A Distant Mirror

by Barbara Wertheim

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Barbara Tuchman began her study of fourteenth century Europe to learn what impact the Black Death (1348-1350) had on medieval society. She soon discovered that the great plague was but one of the calamities that afflicted the ill-fated century, and she expanded her research into other major upheavals, including the Hundred Years’ War between France and England, the Great Schism in the Catholic church, the rise of religious dissent, and the decline of feudalism and chivalry.

To give her resulting study a locus, she chose a representative historical figure, Enguerrand VII, as her nominal subject. The last dynastic sire of Coucy, Enguerrand was an important player in the diplomatic maneuvering in the second half of the century, but because he was neither king nor emperor and thus was of limited interest to medieval chroniclers, many of the details of his life are at best sketchy. At various points in her history, Tuchman can only make provocative guesses as to Enguerrand’s role or even his whereabouts.

His life provides only the warp of the author’s intricate and splendid historical tapestry. The woof is made up of major events in Western Europe, especially Anglo-French relations and the power struggles within France and the Church. These are treated chronologically and for the first third of the book do not directly involve Enguerrand. He was, after all, only a child when the Black Death spread through Europe, so Tuchman only records the fact of his survival. In some events—in most papal affairs, for example—he figured not at all, and in others he had only a minor or shadowy role.

Although Tuchman begins her work with a survey of Enguerrand’s forebear, she does not start to deal directly with him until well into her study. First, in the chapter “Born to Woe: The Century,” she examines the geneses of the various problems affecting society, whether natural, such as sickness and famine, or man-made, such as ill-advised policies pursued by avaricious potentates of both church and state. Thereafter, beginning with the war between England and France, she goes into the particulars of the various calamities.

Part 1, among other things, deals with the Black Death, the debacles for the French in battles at Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1351), the vulnerability of France during the captivity of Jean II, the widespread pillage and rapine, the marriage of Enguerrand and Isabella, and the papal schism. Part 2 continues the narrative with events from 1378 forward, beginning with a chapter entitled “Coucy’s Rise” and ending with an epilogue that takes the reader into the century’s aftermath and such events as the final expulsion of the English from France.

Although the second half focuses on power struggles within France and ill-fated schemes of foreign conquest, including plans to invade England, it continues to examine issues introduced in the first part, including such matters as the impact of the theological preachments of John Wycliffe and the erosion of faith engendered by the worldliness of prelates and the Great Schism. It chronicles, too, the last crusade against Islam, with the terrible debacle resulting from the siege of Nicopolos (1396), where Ottoman Turks under Bajazeth dealt the Crusaders a crushing defeat. This was the last event of moment in which Enguerrand VII played a significant role.

Context

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Tuchman deals with the fourteenth century honestly, recognizing that the shakers and movers of the time were almost exclusively male. She does, however, give greater concern to the role women played than most works centering on the political history of the Middle Ages. She pays considerable attention to a few important women—the headstrong Isabella, for...

(This entire section contains 305 words.)

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example, and Catherine of Siena—and in places depicts the lot of ordinary women as they trudged through perilous times toward anonymous graves. She does not suggest, however, that women were particularly victimized in a world that largely excluded them from power and influence.

Her importance to the cause of women lies more in her achievements in a field dominated by men than in the focus of her various works. Her success as a popular historian did not win her much notice in academic departments, despite the fact that two of her works—The Guns of August (1962) and Stilwell and the American Experience in China (1971)—garnered Pulitzer Prizes.

This lack of validation was in part due to the fact that she lacked the necessary academic credentials. For all of her great skill as a researcher and writer, in her career she remained only on the fringes of formal scholarship, holding no academic appointment. Although she studied history and literature at Radcliffe College, she took nonteaching positions as researcher, correspondent, and free-lance journalist. Along the way she also was married and reared three children, proving that a resourceful and talented woman could meet traditional expectations and still gain great distinction in a field with definite biases against even those women having the formal credentials for admission to its inner circles. For more than two decades, Tuchman produced important works on diverse historical periods, solidly researched and brilliantly written, and in the process she outclassed most of her formally trained counterparts.

