Customer Reviews

Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe (Hinges of History)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I was going to write a review of this book but the review by "MJS Book Addict" ("Pop history with a few bizarre detours")said it all extremely well. Don't waste your time with this volume. Read Will Durant for a much more satisfying and less "preachy" and quirky discourse. I was going to pass this volume on to our library but threw it away instead.

As tempted as I am to give this book 3 stars, 2 stars is closer to rating the whole.

First, this book is for the novice. If you're more than a little familiar with medieval European history, you'll find nothing new here except Cahill's sometimes quirky interpretations of people and events. For some, these interpretations alone will be enough to revisit Hildegard, Abelard, and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Those who've read full length biographies of the main "characters" or the Durants' Story of Civilization or even Freeman's Closing of the Western Mind may want to skip this volume.

The point of Cahill's Hinges of History series seems to be "if you think history isn't fun and relevant, think again." I have a soft spot for such ventures so Cahill starts out in the plus column with me. I enjoyed "How the Irish Saved Civilization" for what is was, pop history meant to whet but not satisfy the appetite. Approach this volume with that in mind and you will likely enjoy it. I found numerous points of disagreement with his "theories" - the rise of feminism, for instance, hardly began with Eleanor!

Unfortunately, Cahill goes off the rails in the introduction and in the conclusion. In the Intro Cahill praises Italy's anti-death penalty stance and then detours to tell us about his "friend" who was on Texas's death row for a crime "he probably didn't commit", was a great guy and was ultimately executed and isn't modern day America wrong wrong wrong about the death penalty. This left me asking two questions: 1) huh? and 2) why doesn't Cahill write a book and tell his friend's story instead of shoehorning it into the Middle Ages?

When Cahill rants about the pedophile scandals in the US Catholic Church while sadly ignoring similar scandals in Ireland and in the Anglican Church in Australia it feels like what it is - a rant, not a commentary on history or current events. When he then makes veiled comparisons between Philip the Fair of France - who is barely mentioned in the main text - and a certain American President (who he doesn't name so I guess I won't either), Cahill's take on Philip the Fair is so wrong-headed and lame, on top of being entirely unaddressed in the previous pages that I couldn't help feeling more than a little tricked. Again, why doesn't Cahill take his strongly held views about current events and write about them on their own? As it is, Cahill risks making the entire book look like a scam - he's not really interested in the Middle Ages, just scoring a few points. I don't believe that is the case but Cahill's antics damage his credibility even as a popular historian. Hence the 2 stars. I hope Cahill's editors exercise a bit more restraint for the next volume of Hinges.

This book disappoints on so many levels that it is nearly pointless to catalog all of it's faults in brief, but I'll give them a quick try.

Starting with the title, "Mysteries of the Middle Ages"... catchy isn't it, makes you think of DaVinci Code and wonder what those "Cults of Catholic Europe" were up. Guess what, you'll never find out, not in this book.

What this book is instead is a quirky basic general survey of what historians call "The High Middle Ages" or the "12th Century Renaissance" written by a non-professional historian. Cahill doesn't discuss any 'Mysteries' whatsoever (that I can remember reading anyway) and instead devotes his attention to giving vaguely humorous depictions of some medieval personalities. Unfortunately the author suffers from a limited attention span and constantly digresses, and bears a very apparent grudge against most degreed 'professional' historians, and an outright hatred of Republicans and President George Bush that colors every chapter he writes.

Yes, you did not misunderstand... the author regularly interrupts his commentary on some medieval event to make sarcastic comments about a modern US President! The author does this CONSTANTLY. Italy good = America (especially Texas) backwards and immoral. Yawn.

This is not history - this is just social revisionism with a specific political agenda. Avoid this turkey!

I recommend instead any of the books by Charles H. Haskins "The Renaissance of the 12th Century", etc, or other more recent works by C. Warren Hollister or Malcolm Barber.

The Los Angeles Times reviewer says: "Thomas Cahill takes us on an intoxicating journey through medieval Europe." Intoxicating it may be, but is it true? A competent historian does not look at another period through the spectacles of his own biases, but attempts to place himself within that period and understand it for itself. "Intoxicating" as his story may be, Cahill fails this prime test of a competent historian.

