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Inventing the Middle Ages

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If you were a history major like me at the University of Delaware in the late 70's, you discovered that your love of the subject is soon yanked away and replaced by something called historiography. This is dismaying, because instead of reading history, you are sent to the library to look up historians. You have to write long papers about who said what and why, which makes you drink Schmidt's beer to excess. You start writing bad poems, because you can't stand to read poorly-written analyses of other people's writing. If you wanted to do that, you could have been an English major.

I only wish this book had been out in 1978. Cantor writes well, has encyclopedic knowledge of his subject, has a sense of humor (which some people are mistaking for bitterness) and is not afraid to take a stand. His chapter on the Oxford Fantastists is excellent, informative, and something anyone interested in our current culture ought to read, since Tolkein and Lewis did much to form it.

Cantor's book is really creative non-fiction; the use of novelistic techniques in a non-fiction narrative, which to me, makes the book more readable, interesting, and more accurate. If you've spent no time around universities, then you can't understand how their internal politics shape thought and education, which Cantor shows perfectly well here.

I suppose some people bought this book expecting a history of the Middle Ages; shame on them for not reading the title, or looking inside the book. Cantor's Civilazation of the Middle Ages is a good place to start if you're looking for that. If you want to read about the historians who formed the current view of those strange times (less strange than our own) this is a good place to start.

Entertaining historiography should be an oxymoron but this book is an exception. Cantor's point of departure is the fact that historical understanding of the Middle Ages is essentially a 20th century phenomenon. According to Cantor, and this is creditable, very little written on this topic prior to 1900 is useful. In this book, Cantor is concerned with exposing the connections between 20th century concerns and ideas and study of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. This is not a systematic historiography. Cantor reviews the lives and works of a substantial number of prominent scholars on a case by case basis and doesn't attempt to develop any general scheme or description of the evolution of scholarship in this area. Cantor shows how the personal and ideological preoccupations of these scholars colored or directed their work. The pioneering German students of medieval kingship, Schramm and Kantorowicz, were members of the radical right who detested the Weimar Republic. Their longing for a charismatic leader who would restore German hegemony was reflected in their groundbreaking biographies of important German emperors. Their wishes for a modern charismatic leader were granted, but in a form they came to regret. Cantor does not view these scholars and the other individuals he discusses as simply imposing reflections of their contemporary preoccupations on the past. Rather, the contemporary preoccupations often lead to important insights. The great student of medieval monastic life, David Knowles, was himself a monk with significant personal conflicts over his vocation and strained relationships with his ecclesiastical superiors. These conflicts appear to have equipped Knowles with a unique ability to penetrate the psychology of medieval religous life. Implict in Cantor's descriptions is the idea that no single scholar or group of scholars is able to describe the medieval world wholly. The existence of contemporary preoccupations, conflicts, and ideologies leads to multiple different ideas of the past,ultimately generating complementary truths. Cantor is not a relativist and clearly believes that some approximation of historical truth is obtainable and in fact, has been obtained to some extent.
In terms of the fairness of Cantor's individual portraits, only someone with Cantor's knowledge of the literature and the personalities involved can really judge the accuracy of his analyses. I have enough knowledge to make a reasonable judgement about some of his portraits. His discussions of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien are insightful. His description of the remarkably competent American scholars Charles Haskins and Joseph Strayer as functioning within the Progessive tradition seems to me to be right on the mark. On the other hand, some of the discussion of the Annalist School of French social historians is less evenhanded and at times is more of a denunciation than an analysis. Cantor knew a fair number of these individuals and is not above indulging in gossip. He is also a very good writer and this book reads very easily. An additional good feature is that Cantor includes an appendix with a list of essential books about the Medieval World.

As a Catholic growing up in the predominantly WASP world of 1950s American South, I was taught that the era in which my church played a major role in European History was called the "Dark Ages" -- and that it was marked with ignorance, filth, idolatry, and barbarity that was only overcome with the rise of rational thought, commercialism, and neoclassicism. A few years ago, I set out to learn the truth--to study the period now known as the Middle Ages.

Medievalist scholars pretty much agree the Middle Ages include the thousand or so years following the fall of Rome (c.500 A.D.) to the revival of rationalism, Roman law, bureaucracies, and neoclassical art known as the Italian Renaissance. In his book, Norman Cantor distills the work of many leading scholars in Europe and America writing during the latter part of the 19th Century and through the 20th. He organizes their work into various schools of thought including legalists, propagandists, revolutionaries, fantasists, formalists, outriders and others.