A Distant Mirror

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Barbara W. Tuchman is one of our most distinguished historians, being the author of such previously acclaimed works as The Zimmermann Telegram, The Guns of August, The Proud Tower, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China. She has twice been awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

The extent of the seven years of research for A Distant Mirror is partially indicated by a seventeen-page selective bibliography of sources and by the thirty-four pages of reference notes, both gathered at the end of the volume. The book is divided nearly in half by sixteen chapters in Part One which predominantly relate the conditions of life in the first three quarters of the fourteenth century in France, and the twelve chapters of Part Two which follow the military exploits of Sire Enguerrand de Coucy VII. The author has found it best to concentrate on the details of one person’s life and so provide multiple perspectives. The device is a good one because as we read of armies, battles, wars, crusades, and uprisings, we also appreciate how events shaped one life during those times; we can the better judge and empathize with conditions of a time which the intervening six hundred years may have made relatively inaccessible to us.

Europe in the fourteenth century seems remote, owing primarily, as the author explains in the foreword, to a scarcity of reliable facts, figures, and dates with which to reconstruct the times. For the Middle Ages, the data we do have are inexact, partial, biased, exaggerated, and contradictory. Any objective observer needs to weigh the descriptions and accounts carefully in order judiciously to assess probabilities. Such is the eminently fair attitude Barbara Tuchman has employed in producing a very reasoned and readable re-creation of the 1300’s.

This work’s subtitle is “The Calamitous 14th Century” and the adjective is easily justified by noting such major calamities as: the Hundred Years War between England and France, begun in 1337, which, besides its destruction and strife, continued the political upheaval of the century; the removal of the Papacy to Avignon in 1309, and then the eventual schism in 1378 which divided loyalties of the ruling class as well as of the religious leaders; and the Black Death in 1348 which killed one third of the population of Europe and recurred approximately every twelve years thereafter for the rest of the century. In sum, all authority must have seemed to be defective and the curse of the plague to condemn all human effort.

These three major disturbances are very well described in the first part of the work. In the political arena, we are given interesting facts about the important nobles, as well as being instructed in the governing principles of the time. For example, it was a salient operating fact of politics that intermarriage among the nobles of any area of Europe was exclusively for purposes of political aggrandizement. Thus, specifically, the central figure of this book, Enguerrand de Coucy VII of France, was married to the daughter of Edward III of England because Coucy was a very important nobleman with extensive properties and income. The most important political theory of those days had to do with the concept of chivalry. Soldiering was made fitting for nobles by a creed which exalted their mission. They became knights with the high ideals of bringing aid to the oppressed, safeguarding the virtue of women, overcoming terrible foes, and doing all for a high religious cause. As with all war propaganda, however, time after time we are shown that in the battles neither side was more moral, neither was more courageous, neither gave more genuine service to the chivalric codes than the other. Furthermore, the winning of battles was more a result of chance than anything else; and the outcome of most of the fighting was largely inconclusive. Nevertheless, we receive a strong general impression: warring, pillaging, and ruthlessness were never more rampant than in the fourteenth century. It was almost a necessary condition of human life.

In the disturbances within the Catholic Church during the fourteenth century, not only was there no clear leadership or order among the prelates, but the spiritual meaning of religion was either abandoned or neglected in favor of material and political benefits for the clergy. Like the nobility, the clergy lived by oppressing the common people. Both ruling classes taxed the people excessively and constantly, to the point of causing minor revolts. Furthermore, the church became so thoroughly materialistic that it sold everything from small bones supposed to be the relics of some saint to special dispensations for the forgiveness of almost any sin. Religion was a business as well as a “government.” So it was that the nobles attempted to give high moral purpose to what was essentially a base human instinct for aggression, while the clergy was busy turning high moral purpose into oppressive avarice of its own. The results were the same in both cases: the lower classes suffered greatly.

