The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era [Paperback]

Norman F. Cantor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

There may not be a more fascinating a historical period than the late fourteenth century in Europe. The Hundred Years' War ravaged the continent, yet gallantry, chivalry, and literary brilliance flourished in the courts of England and elsewhere. It was a world in transition, soon to be replaced by the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration -- and John of Gaunt was its central figure.

In today's terms, John of Gaunt was a multibillionaire with a brand name equal to Rockefeller. He fought in the Hundred Years' War, sponsored Chaucer and proto-Protestant religious thinkers, and survived the dramatic Peasants' Revolt, during which his sumptuous London residence was burned to the ground. As head of the Lancastrian branch of the Plantagenet family, Gaunt was the unknowing father of the War of the Roses; after his death, his son usurped the crown from his nephew, Richard II. Gaunt's adventures represent the culture and mores of the Middle Ages as those of few others do, and his death is portrayed in The Last Knight as the end of that enthralling period.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

John of Gaunt (1340–1399) was one of the wealthiest men of late–14th-century Europe and an exemplar of the rough and refined values of his class. He fought in the Hundred Years War, was targeted in the 1381 Peasants' Rebellion and was a patron of Chaucer. By his first wife, he became Duke of Lancaster and founded the Lancastrian branch of the English royal family; by his second, he had a claim to the throne of Castile; and by his third, he founded another family line that married back into the royal Tudors. Cantor (In the Wake of the Plague), a widely read authority on medieval Europe, traces these connections and demonstrates how several strands of European history cross through Gaunt. Thoroughly dismissing Annales emphasis on the continuity of peasant life, he argues that it is aristocratic life that has remained unchanged. In modern terms, Gaunt was a multibillionaire with free rein to live his life as he pleased, whether bullying members of Parliament, marrying his mistress or dabbling in the heretical teachings of John Wycliffe. This provocative argument is undermined by simplistic writing and the making of points by assertion rather than proof or argument. A remarkably anachronistic imagined defense of slavery is put into the mouth of Henry the Navigator (Gaunt's grandson), the Portuguese patron of exploration, and stretches the limits of what might be considered Gaunt's heritage. Assumptions about personal motivations based on fragmentary evidence are not sufficient to validate the intimate portrait Cantor claims to present.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Although the name suggests a fairy tale, this historical narrative is in fact an attempt to demythologize John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster (1340-99), characterizations of whom readers may remember from Shakespeare's Richard II and Anya Seton's Katherine.^B Cantor is a historian and sociologist, however, and sees in Gaunt the last great aristocrat of the Middle Ages, a Plantagenet warrior-playboy steeped in notions of Arthurian chivalry even as that world began its charge into early modernity. Besides capturing the whimper uttered by the knightly classes as they suddenly found themselves surrounded by Renaissance humanism, Cantor paints an engrossing portrait of a complicated figure: a violent, military-oriented man with little compassion for the poor; a dedicated ladies' man; and, of course, patron of Chaucer, whose works would represent the very downfall of his master's age. Cantor is understandably ambivalent about what Gaunt tells us about wealth, power, and inherited privilege today. Readers will have to decide for themselves whether to mourn for Gaunt's world or not. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060754036
• ISBN-13: 978-0060754037
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,009,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A poor read and flawed history, February 28, 2006

By 

Somyunguy - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era (Paperback)

This book is somewhat entertaining, but it could've used an editor. Unfotunately, it not only lacks a great deal of facts, but it often gives the opposite. The author frequently falls into tired, false cliche about his opinions of the era, which often contradicts his more factual claims, and speaks about it's figures as if he had known then inside and out, and disliked them. The ridiculous Mark Twain-esque cliches he claims as facts are enough to drop the book, making it just another in the 100 year long pile of falsified, biased histories of the middle ages.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Simplistic, inaccurate, with no redeeming features at all, May 24, 2006

By 

Gerard "Amateur history buff" (Marblehead, Morocco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era (Paperback)

I'm afraid that this book is so appalling that I just had to add my voice to the chorus of disapproval for it. I have read many, many texts on this period and this is far and away the worst I have ever encountered.

The text and style are simplistic - almost in the style of a "Children's book of the Middle Ages". The arguements and assertions are so sweeping and general as to be next to useless, and are made with no reference to geographical differences (of which there were myriad). Much of the work moves from the period 1100 to 1600 and not the period he initially states that he is covering. Finally, the book is riddled with historical inaccuracies from errors on heraldry, to errors on dates (he doesn't even get his dates on the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem right), to errors on armor. Indeed, his lack of knowledge on armor and the timing of innovations and trends would be laughable if I hadn't actually paid for this book.

This book has no redeeming features at all, and can only be considered a waste of precious trees. If it were possible, I wouldn't even have given it one star.

There are far superior works on this period to be had. While most are quite academic, if you want a broad sweep of the middle ages that is easy to read and accessible to the lay person, then try "Terry Jones' Medieval Lives". You'll learn a lot more about the period (as it relates to Britain!!) and have a smile too.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Awfull, December 22, 2005

By 

Spacy Bickerson (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era (Hardcover)

I agree with the revewer who said this book is amazingly bad, in fact it truly is awful. For example the following comes from pages 41-42: "The members of the great families did not like to be alone. They traveled and dined with companions drawn from noble families. They always were accompanied by an armed body-guard of at least a half-dozen mounted soldiers, called knights."
This sounds like a childrens book not a serious history book. It contains almost nothing about John of Gaunt and rambles on about nothing in particular. It must have been written by Cantor when he was in his dottage and printed on the basis of his reputation. I too wish I could get my money back or at least sue the publisher for inflicting such a terrible book on the reading public.