He says the task these scholars undertook was to conceptually and operationally define or "invent" the Middle Ages by addressing several questions: What sources lead to the rise and dominance of Western society; How did a legal system that still exists today emerge (i.e. in the Commonwealth of Virginia and other U.S. states as well as England); How did kings govern without bureaucracies; How did the labor and aspirations of peasants and the ambitions and bellicosity of aristocrats lead to the respect for the authenticity of comman man; How did the various structures of the Roman Empire precondition Medieval philosophy; How did the shift from God the Father to God the Loving Son lead to humanism; How did the church function with hierarchical authority on one side and evangelical groups and individual piety on the other?

The scholarly study of the Middle Ages acquired it's impetus from the Romantic Movement of the 19th Century, which manifested itself as Gothic Revival architecture, Art Deco, PreRaphalite painting, the writing of authors from Bronte to C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien, the enfranchisement of the comman man, and the emancipation of slaves and women. The Romantics reacted to the atrocities of industrialization, the exploitation of labor, the corruption of the environment and the spread of disease, malnourishment and poverty by a utilitarian and unthinking society.

Cantor provides a good overview of the thinking of the past 120 years or so. He covers many well known historians, such as Maitland, Kantorowitz, Panofsky, C.S. Lewis, and his own mentor the Professor R. W. Southern. He includes the followers of Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim in the section the "French Jews" which includes essays on Braudel and Bloch. Cantor says the book "Feudal Society" by Mark Bloch is one of the best ever written about the Middle Ages. He has many negative comments about "The Waning of the Middle Ages" by the Dutch writer Huizinga, but Cantor undoubtedly read the older less accurate translation. A new translation of Huizinga's work is titled "Autumn in the Middle Ages" and it's thesis is somewhat different from that found in the older translation.

Cantor's book provides a good overview of the subject of the Middle Ages, and I recommend it for anyone starting out on this subject. (You have to start somewhere!!) And, it contains a wonderful bibliography for further reading.

Sure, it's filled with gossip and provocative (and sometimes glib) generalities. That's what makes it such a pleasure to read. It's a little like getting invited to have a couple of beers with your indiscreet, cantankerous, opinionated but lovable dissertation advisor, after passing your qualifying exams. Please, kiddo, call me Norm.

There's no question Cantor goes way over the top in places, as was his wont. Probably the most notorious instance was his labeling Ernst Kantorowicz a Nazi. Since Eka was a Jew who fled Germany in 1938, this is more than a bit of a stretch. The evidence? Eka was a fan of the poet Stefan George, and we all know the George Circle "prefigured" Nazism. Also Kantorowicz wrote admiringly of Emperor Frederick II and of kingship during the Weimar Republic. Other tid-bits: his biography of Frederick appeared with a swastika on the cover and, alarmed by the threat of a communist take-over in 1918, he briefly joined the Free Corps. But it is virtually out of thin air that Cantor concludes that, save for the accident of birth, Eka would have become a Nazi. As for Percy Schramm, the other "Nazi Twin," "there is essentially no difference between him and Albert Speer." Schramm was appointed official historian of the Wehrmacht's General Staff in 1943. He had the rank of major. He was not a member of the Nazi Party. Go figure.

But apart from these outrageous asides and a misconception that the German Empire in 1871 was half-Protestant and half-Catholic (OK, and a highly idiosyncratic definition of "German Idealism"), the chapter is an engaging account of the careers of the two scholars and a lively if very abbreviated summary of their orientations as historians.

In another chapter, Cantor writes that the two leading American medievalists of their generations, Haskins and Strayer, "were Woodrow Wilson duplicated and reincarnated." Well, OK. But this doesn't prevent him from providing an entertaining and acute reminiscence of Strayer, Cantor's dissertation advisor. (When he turned the thing in after four years, Strayer's only response was, "It's OK. I'll schedule your defense.") You can take or leave his definition of "Wilsonianism."

"A reader," who comments below, failed to read the book's subtitle: "The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century." This is not supposed to be a sophisticated work of historiography. It's a collection of anecdotes and apercus, some whifty but some right-on, along with summaries of the oeuvres and of the legacies of twenty legendary historians. Even if you're a fan of the Annales school (and by the way, there's no reason to believe Cantor's animus toward the school has anything to do with envy of the sex-lives of its stars), you'll probably enjoy this book. Unless, of course, you happen to be a medievalist.

No other historian I can think of would have the chutzpah to publish a book like this. Cantor will be missed.

Inventing the Middle Ages is a behind the scenes view of the development of an academic discipline over the course of a century, the 20th Century.

