A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Town in Fourteenth-Century France [Hardcover]

Ann Wroe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1995

Ann Wroe brings to life a rich and perplexing culture of a city physically divided-as so many communities are today-by political factions in this skillful re-creation of fourteenth-century Rodez. Notes, bibliography.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Utilizing primary sources and skillful interpretation, Wroe, the American editor for the Economist, brings to life the medieval French town of Rodez in this engrossing cultural history that takes place during the Hundred Years War. Located in Languedoc (now southwestern France), Rodez was divided into halves with different governing bodies: the more spiritual "City," where the cathedral was located and the people were loyal to the English Crown; and the "Bourg," site of the commercial district and a fiefdom of the Kingdom of France. Although Bourg and City were separated by walls, their inhabitants occasionally interacted. Translating from court documents, Wroe details events taking place in 1369 or 1370, when a workman from the City discovered a pot of gold in a Bourg drain and sparked a legal battle over ownership of the gold between a Bourg man and his father-in-law. Although Wroe was unable to discover the outcome of the case, she successfully illuminates the texture of medieval life in the town.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Wroe, a writer for the Economist and author of Lives, Lies, and the Iran Contra Affair (LJ 9/1/91), offers a highly personal but soundly researched historical reconstruction, based on local court records, of an event that occurred in the small town of Rodez in southwestern France in the mid-14th century. Wroe uses the legal disputes arising from the discovery of a pot of gold in a sewer drainpipe to reveal the economic, social, political, and religious culture of the town during a phase of the Hundred Years War. Priests, nobles, ordinary laborers, lawyers, and businesspeople play a role in this imaginatively written mystery, which is a valuable contribution to French local history, family history, and the art of historical writing. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.
Bennett D. Hill, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 243 pages
• Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub; 1st ed edition (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809045958
• ISBN-13: 978-0809045952
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,360,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History From the Ground Up, April 15, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Town in Fourteenth-Century France (Paperback)

Why has no one made a movie of this book? A magnificent hill town in central France in the century of the Hundred Years War, a prolonged courtroom drama with gold at stake and with the whole community embroiled, a befuddled miser as the central character, his sly in-laws as the antagonists, the clergy and the bourgeousie in subtle conflict. Of course, a lot of the historical data and analysis would have to be omitted - that stuff about markets and trade, civic government, the effects of war on the economy, the efforts of people to avoid onerous taxes - and then a heady dose of imagination applied to achieve a satisfying denouement... but think of it, with Louis Malle directing and Gerard Depardieu as the judge!

I've read all six previous reviews of this book, all six complaining that too much historical information is included to distract the reader from the exciting tale of greed, all suggesting that Ann Wroe should have written anovel instead. Well, pardon me, friends, but you've missed the point. Yes, Ann Wroe writes very well and no doubt could have invented a proper novelistic ending for her narrative, but entertaining you was not her chief purpose. What she's written here is an insightful account of the life of ordinary people in an ordinary town, the sort of people who are seldom observed in history. Here's what she says about her own work:

**The story of [Peyre] Marques was preserved quite accidentally. We know about him only because a pitcher of gold was found buried in the floor of his shop. His son-in-law took it away, and ownership of the money was disputed in court. The result was a full-scale inquiry -- detailed character references, anecdotes, gossip -- about a man who was perfectly ordinary... For that reason alone, this case is precious. History keeps memorials of the great, the saintly or the vicious, but we may pine for the chance to hear about men and women more like ourselves: common folk.

Wroe's chief source for her narrative is the preserved court transcript from a trail in Rodez, France, in 1370. But Wroe also draws from other sources, principally her huge horde of general knowledge about the Middle Ages, the Hundred Years War, the history of the clergy in France, etc. In other words, the trial is only a framework for an attempt to describe the activities and values of a historical community, as little fictionalized as possible. I've studied a bit of this history also, and I've never read a book that captured an image of life in the Middle Ages more vividly yet reliably.

Like one of those reviewers who wanted a novel instead of a history, I enjoyed this book so much that I hoped for a sequel. The divided city of Rodez - the upper town dominated by the Church, the lower town by merchants - seemed so picturesque in the book that I actually drove half way across France to visit modern Rodez. Sadly, Rodez is perhaps the least well-preserved city in all the Massif Central, and much as I would like to follow the descendents of Peyre Marquez, like characters in Zola, on their journey toward the present, there can be no sequel to "A Fool and His Money" for the simple reason that no other such archival source is likely to be found. That the transcript of this trial has survived is a miracle in itself, which Ann Wroe has exploited brilliantly. With history this good, only a fool would ask for fiction.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A slice of litigious medieval French life, June 26, 2000

By 

Mike "dragonhound" (MO, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Town in Fourteenth-Century France (Paperback)

Ms. Wroe has come upon a seeming wealth of untouched historical data in the form of Rodez's archives. Unfortunately, she stresses the story of a pot of gold at the beginning of the book but never sticks to that main stream. She uses the "story" to bring in all sorts of fascinating information about business and social life in this French town, but these tangents don't bring us any closer to resolving her main story-line.

As earlier reviewers have stated, perhaps she should have stepped over that line into historical fiction where she could use the business and social history of the town, as well as the main idea concerning the pot of gold and constructed a fine fictional tale that would have been more pleasing, as well as having better flow.

A useful book for the information on business, law, and society in this unique town, but don't buy it expecting to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative and engaging, but a bit discontinuous., July 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Town in Fourteenth-Century France (Hardcover)

A facinating, if confusing account of a medieval legal nightmare involving a senile man, a greedy neighbor, an honest plumber, and a host of interfering townspeople all up in arms over a found pot of gold. The story follows the events of an actual court case that occurred in the French town of Rodez in the mid-1300's, and is full of great historical facts about everyday life in the Middle Ages, including information on customs, beliefs, dress, furniture, foods, entertainment, and philosophies of the townspeople. The actual story, while interesting, could have been made a little clearer and easier to follow, as there are many characters, and it is difficult to keep track of them all. Overall, though, it is definately worth a read!