Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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!

I have to agree with the reviewer below and ask why this book was not written as a historical novel. Anne Wroe is a terrific writer but she limited herself far too much in this little book. It could have been great. Should have been great. My wife and I visited Rodez on a recent trip from Switzerland to Andorra and I must say, Wroe was factually correct and Rodez, although not conventionally "pretty" was certainly a fascinating place! Please, Ms. Wroe, write another book. Set it in France and make it historical fiction. You'll find yourself on the bestseller lists, I'm sure and you'll deserve to be there!

Who owned the pot of gold found in a drain in Rodez, France, in either 1369 or 1370? Was it the man who claimed it, or was it his father-in-law?

`The story was already set, had become news.'

Ann Wroe unearthed a court case related to this gold and while the outcome of the court case is not known, Ms Wroe's research has provided a wealth of information about life in Rodez. Consider: a fortified city internally partitioned into two communities: the more elegant and ecclesiastical City - subject to the English, and the commercial Bourg - subject to the French. At this time, during the Hundred Years War, bandits roamed the countryside, as did French and English troops and mercenaries.

And what was life like for people in this fourteenth century community? The City paid taxes to the Black Prince and the Bourg paid tax (when it couldn't be helped) to the Count of Armagnac. Some individuals managed to avoid tax completely by being unfindable in either place. With separate municipal governments, and considerable rivalry between the two it is easy to see how the ownership of the gold could be disputed and how, unfortunately, the outcome of the court case is unknown.

Ms Wroe's research has resulted in an interesting and readable account of everyday life in a city divided by more than a wall. Somehow, by the end of the book, knowing who owned the gold was less important than appreciating the everyday lives of those in the city where it was found. In dissecting this complicated case, Ms Wroe has put context around the lives and actions of those involved brought the town of Rodez to life.

Who needs fiction when fact is so interesting?

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Ann Wroe announces in her introduction that, "We are dealing in fact, not fiction," and that she will permit herself only the smallest liberties when going beyond the known facts. If, for instance, "we know the path a man travelled to go home (as in one case we do), and what lay along it, it seems no offense to historical truth to retrace his steps."

Fair enough. But these are not the kind of remarks that we normally see at the start of a history book, and they serve as a warning that Wroe is going to be writing something that might be mistaken for a novel. The warning is well taken: "A Fool and His Money" does indeed come across as a poor novel filled with fascinating facts. One major problem is that virtually everything Wroe truly knows about her characters is related to their legal woes. They're continually in trouble with various civil and ecclesiastical courts, and if they get a few days of breathing space, they use it to litigate against their own friends, neighbors, and family members. A second problem is that her main story line has no resolution and dwindles away at the end of the book; the facts just aren't there.

I'm glad I read the book. I learned some worthwhile things about everyday life in Fourteenth-Century France. But the experience was more of a chore than a pleasure, and I wish Wroe had written either an historical novel or a non-novelistic historical text. Come to think of it, she could use her material a second time to write a novel. If she does, I'll read it.

Ms. Wroe has done readers a great service in bringing to life the partitioned town of Rodez during the 1300s. This is the type of historical writing that actually permits you to experience the daily life of a city beleagured by the "English," who behaved more like roving gangs than soldiers of the Crown, an image difficult to infer from the conventional textbooks that focus on macro-level, sweeping events. I much prefer this to the historical novel. While such novels always have a grain of truth; it is much more difficult to ascertain where fiction ends and nonfiction begins. Wroe uses her imagination, to be sure, but she is following archival material and, as a result, we are given allowed the opportunity to see part of an era and its people that might well have escaped our view.

This is a captivating study of a little-known but fascinating town in the Aveyron département of southern France. Ms. Wroe, through skillful weaving of fact with some invention of presumed but plausible dialogue, makes the entire era come alive: Who, for instance, would have thought the business community was so lively in 1370? The book was originally promoted as being parallel to the divided city of Sarajevo, but that's not the point. Savor the events, the characters, even their names - who can forget Alamanda Fromenta and Huc Farcel? - then visit Rodez and the Aveyron. Ms. Wroe loves the place, and so will readers and visitors.

I adored the beginning of this book, when author Ann Wroe vividly tells us about the pleasures of the historian's task --- recapturing lost moments, things actually said and done by people in a long-gone world, the proverbial window into the distant past. 'Microhistory', the story of ordinary people (as opposed to that of the famous, and also to history seen as a series of sweeping economic processes) can indeed be fascinating, as she passionately and convincingly argues.

But it went downhill from then. The story she has chosen to tell (about a couple of workmen who found a hoard of gold coins, subsequently claimed by the befuddled owner of the house, while clearing a drain) is not especially exciting --- maybe due to the fact that we don't know the outcome of the ensuing lawsuit, something Wroe takes care to mention from the beginning, but which perhaps accounts for at least part of the frustration. Worst of all, as has been pointed out by other readers, she doesn't stick to the case or tell it in any organized way (for example, following the course of the legal proceedings --- we don't know exactly who sued, who heard the case, etc.), but goes this way and that, meandering into seemingly unrelated little anecdotes about other people in the town.

And the most boring thing of all is --- most of these little anecdotes have to do with tax. Yes, tax. Most of the book, actually, deals with the different taxes the denizens of Rodez had to pay and to whom, and how they struggled to get away with evasion, and how the authorities went after the reluctant, and so on. And on. And on.

One thing that annoyed me was that Wroe, as she herself admits at the beginning of the book, had trouble deciphering and interpreting the documents the book is based on, and this led, in at least one case I detected, to mistakes. These mistakes in turn led to the author's losing credibility and authority, at least for this reader. The people of Rodez spoke Occitan, a language closer to Catalan (and Spanish) than to French --- sometimes I seemed to be hearing Spanish-speakers in the story, and had to remind myself that the place they lived in was France, or what is modern-day France at least. Well, at one point (p. 72), when dealing with the removal of a stone that marked the boundary between the two parts of the town, Wroe quotes the authorities as stating that this was done 'dolosamente', which she translates as 'sadly', adding her own interpretation --- 'as if the stone itself had wept'! Well, it seems that Wroe is confusing 'dolosamente' (a legal term which even today means 'maliciously' or 'with the intention of doing harm' in Spanish) with 'dolorosamente', i.e. painfully or sadly. I know it's not a life-or-death mistake, but she's a professional historian, and if she didn't know, there should have been someone else who did --- editor, fellow historian, I don't know. This mistake made me wonder about whether there might not be others in the book, and about the validity of her interpretations in general.

But the book's main flaw, for me, was the fact that it dealt with a lot of uninteresting tax-related anecdotes rather than with the case of the hoard of coins and its development. The case itself may not be too exciting, but we can't possibly know, as it's not the main focus of the book and the way in which it's told is both fragmentary and disjointed.