With the physical destruction accompanying the plagues, the chaos of the century must have seemed complete, and indeed Barbara Tuchman says that common people were sure that the wrath of God was upon them and that they were doomed. Details of the first epidemic, called the Black Death, which lasted two years, 1348-1350, include the facts that the disease was bubonic plague and, as we now know, was carried by rats from the ships and then to human beings by way of fleas that infested the rats. The symptoms were horrible, including the black sores that gave the plague its name. Death could be lingering, or it could come within a day after contracting the illness. The dead were carted away in charnel wagons and burned; no one was safe.

Against such a general background of major disturbances, Barbara Tuchman has provided us with many specific insights into the daily lives of the general population during those years in France. These details of the varied fabric of life are most numerous in Part One of the volume. The castles of the nobles are described, especially that of the family of Enguerrand de Coucy VII in Picardy, northeast of Paris; we learn of the plan of the rooms, the defensive battlements in case of attack, and the manner in which life went on. Other descriptions inform us of the entertainments of the noble classes — their falconry, feasts, and balls. A realistic picture of Paris is painted, including the city’s layout, shop signs, public baths, market places, and customs. We are shown the traffic jams, the hordes of students, the noise and the smells. Descriptions of the life of the highest clergy include the sumptuous courtlike elegance of the Papacy at Avignon, with its huge crowds of seekers. The lack of proper sewage for a small city experiencing such a massive population growth caused many to complain of the vile smells. Finally, the peasants’ daily lives and lack of comforts are detailed, even to the clothes worn, the food eaten, how the days were ordered. People stayed indoors after dark; work after sundown was prohibited; beggars were everywhere. Potatoes, coffee, tea, and tobacco were unknown, as was, happily, syphilis; but leprosy was not uncommon. People living in town often kept monkeys as pets. Upper-class women plucked their eyebrows, and were censured, as were the men who wore those peculiar medieval pointed shoes.

Many other interesting things emerge from this volume, including evidences of some bizarre behavior. People were generally superstitious and believed in sorcery. Flagellants appeared from time to time: groups of people beating themselves in religious fervor to express remorse for their sins and to induce God to forgive mankind. Alchemy, the search for a way to transform base metals into gold, was the popular science of the day; and astrology, next to God, was thought to be the greatest determinant of affairs. Even demonology was practiced by some.

More important than the deviant behavior, however, were other social attitudes which were more prevalent and much more inimical to well-being: prejudices. First was the egregious prejudice of the two ruling classes, the nobles and the clergy, toward the peasants and shopkeepers; this tyrannical attitude was the cause of much grief and formed the basis of a consistent complaint of the lower classes; namely, that in addition to being ruthlessly victimized, taxed, and enslaved, they were also despised. Another traditional object of class hatred was the Jew, who, as Tuchman very aptly demonstrates, has been ostracized from the Christian world since its early days and was more actively assaulted during the times of the Crusades in medieval Europe. In the mid-fourteenth century, Jews were blamed for the plagues, were said to have “poisoned the wells” of Christians. The fact that Jews died in equal proportions to the gentiles did not prevent them from being attacked and even burned at the stake. A third prejudice was that against women. They were often roundly condemned as playthings of the devil. As a rival force to that of the Church and the State, a woman was to be despised as a “hindrance to devotion,” a “confusion to man.” The only tolerated state for woman was as a wife, and there she must be totally obedient to the man. Original sin was traced to the female, the temptress. A mother’s care was necessary but the father was to be the real source of the child’s internal and external welfare. The Salic law forbade females from inheriting the throne, one of the serious objections being that a woman could not bestow judgment on a man, since man is intrinsically nobler than woman. Much writing about women in medieval literature portrays them as cuckolding, gossiping, and shrewish. It is perhaps particularly annoying by our standards to notice that while women were held in low esteem, nevertheless the cult of courtly love fostered the fantasy of damsels as lofty, chaste, pure, and unattainable. Never were the ideal and the real more at odds.

In Part Two, the military exploits of Enguerrand de Coucy VII are chronicled, including his campaigns in Switzerland, Italy, North Africa, and Bulgaria (Nicopolis). Through the accounts of these battles we appreciate the futility of what was then a defeated sense of chivalry; the end of the era of crusades had come. Simultaneously, we witness a rising sense of nationality among the people of France as they resist English control of their provinces. This sense of nation is fulfilled during the next century by French military victories.