The author,Norman Cantor, is a distinguished participant and observer, who unquestionably loves his subject, the Middle Ages, to which he has devoted his life and career. He makes no claim of objectivity. He is passionate about the men and women who created and shaped our beliefs and images of the Middle Ages during the 20th Century. He knew and knows many of them intimately as people and portrays them as very fallible human beings.

The great names of medievalists known to all of us, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, and those known to those of us who studied the subject in college, such as Maitland, Panofsky, Huizinga, Southern and Bloch, to name only a few, are brought to life, warts and all. Their thoughts, their methods, their habits, their appearances, their prejudices, their heroic and cowardly acts in the face of war and persection and all the other aspects of their lives and works are vividly painted.

Many of these professors turn out to be unforgettable personalities, such as the Jewish Nazi sympathizer, right wing assassin and dandy, Ernst Kantorowicz, who managed to tear himself away from the protection of his friend Hermann Goering and leave Germany at the last opportune moment in order to make a comfortable career for himself in the US under the color of refugeedom. As odious as his political views and behavior might seem, his genuine and lasting contribution to our understanding of the medieval monarchy is explained and respected by Cantor. It is a tribute to Cantor that even after reading about Kantorowicz's great and good friend Percy Ernst Schramm's participation in the Nazi regime and his chillingly smug memoir of Hitler published long after the war (and still in print), that one still can see the value of Schramm's earlier Utopian analysis of the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and regret that there is no English translation of this classic after more than 70 years.

Academic warfare and empire-building are indelibly described. Yet through it all we never lose sight of the actual contributions to their discipline and our world of these distinctive and distinguished individuals.

Most touching of all is the brief, eloquent and sad memoir of Cantor's mentor Theodor Mommsen, the only major non Jewish German medievalist to reject Nazi Germany.

It would help to have some knowledge of things medieval. Some of the more abstruse underpinnings of genres of historiography such as Panofsky's formalism remain murky, at least to this reader. Sometimes Cantor's bile gets spilled a little too bitingly as in his snide remarks on the work of John Boswell, the late Yale historian of gay medieval life. Nevertheless this is a major work that should be read by anyone interested in the uses of history and how is it that our understanding of the past depends in large part on how we view the present. Its defects are far outweighed by its virtues. This is one of those books that make you want to go forth and read more deeply and that is what counts the most.

Cantor ablely lays out the various schools of thought in 20th century Middle Ages Studies. This book was close to a god send for me. I've been reading almost exclusively out of the Annales school, like a blind man, having no idea that there were other areas to explore (more accurately, what those avenues might be).

Cantor uses the personalities and backgrounds of the major midievialists to explain their works. Along the way he offers excellent summations and critiques of the various works. He includes a list of 125 books that provide a "core collection" of the subject.

If there is a thesis or over riding theme in this book is that the great tragedy was the triumph of the instutition builiding Annales school at the expensive of the more talented (and English) R.W. Southern. Cantor goes so far to present Southern's refusal to create an institute in his image as an "Arthurian tragedy".

I understand what he's talking about since I've been reading on the subject for over a year and have yet to come across anything other the annales school and their decendants. Funny.

I haven't been this excited about a book in a couple years. I read it in about a day and if you have gotten to the point where you are reading this review, I HIGHLY recommend you get this immeditately.

It is important to realize that, as the title implies, this is not a history of the Middle Ages; it IS a history of the history of the Middle Ages. That is to say this book is a description of about 20 historians of the twentieth century in Medieval studies, and how they interpreted the Middle Ages of Europe. Despite what the dust jacket comments say, it is certainly not an accessible book for the general public, as a firm understanding of historiographical and interpretive methods and jargon is required as background in order to make sense of this study. I also point out that Cantor is very opinionated!

Norman Cantor is learned scholar of the Middle Ages, and when he's acting as a scholar, he's very good at it. He is also a whiny and bitter old crank-- and unfortunately, this book is more a product of the crank than the scholar.

First things first-- this is *not* a book about the Middle Ages. It's a book about several 20th century scholars of medieval history. That's all fine and well, of course-- and it could have actually made for a fascinating study of how we moderns continually interpret and reinterpret the Middle Ages to suit our own varied purposes. In fact, its title seems to promise a discussion of how what we call "The Middle Ages", is in fact, a kind of intellectual invention, a functional concept that is continually being invented and reinvented (cf. Keith Baker's classic book "Inventing the French Revolution").