Cahill engages in a transparent attempt to impose his strongly-expressed personal political and religious biases onto a period that he caricatures rather than understands and which, in many ways, he derides. He selects particular personages of the period that agree with his own particular modern values (note the subtitle: "The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe") and then skews the evidence to support his personal view of those personages.

For example, Cahill describes St. Francis of Assisi as a "hippie" and as more favorable to Eastern Mohammedanism than Western Christianity. The sources of the time, however, indicate that St. Francis personally accompanied the Fifth Crusade (1217-1219) and attempted to convert the Mohammedan leader Sultan Malek-el-Kamil, saying, "We have come to preach faith in Jesus Christ to you, that you will renounce Mohammed, that wicked slave of the devil, and obtain everlasting life." In fact, it doesn't seem as if St. Francis particularly cared for Mohammed!

Cahill evinces an obvious bias against any medieval figure who does not share his own views. Such figures as Hildegard von Bingen, St. Francis of Assisi, and Peter Abelard are "good guys," but Cahill calls one of the most highly regarded and influential figures of the period, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a "sham saint." These are not the words of an historian, let alone of anyone with any but a superficial knowledge of the period.

Even the Publisher calls this book not serious history, but "pop intellectual history." Cahill's personal opinions about current history are gratuituously interjected in an annoying, even silly, fashion. One wonders whether Cahill has even read the original sources of the period in Latin, Old French, Old Provencal, and the other original languages, or simply makes up a story based loosely on secondary sources to fit his own personal political and religious biases, albeit shrouded with a thin veil of pseudo-history. His obvious biases are exposed in his tiresome Epilogue, which is not history, but his own highly opinionated rant on every modern issue under the sun.

Though an engaging writer, Cahill is an appallingly bad historian. He compares the medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen to blues singer Bessie Smith (Hildegard's lyrics display a spiritualized eroticism) and the woman in bondage in The Story of O and refers to Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City in the same passage. ("This was one loose sister," is his characterization of Hildegard.) He compares Dante to James Joyce on the grounds that both were exiles infatuated with their mother cities. He characterizes WWI's Gallipoli as a "confrontation between ... Islam and the West," an appallingly bad summary of a complex military campaign which had little to do with religion and a great deal to do with military matters. Throughout the book, Cahill tramples history into a muddled paste of great figures and exalting moments, ignoring nuance or exception. He concludes with a five-page diatribe against sycophancy and buggery in today's Church. The footnotes don't inform much; the bibliography omits essential scholarship (e.g., R. W. Southern on medieval humanism, Roberto Lopez and Lauro Martines on Renaissance humanism). It is difficult to conceive of an audience that would benefit from reading this silly and superficial book.

I can only give this book a mixed review. While I wouldn't grade it as harshly as others have, it's certainly not the greatest piece of history ever written, nor was it intended to be. It's entertaining to read, Cahill's humor makes the history come alive and it makes for extremely interesting reading. As for connections between the ancient times and the past, it should be relatively obvious that all times are affected by their pasts and the Middle Ages developed out of the ancient times and depended on much of ancient thinking, as Cahill points out.
On the other hand, Cahill is not only Eurocentric, he is dismissive of anything that doesn't include his beloved Romans/Italians and any section of the period other than the High Middle Ages. Although this is a book for the general public, it could do without the heavy personal judgements at times and overgeneralizations. Overall it is a decent book with a very beautiful design. If for nothing else, read it for the entertainment and general knowledge of the time period that it is able to impart because it does both exceedingly well.

I agree with most of the negative reviewers about this, especially the one who pointed out that there were no "Mysteries". The criticisms are quite accurate: the tone is glib, condescending and jocular, what could be called Best Seller/talk show host prose: nothing too strenuous or meaningful. Bill Maher does the High Middle Ages. This is certainly the prevalent view: "nowadays, we know all about it". There is no sense of humility before a subject no one human could possibly understand nor of the feelings evoked by the great works of art of the era, compared to which the 20th century had very little.

I don't recommend this book. As other reviewers have mentioned, Cahill interrupts himself to rant about current politics. It's most annoying. This book is also often revisionist. He has a tendency to reinterpret events to fit what he thinks (for instance, believes only good things about Abelard).

