusades is to prove this pedantic point. Only uneducated boomers who got all of their information from 1980s movies believe this. It is a very dated stereotype that doesn’t even need to be mentioned. For a younger reader like me, who never saw medieval people as irrational, the constant rehashing of this argument was very annoying and distracting. Instead, I wish that rather than telling the reader “why” this book is important; he just focused on the “what” and let the reader decide that for themselves. I think that part of the reason for the focus on the mental rather than physical aspects is because writing about the granular specifics is much more difficult. The written sources tend to cover the ideology; and so does Tyerman. A true discussion of granular military logistics and economics would require more inference from non crusade sources; and more archeology. Instead of writing the book that readers like me who already know about the crusades were all hoping to read; he wrote the book that was easy to write. In my book reviews, I usually try to list some of the interesting things that I learned. However, the writing style was so distracting, and the information so generic, that I can’ t remember if individual facts I know about crusades planning came from this book or from other sources. Here is an example. Tyerman spends many pages proving that crusaders used accounting techniques. He gives quote after quote after quote from primary sources proving that knights knew and cared about accounting. To someone like me, this is completely obvious and at most merits a paragraph. What I was burning to know was the specific details of what the accounts look like, how the accounting was executed, etc… He never covers these details, and instead moves onto the next topic. Likewise, he has many pages where he proves that there was debt financing of crusading activity. Once more, to anyone who knows even the basics like me, this is obvious. What I really wanted to know was who was doing the lending, where the money lent came from, what the interest rates were, what the terms of the agreements look like, etc… He never covers this. What is worse is that I have done a little bit of this research myself, and I know that at least for the doomed fourth crusade there is at least some evidence for what this might have looked like in practice. Tyerman could not have picked a more interesting topic for this book. But I still do not recommend it. This book was way too deep and in the weeds when it came to things like justifying the crusades; but frustratingly vague when it came to military logistics or economics. This book will be too hard for novices; but frustrating for anyone who wants a more in depth view. This book has no audience.  The Taint and Other Novellas: A Cthulhu Mythos Collection
By Brian Lumley Published in October 2008 416 Pages Thibault’s Score: 1/5 I am a big fan of HP Lovecraft, but I’ve read almost all of his works (including some half assed ones he wrote as a teenager). In my quest to find more follow on works and further explore his universe, I have been delving more broadly into the corpus of other works who contributed to the Lovecraft Mythos. Brain Lumley reads like a Reddit fanfiction version of Loveraft. It clumsily attempts to replicate the horror elements, while eschewing the very things that make Lovecraft so interesting - the exploration of archaic mysteries. The first story I read took place in a mental asylum. The main character is an employee who is an aspiring writer - an obvious self insert of the author. The environment is so contrived that it feels designed to generate a cosmic horror. Likewise, the second story “Born to the Winds” feels similarly contrived. The main character goes north. All exposition is clunky and obvious. The action was so predictable that it made the conclusion borderline comical. Finally I skipped and read a story about a character called Titus Crow. He is a mary sue action hero inside of a Lovecraft-ish world. While the other two stories were simply boring and predictable, this one was outright cringy. Titus Crow somehow is a genius occultist who can escape and effortless beat anything that the mythos throws at him. Once again, a very predictable and clunky setup - creepy old man hires Crow to clean his library, and locks him into a haunted house. I didn’t even finish the third story before I decided to quit while I was still ahead. My conclusion is that Lumley’s short stories are to Lovecraft what Netflix Star Trek is to real Star Trek or Disney Star Wars is to real Star Wars. Tragic.  The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream
By Charles Spencer Published in September 2020 352 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 William the Conqueror was a military genius, but struggled to build a stable government in England. He had some flashes of brilliance with institutions like the Domesday Book, but was neither outstandingly good or bad. His successors - William Rufus in England and Robert Curthose in Normandy - were particularly incompetent. They destroyed everything that William the Conqueror had built up during their short reigns. Luckily, William the Conqueror’s third son - Henry (later Henry 1) - turned out to be an absolute genius. Henry 1 had a hard start in life. Immediately, he was seen as a third party in between the conflict between his two brothers over the estate of his father. He spent his early years at war, in prison, in servile roles, and briefly even as a beggar. Thanks to a series of unexpected reversals, he ultimately was able to claw his way back to power and seize the crown of England. Militarily, Henry 1 was able to defeat his loser siblings, as well as put down various rebellions. He re-unified the realm of his father, reigning over both Normandy and England at the same time. In his entire reign, he only lost a single battle. Economically, Henry’s reign was also marked by brilliance. He created the institution of the exchequer - a centralized treasury that controlled the kingdom’s finances, managed taxation, and rooted out corruption. The name exchequer comes from a literal chequerboard. Accountants would lay out a chequerboard with the outlines of different coins. Sheriffs and other officials would be required to place coins on the chequerboard, and the accountants could quickly visually count the coins. Henry’s economic reforms came with three incredible benefits, which resulted in rapid economic growth. First, it reduced corruption. Stealing money became much more difficult. Second, the increased revenues allowed him to lower taxes. Finally, this system of accounting allowed for longer term planning rather than ad hoc planning. Henry also passed many important legal reforms. Previously, trials by jury had existed customarily, especially in areas that came under Viking influence. However, Henry formalized the institution, planting the seeds that would result in our modern Anglo-American common law system of jury trials. He also created something called the Charter of Liberties which enshrined property rights, also forming the basis of common law property rights. Henry’s incredible reign was marked by a shadow. Like many great men, he rotted from the loins up. He only had a single legitimate son - William Ætheling. He had a legitimate daughter, Mathilda. Mostly prior to being King, but also subsequently, he had numerous mistresses and fathered at least 23 illegitimate children. The disaster would come when his heir apparent, William Ætheling, was a young man towards the end of Henry’s reign. William Ætheling had a party boat known as “the white ship.” This boat would sail in between England and Normandy, and was the site of heavy drinking and debauchery. In November 1120, the White Ship sank, possibly due to a drunken accident. Only two men survived by clinging to wreckage and swimming to the coast of Normandy. William Ætheling, along with his entire generation of nobility, died overnight. Stricken by grief, Henry died shortly later while on a military campaign against France. With no legitimate heir, but many bastards, the entire realm descended into a period of civil war known as “the Anarchy.” The Welsh, Scots, French, and Irish made significant advances, resulting in massive territorial losses for the English on all fronts. Different lords and nobles all claimed the throne. The economy was completely destroyed. All of Henry’s brilliant reforms were nearly forgotten. The anarchy would last until 1153, when the grandson of Henry 1 via his legitimate daughter Mathilda - Henry II - would manage to seize control of the throne. Henry II, with his wife Aliénor of Aquitaine, managed to restore the reign. Henry II re-implemented many of Henry I’s reforms, stabilizing the realm. This is a fascinating period of history. I am pretty well versed in early Norman history, so found the book enjoyable. It is hard for me to gauge how interesting this book will be to someone who isn’t knowledgeable or interested in the period. Overall, I would recommend it to someone curious about this specific time. I especially enjoyed the many tidbits that cover economic history. |
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