Unfortunately, Cantor delivers no such thing. Instead, he merely provides us with biographical summaries of the lives of a number of notable 20th century medievalists, filled with various vignettes, reminiscences about those medievalists he knew personally, and a near-continual stream of snide comments. There's little offered in the way of geniuine argument or ideas here-- Cantor is not trying to advance any claims about medievalism as a discipline, the problems and challenges of medieval scholarship, or the Middle Ages as an invented concept. Rather, he's just writing shotgun biographies of Tolkien, Lewis, Bloch, Southern, and many others.

As one progresses through this book, it becomes clear that what motivated Cantor to write this book was not scholarly interest, but an emotional need to vent. Frustration, jealous, and bitterness stain the pages of this book in bilous green. When Cantor mocks the fact that plays and movies (i.e. "Shadowlands") were made about the life of C.S. Lewis, or when he talks about other medievalists (usually French ones) who achieved the status of celebrities within the academic world and to whom "female graduate students gladly offered their minds and bodies", his envy is all too transparent. Cantor doesn't come write out and say, "Why should *they* have plays written about them and have young girls throw themselves at *them*? What about me? I'm a successful medievalist too! Why don't I get that?", but he doesn't need to-- it's all too apparent from his embittered and disparaging tone.

It's also clear that another of Cantor's motivations is actually a kind of self-promotion. He's creating a pantheon of 'great medievalists', and never fails to mention his personal connections those whom he knew personally. While he's not so brazen to place himself in this pantheon that he has created, it is nonetheless abundantly clear that he thinks he that he himself truly deserves to be counted in their ranks, and that he is, at the very least, far more important and interesting than many of the other medievalists he writes about.

In sum, if you want to read the ventings of a successful-yet-bitter academic, you might really like this book. If you want a series of short, polemic filled biographies of 20th century scholars, you might find this passable. If you want something that really talks about "medievalism" and medieval scholarship, however, I recommend you give "Inventing the Middle Ages" a wide, wide berth. Instead, pick up "Medievalism and the Modernist Temper", a series of essays edited by R. Howard Bloch and Stephen Nicolls, that actually discuss the fact that medieval scholarship is a modern phenomenon and consider it as such. It's a much better, and much more scholarly book.

Norman Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages is arguably the best history book I have ever read - at the very least it belongs in my top ten. Of course, it isn't actually a book of history, but rather historiography. None-the-less, it is an absolute delight. Cantor takes the reader for a mesmerizing and often hilarious ride through the last 100-odd years of medieval scholarship, skewering the minor and mighty alike. Kantorowitz, Huizinga, Tolkien, the Annalists -- all fall before his sword. But there is more here than just screed - Cantor's no holds barred description of the growth and development of medieval scholarship is informed and informative. His lucid prose reflects utter familiarity with the complex literary currents of his period, a familiarity derived from a lifetime of scholarly immersion. One can't help but read this book and be spurred on to read further in medieval history.

Regarding the very negative reviews below - these baffle me. I can't figure out if the writers are humorless, lack any ironic sense at all, or simply take themselves (and the historical profession) far too seriously. But they seem to have missed entirely the underlying humor and humanity in this book. I have often found that some of the most entertaining and worthwhile books receive highly polarized reviews on Amazon, and this is a case in point.

If you have ever yearned for the non-fiction equivalent to Moo, Small World, or Lucky Jim, then Inventing the Middle Ages is for you. I've read other recent books (more like "booklets") from Cantor - In the Wake of the Plague comes to mind - and they are disappointing by contrast, quite brief and read more like collections of lectures. But don't let this or the few negative reviews dissuade you from picking up a copy of the superb Inventing the Middle Ages. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

It's generally acknowldged among medievalists that Norman Cantor can be a good scholar. It is also acknowldged that this book is basically a scorched-earth screed, by which Cantor tries to "get even" with many in the field, living and dead. For instance, in the 1997 preface to Kantorowicz's magisterial "The King's Two Bodies," William C. Jordan mentions that Kantorowicz's life had been "written and rewritten by intelligent admirers and at least one crank" (p. xi). In the footnotes, this book is included. While Jordan was tactful enough to leave unsaid which authors fell under which description, those familiar with intra-field politics are fully aware of which author is the "crank."

I must agree with the reader from Silicon Valley, USA: this work truly is the venting of a bitter academic. Generally speaking, the one great merit of this book is giving the aspiring medievalist (like myself) the names of some of the more important scholars in twentieth-century medieval studies. The bibliography is also helpful in this regard. The actual text, however, is far more questionable. When Cantor isn't sneering about this scholar or that, he gives the reader his trite psychoanalysis of other scholars. If one feeling pulses through this work, it is Cantor's arrogance.

A shame, really - he could do much better. Instead, he tried to settle scores. And thus, among many medievalists, his name is a curse.