Customer Reviews

The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Supposedly, this book was put together by some of the "world's most distinguished medievalists"! One hopes not! In addition to the glaring errors of taste and judgment pointed out by some of the other reviewers, the factual errors are astonishing! One of the most egregious errors occurs on p. 138: "Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of two kings, Philip I of France and Henry I of England"!!!!! Eleanor, of course, was the wife of Louis VII of France and of Henry II of England! This kind of sloppiness is simply not acceptable in a book that purports to be by "someof the world's best medieval historians" (fronticepiece). The pictures are pretty; some of the articles are acceptable (but hardly noteworthy), but the book should be avoided at all costs by serious (or would-be) students of the Medieval Period.

Pleasantly illustrated and well-written, this book will be attractive to the general reader rather than the serious student. A telling indication of the book's cheerful informality is the artful, approximate way in which the maps are rendered; they're clearly meant to convey whimsy rather than geographical exactitude. This is not to say that the book is superficial, however. My impression is that the editor and the contributors successfully achieved a proper balance between readability and depth. On top of that, each entry leaves the reader primed for more reading (quite a feat for any historian, really). I'll give you an example. I was happily surprised to find that the article on banking and commerce, a subject which ordinarily would not seem a likely candidate for compelling reading, was clearly and eloquently discussed. I came away from it feeling impressed by the sophistication of medieval bankers and tradesmen, and curious to find more specialized titles on the subject. One last thought: I have found this book to be an excellent supplement to Norman Cantor's "The Civilization of the Middle Ages".

It's hard to review an encyclopedia. But when this one arrived and I opened it at random, I landed on the article "Jews in the Middle Ages."

Here is a long (7 column) article which doesn't even mention the Crusades or a host of other events and their impact on the Jews. Instead, it goes into polemics about various Jewish ideas and people, using highly charged words such as "irrational" and "second-rate," and dismissing other major events as "ridiculously exaggerated" by using questionable arguments.

An encyclopedia needs to be more even-handed or at least more temperate in its judgments; it is meant to be a resource and a starting point, not a platform for a particular scholarly view. (And scholarship should also watch its language.) While I found other articles to be more dispassionate and informative, I still feel that I need to keep more of a sceptical eye on each piece (none of which are signed) than I would like for such a book.

This is a beautifully produced book with hundreds of color plates. There are many areas barely touched upon, but this is not a deep work, just one meant to acquaint people with Medieval times and possibly lure to a more in depth study. But since this is an "encyclopedia", I ask did you ever get in depth works there? They are merely the start of a journey. If you think along those lines you will have a clear view of how this books works and serves. So approach it as that and you will be pleased.

It is merely a starting point. Some inaccurate information, so beware to double check sources when using information. Not sure if the errors were done in actual research (hard to believe of a Rhodes Scholar) or just typos. Either way, in a work such as this they really hurt the credibility.

Cantor's work provides brief synopses of the main figures and events of the middle ages, but it is not without its flaws. The most serious one in our opinion is the lack of any bibliographies. The illustrations were quite good and the work is certainly appropriate for the non-specialist, but one must look elsewhere to do further and more extensive research. All in all, a good reference work, but it could have been profoundly better.

'The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages', edited by Robert Cantor (Rhodes Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, &c.) is a good reference work, an encyclopedic dictionary, covering the roughly 1000 years from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. In addition the usual definition-explanation entries, it has three types of sidebar essays: Illuminations, which focus on sources, Life in the Middle Ages, which talks about common life details, and Legend and Lore, which explores imaginative concepts which informed medieval life.

There are maps, literally hundreds of photographs and illustrations, a layout that is inviting for study, reference, or general reading. It is 'easy on the eyes', much more so that a usual encyclopedia.

The scope of this work is also broader than most medieval reference texts. 'Despite what students of medieval history are accustomed to reading, life did exist outside of Europe in the Middle Ages.' That having been said, this is still a very euro-centric book. This book gives a great deal of attention to science, medicine, and other topics often ignored or pushed to the periphery of a more politically-oriented textual treatment.

There is an introductory essay that is well worth reading even if this is meant to be an on-the-shelf-for-reference-only sort of book. In talking about the influence on popular culture of the Middle Ages (everything from The Name of the Rose to the medieval garb, feudal structure and apprenticeship-education framework of Star Wars), Cantor says:

'In order to recognise [this Middle Ages influence] one has to have at some time known, and this has been the job of historians, who today painfully append to Santayana's famous saying (about those forgetting the past being condemned to repeat it) the observation that one cannot forget a history one did not know in the first place.'