One may ask whether in this book the case has indeed been made which the title suggests; namely, that the fourteenth century is a distant mirror of the twentieth. Certainly Tuchman has intended that we draw many parallels. When she does not openly state the parallel, as “For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use,” she allows us to form our own. The nearly continual state of war then is hardly different from this century’s two World Wars, the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts, and the civil wars in China, Russia, Spain, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and India. Belief in traditional institutions such as church, government, even marriage and traditional life styles, have all been challenged or upset in this century. Perhaps certain aspects of bizarre behavior then, such as flagellation, sorcery, and other superstitions, correspond to the extreme cultist activities of our day.

Assuredly, however, parallelism is more a device than an actuality. The plague, for instance, is not mirrored in this century. In any case, corresponding human activities in any two eras of history can easily be compared; the so-called “lessons of history” have been called to our attention before. So the point of this re-creation of a remote and calamitous century is not whether all of its aspects are directly reflected today. The point is that by adopting such an attitude of comparison we approach this distant time without the usual condescension, ready to condemn the medieval period as barbaric. Nor do we automatically consider our times to be intrinsically better in all respects. Tuchman, attesting to certain deficiencies of those days, of sanitary conditions or medical knowledge, say, is quick to point out that there were other aspects worthy of praise. For example, the usual treatment of the plague, by letting blood and putting on plasters, was either useless or perhaps even harmful, yet the doctors of those times did know how to set bones, pull teeth, take out bladder stones, even remove cataracts. We appreciate balance in such a presentation of history and we gain from it a feeling of kinship with the people of those times.

A Distant Mirror is not without flaws. Some may find the events hard to follow because of chronological and spatial interruptions and dislocations. The life of Enguerrand de Coucy VII does not inspire much sympathy and he does not ever “come alive,” since we learn only the events of his public career. There are some lapses of style; for instance, “Frenchmen did not lack who were ready to accept union. . . .” is more French than English. And, finally, historical facts nearly always belie proclamations about the grand order of things, so that when one reads, concerning the next (fifteenth) century’s Joan of Arc, that “The moment required her and she rose,” one objects to any historian explaining the “Exigencies of History” as some celestial predestination.

A Distant Mirror should be required reading for all students in high school and college. As a history text it is vivid, resourceful, altogether interesting. As an example of re-creation of the past, it is an absorbing narrative full of all kinds of pertinent information to help us better understand those times, our own times, and ourselves.

Bibliography

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Blamires, Alcuin, ed. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1992. This anthology excerpts medieval texts from anti-and pro-feminist writers from Ovid to Chaucer and John Gower. It is an excellent sourcebook for those who wish to study and document the widespread ambiguity toward women in medieval thought.

Gies, Frances, and Joseph Gies. Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. This study surveys the reformulation of marriage codes and practices through the early, high, and late Middle Ages, showing the evolution of family concept and the significance of blood ties in the social, cultural, economic, and political spheres.

Gies, Frances, and Joseph Gies. Women in the Middle Ages. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980. Presented in two parts, this study first gives the historical and cultural context for the lives of specific women dealt with in the second part. All classes are represented, from Blanche of Castile to the hypothetical wife of Piers Plowman. The work is an excellent introduction to the role of women in medieval society.

Hanawalt, Barbara A. The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. This study offers a detailed account of the morals and mores of the common folk in medieval England, drawing provocative parallels to the present age. It provides an intimate look at people usually ignored in histories of the period.

Herlihy, David. Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990. A survey of the work done by women of all classes from Roman times through the fifteenth century, this study focuses attention on how their sense of duty and dignity was threatened by the exclusiveness of medieval guilds.

Labarge, Margaret W. A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in Medieval Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. A major study of the role of medieval women of all classes, from queens to women on the “fringe” (prostitutes and felons), with a geographic focus on France, England, the Low Countries, and southern Germany.

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