Here's just one example that illustrates my point: in his chapter on Eleanor of Aquitaine, Cahill writes that Eleanor's sister managed to get hitched to her lover by getting the lover's first marriage annulled. Then later when Eleanor marries Henry II, according to Cahill it's the first time a woman ever chose her spouse! A ridiculous suggestion and supposedly the beginning of the rise of feminism.

Leave this one alone.

Mysteries of the Middle Ages is the fifth in a series of seven "Hinges of History". In this volume Thomas Cahill, as he did in the first four, manages to cover what might seem obscure and dry with a light, often humorous hand that uses anachronisms and witty asides to make his material accessible to readers who might have little or no previous historical knowledge of the period. At the same time Cahill's scholarship is as rigorous and his insights as profound as those of any "professional" historian.

An additional delight is the beautiful physical design. Lovely medieval designs in bright colors set off quotations, maps are shown in multiple shades of color, and the many illustrations are bright and sparkling. Nice little "extra" touches include page numbers and footnotes in what seem to be medieval script. Even the paper feels a little like parchment! How long has it been since a book aimed at literate adults was as much of a delight to hold and examine as this one?

The information contained therein is just as pleasurable to read. Cahill writes from a Western Catholic perspective, and his unapologetically "Eurocentric" point of view is interesting and challenging to read. Refreshingly, he seldom makes use of the trite and overly used convention of bashing other cultures while defending his own. While he obviously considers Western Christendom superior to Eastern Christianity and the Muslim Empires of the period, he does indicate and explain some of the strong points of those civilizations. His vignettes of Hildegarde of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Eleanor of Aquitaine and others are interesting, and his examinations of some of the more arcane (to a Protestant) practices of Roman Catholicism are highly illuminating.

This is a most enjoyable and intelligent read. I look forward to the final two Hinges, and intend to read this one and the preceding four again and again.

Up until now, I've very much enjoyed Mr. Cahill's "The Hinges of History" series which started with How the Irish Saved Civilization. Though I wouldn't call them books of deep scholarship, they are generally well-written, popular overviews of various periods in Western history. Mr. Cahill also makes an effort to show how history impacts the present which I have found refreshing for the most part. In this volume, however, he goes a bit off the rails.

Two major things jumped out at me as I read this volume. First, though he purports to be showing us "the rise of feminism, science, and art from the cults of Catholic Europe," I find this to be a hard sell. Certainly, renaissance art had its roots in the work of Cimabue and Giotto but the roots of Art can be traced further back and in many directions. Certainly, modern science had roots in the rise of the universities and the growing respect for reason but the groundwork was done by the Greeks long ago. And as for feminism--well, I don't find our modern views on women to be seriously impacted by courtly love, and examples like Hildegard and Eleanor of Aquitaine. They were powerful women in their time but we could find examples of a couple of powerful women in almost any time period. Modern feminism is a different ball game altogether.

Still, I can be forgiving on this point because, even though his choice of stories to tell is often narrow, he is basically a good storyteller and can often dig up interesting facts to relate. What I have a tougher time with is his tendency towards digression which adds nothing to his stories and often takes them off topic. With each successive book, his need to include footnotes has grown from the almost nonexistent footnotes of volume one to the pages and pages of footnotes in this volume.

Most of all, however, it was the commentary on current events that really bothered me. This book has lengthy digressions on topics from the war in Iraq to the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in the main body of the text. I even agree with his general opinions but there is a time and a place to present them. Additionally, in a book like this, I see no value in incendiary language like "the twelve-year-old Christ...is made to give blow jobs and rammed up the ass the whole day long by the doctors of the law of the New Jerusalem, while the high priests of the Temple stand guard at the entrances..." Until this volume, I have never been repulsed by the language Cahill has chosen to use. I applaud his passion but these things belong in another book.

I'm sure the success of the series has granted Mr. Cahill some leeway. This book is beautifully put together, with fonts and decorations meant to remind one of a medieval manuscript. And there are some wonderfully interesting passages here. I just hope that in volume six, Mr. Cahill will get back to focusing on what he does best--writing popular history--and leave the commentary, particularly on current events, to other articles and books.