 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.  Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs
By Luis Elizondo Published in August 2024 304 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 Imminent is a book written by a Pentagon whistleblower which attempts to explain the various US government efforts to track UFOs and UAPs. Luis Elizondo is the whistleblower who leaked the famous “Gimble” and “Gofast” videos to the New York Times in 2017. He also publicized the government's AATIP program as well as several other government funded anti UAP and UFO initiatives. Luis Elizondo has a fascinating background. He is the son of a former Cuban communist revolutionary, who eventually was betrayed by the Castro regime. Luis’ father was detained in one of Castro’s concentration camps, but eventually escaped and fought alongside the CIA during the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. Luis later served in the US army in Korea and Kuwait. Later, he served as a CIA paramilitary officer doing counter-intelligence operations in a variety of countries around the world ranging from the Middle East to South America. During his time working on black ops, he claims that he was trained to use parapsychology and remote viewing. Due to budget cuts, however, he was never actively deployed as a psionic. Two kids and one marriage later, he decided to retire from the field in exchange for a calmer bureaucratic career in Washington DC. After a decade working various civilian military intelligence jobs in DC, he was eventually recruited to join the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (or AATIP). AATIP is a US government program to gather and attempt to explain hundreds of sensor readings, videos, accounts, and other pieces of data that could be UFOs / UAPs. For more than a decade, the US government secretly collected a very large body concerning UFOs during the late 2000s and early 2010s. AATIP’s existence was later confirmed in various declassification hearings. After reading this book, I am now 100% convinced that, at the very least, people at high levels in the American military are convinced that extraterrestrials exist and are visiting earth. The Pentagon consensus is that these extraterrestrials are hostile and planning an invasion. I am personally unsure what to believe. Reading this book has tipped me more to the side that UFOs are both real and currently visiting earth. The conclusions that many in the Pentagon have come to - that the UFOs are hostile - to me seems wrong. If they were truly planning an invasion, then anyone capable of interstellar travel could easily have already wiped us out or enslaved us. I suspect that the aliens, if real, are either simply studying and observing us or actively protecting the human race. This is a very interesting book that I recommend to anyone interested in learning more about UFOs and UAPs. It might be a good second or third book to read about the topic.  Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England
By Eleanor Parker Published in February 2022 272 Pages Thibault’s Score: 3/5 Conquered is a history of various individuals who were born right before the Norman conquest of England, but displaced in the following years. It covers various remarkable people who survived, adapted, and eventually prospered despite the conquest. The first figure is Hereward the Wake. Hereward (pronounced Hero-Wood) was an Anglo-Saxon rebel who fought a guerilla war against William the Conqueror for a decade after the conquest. He was a former noble, who after the conquest, spent most of his time living in swamps. Many of his contemporaries just saw him as a bandit. Despite this, after his death many folk tales and legends about his exploits spread far and wide. A large body of literature eventually appeared touting his exploits, both real and imagined. Another fascinating figure covered in the book is Saint Margaret of Scotland. She was a relative of the former ruling dynasty of England from the House of Wessex. Due to various political events before and during the conquest, her family fled to Norway, then Russia, and finally settled in Hungary. Changing political events allowed her family to return to England on the eve of the Norman conquest - only to be displaced a second time. Her family eventually ended up in Scotland, where she married into the nobility, becoming queen of Scotland. She is credited with having helped standardize Scottish Christianity so it conformed more closely with the Catholic church. This work allowed her to become sainted. The last person covered is a monk and chronicler called Eadmer of Canterbury. His life’s work was to attempt to reconcile pre Norman English notions of Christianity with the doctrines promoted by the Normans. Notably, there were many pre Norman English saints who had either been mocked by the Normans as false pretenders or rustic charletans, such as St Dunstan. Over the course of a 50 year long academic career, he rehabilitated ethnic English saints by writing their histories. His histories were written in a way designed to make them more appealing to Norman sensibilities. His work largely succeeded, and helped contribute to the preservation and eventual dominance of English culture over Norman culture. The subject of the book is interesting, but the writing style is a tad too academic. I like history books that walk the very fine line between being earthy and accurate (without too many imaginary first person narratives). I found that the writing spent too much time focusing on “re-interpretation” rather than just focusing on accurately explaining historical events. The writing style wasn’t bad - but wasn’t for me. This book would be very readable to anyone who has a basic understanding of the Norman conquest. I recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the period, but do not recommend it for a general audience.  The Norman Conquest: England After William the Conqueror
By Hugh M. Thomas Published in 2007 204 Pages Thibault’s Score: 2/5 A lot of historical academic writing suffers from nitpicking where the writers attempt to argue for some interpretive point rather than clearly outline facts. This 200 page books opened with a 20 page summary of its contents; and a summary of arguments for and against the great man theory of history. To me this is an absolute red flag for a history book. When I encounter a book like this, I just stop reading because my time is precious and I’ve already wasted far too much time in my life reading stuff like this.  The Normans: From Raiders to Kings
