No theme for this week’s roundup of books – just ones that I’m reading through right now ~ PK

Edward III and the Triumph of England

By Richard Barber

Allen Lane, 2013

ISBN: 9780713998382

The destruction of the French army at Crécy in 1346 and the subsequent siege and capture of Calais marked a new era in European history. The most powerful, glamorous and respected of all western monarchies had been completely humiliated by England, a country long viewed either as a chaotic backwater or a mere French satellite.


The young Edward III’s triumph would launch both countries, as we now know, into a grim cycle of some 90 years of further fighting ending with English defeat, but after Crécy anything seemed possible – Edward’s claim to be King of France could be pressed home and, in any event, enormous rewards of land, treasure and prestige were available both to the king and to the close companions who had made the victory possible. It was to enshrine this moment that Edward created one of the most famous of all knightly orders, the Company of the Garter.

Barber writes about both the great campaigns and the individuals who formed the original membership of the Company – and through their biographies makes the period tangible and fascinating. This is a book about knighthood, battle tactics and grand strategy, but it is also about fashion, literature and the privates lives of everyone from queens to freebooters. Barber’s book is a remarkable achievement – but also an extremely enjoyable one.

‘Barber shares his hero’s love of chivalry and it is the valorous aspects of Edward’s reign – his wars, his foundation of the Order of the Garter – which interest him and make the book sparkle with some of Edward’s own glitz.’ – review by Nigel Jones in The Telegraph


Amazon.com Widgets

Money and the Middle Ages

By Jacques Le Goff

Polity, 2012

ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-7456-5299-3

Jacques Le Goff sets out in this book to explain the role of money, or rather of the various types of money, in the economy, life and mentalities of the Middle Ages. He seeks also to explain how, in a society dominated by religion, the Church viewed money, and how it taught Christians what attitudes they should adopt towards it and towards the uses to which it could be put. He shows that, although money played an important role in the rise of towns and trade and in state formation, there was no capitalism but only a pre-capitalism in the Middle Ages, even by their end, in the absence of a truly global market. This is why economic development remained slow and limited, in spite of some remarkable success stories. It was a period in which it was as important to give money as it was to earn it. True wealth was not yet the wealth of this world, even though money played an increasingly large role in reality and in mentalities.

‘The abiding impression left by the bulk of Money and the Middle Ages is that money became a more prominent and influential fact of life for medieval Europeans in many different ways. Concern over the social and spiritual consequences of money sharpened proportionately. Le Goff revisits at several points the checks and balances on the monetary economy imposed by medieval Christian society. ‘ – review by Rory Naismith in H-Net Reviews

Amazon.com Widgets

The Decline of Serfdom in Late Medieval England: From Bondage to Freedom

By Mark Bailey

Boydell and Brewer, 2014

ISBN: 9781843838906

Scholars from various disciplines have long debated why western Europe in general, and England in particular, led the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The decline of serfdom between c.1300 and c.1500 in England is central to this “Transition Debate”, because it transformed the lives of ordinary people and opened up the markets in land and labour. Yet, despite its historical importance, there has been no major survey or reassessment of decline of serfdom for decades. Consequently, the debate over its causes, and its legacy to early modern England, remains unresolved.


This dazzling study provides an accessible and up-to-date survey of the decline of serfdom in England, applying a new methodology for establishing both its chronology and causes to thousands of court rolls from 38 manors located across the south Midlands and East Anglia. It presents a ground-breaking reassessment, challenging many of the traditional interpretations of the economy and society of late-medieval England, and, indeed, of the very nature of serfdom itself.

Amazon.com Widgets

Bertha of the Big Foot (Berte as grans piés): A Thirteenth-Century Epic by Adenet le Roi

Translated by Anna Moore Morton

Arizona Centre of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-86698-465-2

This is the first translation of Adenet le Roi’s thirteenth-century epic in Old French, Berte as grans piés, into a modern language. The principal characters in this work are women, an unusual circumstance in medieval French literature, especially in epics. Four women make the key decisions and take the crucial actions in Berte. Men are relegated to minor roles. The medieval popularity of this dramatic tale and Adenet’s artistry in telling it should make the translation useful to those who study literature but do not read Old French and to those particularly interested in women’s studies.


Amazon.com Widgets

The Hundred Years War (Part III): Further Considerations

Edited by L.J. Andrew Villalon and Donald J. Kagay

Brill, 2013

ISBN: 9789004245648

In this work, the third volume of essays dealing with many understudied aspects of the Hundred Years War, American, British, and European scholars deal with the varied sources that reveal the lives of soldiers in the conflict as well as the development of strategy and generalship in the many theaters of the war. The authors also focus on real heroes and villains of the conflict as well as the war’s impact on regions as scattered as Wales, the Low Countries, Italy, Scotland and Spain.

Paper include ‘The English in the Southern Low Countries during the Fourteenth Century: The Medieval “Belgian” Perspective’, by Kelly DeVries; ‘London Businessmen and Alchemists: Raising Money for the Hundred Years War’, by Wendy J. Turner; and ‘War, Crisis, and East Anglia, 1334-1340: Towards a Reassessment’, by Daniel P. Franke.

Amazon.com Widgets