Cantor describes twentieth century medievalists as being on a quest for 'wellsprings of a romantic and idealistic consciousness that would inspire a vibrant counterculture.' There is some of that in this book, but largely being encyclopedic rather than analytical and critical in nature, the reader/researcher can use the information contained herein for his own evaluations.

From the Abbadid and Abbasid Dynasties to Yaroslave the Wise and Yugoslavia, from Boethius to Wycliffe, this book has hidden treats and interesting articles for all.

In Eric Roth's review of this book, he wonders if listing John XXIII as a pope in the 15th century is a typo. It's not. There was a schismatic pope of that time named John XXIII. (At one point there were three popes!) Since he wasn't universally recognized, he didn't count when John XXIII in the 1960s took the same name.

This book is extremely reader friendly-guiding guiding you through the subject, not just alphabetically, but with an easy-to-follow "signpost" cross reference feature. The design is elegant and the images are spectacular. A gripping read throughout.

A visually stunning, but often peculiar, work that captures the tone, texture, and ideological obsessions of that distant era.

Perfect for browsing and well-written, this collective effort details the major families, saints, and great cities of the Middle Ages. The concise, yet detailed, entries provide excellent thumbnail sketches.

Yet there are some peculiar features to this ambitious and beautiful encyclopedia. First, there are the baffling typos like listing Pope John XXIII as condemning heretics in the 13th century (p.174... didn't somebody remember the soon to be sainted 20th century Pope John XXIII? Perhaps it was supposed to be John XXII.)

Yet, like some other reader-critics, I found the discussion of Jews to be, well, peculiar. The descriptions sound more medieval than modern. Persecutions are de-emphasized, explained, and almost justified. Consider the following paragraph, under Jews, on p.260: "It is also significant that in the first generation of Dominican inquisitors there were a number of Jewish converts. So the attack of the papal inquisition on the Jews in the 13th century France in part represented a split among the intellectuals of the Jewish community. The same internal culture conflict occurred in the days of the Spanish Inquisition around 1500." Is the author blaming the converted Jews for the torturing and burning of thousands of devout Jews? Is he implying that the inquisition might have been, well, unchristian, and that's because of the converted Jews? What is this nonsense?

Likewise, the four page entry on Jews, single spaced without illustrations, concludes on p.261 with same highly unorthodox assertions about the size and dimensions of the Spanish Inquisition. Mainstream historians estimate the number of murdered Jews between 50,000 -100,000 and forced exile of several hundred thousand. The encyclopedia - without giving sources - says, "the impact has been ridiculously exaggerated. In the whole history of Catholic inquisitions from early 13th century France to early 17th century Spain and Portugal, not more than 5,000 Jewish families suffered capital and less severe punish at the hands of the Church courts." Perhaps the author wants to count families, instead of people, to reduce the number of innocent victims. Or perhaps the author means to shift blame to crazed mobs that burned entire neighborhoods with the blessing of Church authorities... and outside court procedures. Yet murder is murder.

I'm grateful that I bought and read several sections of this important work. It reveals, to me, the danger of excessive romantic imagination and entering the very narrow, often-fanatic mindset of medieval religious authorities.

On the other hand, it's a bit disturbing that intellectuals can be so casual in justifying and explaining brutal intolerance in the early 21st.

In the classical definition of an encyclopedia, this one is obviously written by many different authors, with different levels of accuracy and seriousness. Unfortunately, this leads to a work where an excellent article can be followed by a piece of trash.

Two examples. Islam and Jews are covered by several articles over at least half a dozen pages, and these try to present their subjects more or less objectively, respectfully and accurately. Christianity on the other hand, which regardless of your beliefs must be recognized as central to the Middle Ages, is treated on one and a half pages, in an article that is practically an attack on the religion and presents many silly factoids and wild theories that are commonplace among anti-christian people. The only one missing is that about Jesus never existing. To place an anti-christian in charge of writing the article about Christianity is a gross error. I'm not saying that it should have been made by a devout christian either- just by someone objective.

Then the article about feudalism. One would expect this to be one of the central pieces of the book, treating this fundamental subject of the middle ages extensively and in detail. However, it is a boring piece which merely spends two pages trying to define the meaning of the word "feudalism".