By Lars Brownworth Published in 2014 254 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4/5 The Normans: From Raiders to Kings is a sweeping history of the Norman people and their incredible exploits throughout Europe. It is very well written and a great book for a novice who has only a little bit of historical context. The history starts with the origins of the Normans. It describes how a viking warlord - Rollo the Walker - began raiding what is today France. The local elites spent twenty years fighting him. After two decades of nonstop warfare, the local elites realized that their struggle was futile. Instead they came up with a new strategy: they Christianized the invaders, and granted them a fief at the mouth of the Seine river. The Normans were given the task of maintaining fortifications along this river to prevent other vikings from invading inland. The Normans were settled in a region known as Armorica. This region - today called Normandy - became the bastion of a powerful medieval civilization. Within a couple generations, the Normans became thoroughly French. Worshiping the old gods was seen at first as rustic, and later as heretical. The viking elites made an extreme effort to ingratiate themselves to their Armorican subjects. This forced the Normans to become competent at warfare and governance. They retained the best aspects of Norse culture while adopting the refinement of France. These traits would allow the Normans to establish many powerful states across Europe. The obvious example is William the Conqueror’s conquest of England. There, the Normans established themselves as a small dominant elite ruling over a mostly Anglo Saxon population. Here the typical Norman pattern of conquest repeated itself for the first time. Slowly, they intermarried with the local population. They adapted the language, clothing, and customs of the conquered. Today Britons speak English - not Norman. They adopted the Anglo Saxon legal system, and many of their religious quirks. But they also changed many customs, refining them. In many ways this pattern was a repetition of the viking settlement of Normandy - and will be seen elsewhere. Around the same time as the Norman conquest, many landless Norman nobles left with their warbands to seek their fortunes as Italy. Initially, the Normans arrived as mercenaries. They found a patchwork of weak squabbling states dominated by a wide variety of powers - papal fiefs, Lombard duchies, Byzantine Greek outposts, and even North African Muslims. Starting in the 1040s, two decades before the conquest of England and continuing throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, the Normans carved out many enclaves and outposts in the Southern Italian mainland. The most notable Norman conquest in Italy would be the establishment of the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1061, the Normans established their first city state. Within 40 years they had conquered the entire island. Sicily retained a strong independent character - and the Normans started mixing the local Italian, Greek, and Arab cultures. They baptized part of the Arab nobility allowing them to rule, bullied and negotiated with popes to get Catholic support, and adopted Greek style dress and governmental language. They even attempted to marry into the Byzantine royal family on several occasions. Norman Sicily would become the launchpad for the crusades - and benefit greatly from it. The Normans established the first written constitution. By medieval standards, it was incredibly economically prosperous. Science flourished - beginning the process of transmitting the advanced Islamic sciences to Europe. Eventually Sicily became too powerful. Sicilian Norman elites began meddling in Papal and Holy Roman politics. Although Sicily successfully established several popes and Sicily's monarchs (briefly) held the title of Holy Roman Emperor, the success was short-lived. Sicily collapsed into constant war and would eventually be absorbed into other regional powers. By the 1200s, Norman culture had been so Italianized that the Norman elites of Sicily were unrecognizable as Normans. The Norman states and statelets of Southern Italy would lead Normans to establish dozens of small Norman states before and during the crusades. In the decade immediately before the crusade, two separate groups of Norman mercenaries serving the Byzantine emperors carved out two small states in Anatolia each of which lasted only a year. Normans also established several (very short lived) states in North Africa before and again during the crusades. The crusades themselves were predominantly led by Normans. Although Normans played a key role in nearly all of the major crusader states and knightly orders, the only true Norman crusader state was the long-lived Crusader Principality of Antioch which lasted roughly 150 years. The Norman secret for success was extreme integration into the local population. This would also be their undoing. Norman influence spread rapidly in the 11th century; but by the 13th century they had so thoroughly integrated anywhere that although their children sometimes still governed any semblance of “Normanness” was lost - this occurred everywhere from England to Antioch. This would also be the undoing of Normans in Normandy. The Normans immediately began influencing the politics of nearby city states and kingdoms such as Anjou, Gascony, and Aquitaine. Doing so caused them to become increasingly politically and culturally integrated into the French mainstream. By the mid 13th century, Normandy was annexed into the rising kingdom of France, with its elites having already been fully assimilated into the French elites. Normandy itself assimilated itself out of existence. As long as you have a basic understanding of what happened in the Middle Ages, you will enjoy this book. If you want to understand the success of a forgotten ruling minority, read this book.  The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England
By Marc Morris Published in 2013 464 Pages Thibault’s Score: 4 / 5 Marc Morris is a well known popular historian who has written many books about the English Middle Ages. In The Norman Conquest, Morris gives you a month by month account of the Norman conquest of England, starting with the troubled reign of Edward the Confessor and ending his account shortly after the death of William the Conqueror. Usually, histories this granular get tedious. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Note that this comes after several months of extensively studying the period, so I was able to follow all of the characters, places, and names really easily. I think that if I hadn’t spent so much time studying the period, this book wouldn’t have been very interesting. I learned a lot. This book has a great blend of military history, economics, and social history. Considering the limitations of his sources and the granularity of the account, this was likely a difficult book to write. Morris does a good job at keeping a good pace, and walks a fine line between being informative and succinct. There are many interesting and memorable tidbits / anecdotes. Towards the beginning of the book, he describes the debauched Norman court and the origins of William the Conqueror. I found it interesting, how as a teenager, William manages to retake his kingdom and claim his birthright. The process by which he slowly is documented to assume command is fascinating. I also find the chapter on the domesday book, towards the end, to be interesting. The famous land and tax survey was compiled by 30 surveyors, some assistants, and entirely written down by a single monk. Incredibly, it was finished in under two years. The sheer scale and magnitude of the efforts, considering pre industrial technology, is what is the most staggering. Also the description of the old Anglo-Saxon “geld” taxation system, in contrast with the new Norman system, was very thought provoking. Finally the impact of the many tax free zones, exemptions, and wasted parcels reminds me of parallels about the current US tax code’s complexity. Other notable tidbits are the horrific descriptions of slavery, and its abolition by the Normans; the chivalry of William; and the horrific scenes of rape and slaughter during the actual conquest. I would recommend this book to people interested in learning more about English history, but would caution against reading it alone. I think it would be a good accompaniment to someone who has made a playlist of podcasts or videos about the period. Otherwise, the many characters, places, and events will be very disorienting. For me it was a great history book, but it isn’t for everyone. |
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