The Hundred Years War: Trial by Battle (The Middle Ages Series, 1)

Rating:
Summary: Sumption makes it work...
Review: Reading about the Middle Ages is like treading upstream sometimes. Its so easy to get bogged down and lose your path and eventually your interest. A lot of times reading history is exactly like that.

This book is very good at keeping the story of this period on its path and is extremely, even remarkably, readable. I actually managed to get wrapped up in the story (which I've read many times already) the way one does with good novels. The author is obviously very familiar with the primary sources but he quotes from them with care and only when his point is well-made. Otherwise he tells the story in clear, simple language - amazing for any of us who study or write history! And he has a fine sense of when the chroniclers were playing to their audience's prejudices and when they probably were right on point. Its difficult to read about the early period of the wars between England and France without getting mired in the problems the various powers faced -- and continued to toil over every year -- like constant bankruptcy, local rebellion, personality disorders and prejudices, and so forth. The author gives you these things -- the Middle Ages would not be the Middle Ages without them -- but in the right doses to make the fuller picture clear, not lose it in the haze.

I have not yet read the sequel but I'm confident it is as well written. I would recommend these volumes to anyone interested in the Middle Ages period in Europe.

Rating:
Summary: Sumption makes it work...
Review: Reading about the Middle Ages is like treading upstream sometimes. Its so easy to get bogged down and lose your path and eventually your interest. A lot of times reading history is exactly like that.

This book is very good at keeping the story of this period on its path and is extremely, even remarkably, readable. I actually managed to get wrapped up in the story (which I've read many times already) the way one does with good novels. The author is obviously very familiar with the primary sources but he quotes from them with care and only when his point is well-made. Otherwise he tells the story in clear, simple language - amazing for any of us who study or write history! And he has a fine sense of when the chroniclers were playing to their audience's prejudices and when they probably were right on point. Its difficult to read about the early period of the wars between England and France without getting mired in the problems the various powers faced -- and continued to toil over every year -- like constant bankruptcy, local rebellion, personality disorders and prejudices, and so forth. The author gives you these things -- the Middle Ages would not be the Middle Ages without them -- but in the right doses to make the fuller picture clear, not lose it in the haze.

I have not yet read the sequel but I'm confident it is as well written. I would recommend these volumes to anyone interested in the Middle Ages period in Europe.

Rating:
Summary: A Sterling Effort: I Bought Vol. II
Review: Sumption's history of this sordid and bloody conflict will be the defining opus of this era. In this first volume of 600 pages he covers intimately all aspects of the war's first 10 years. He is mostly skilled at both the economic and diplomatic machinations of the conflict, emphasising how armies were fielded and then supported.

His scope is grand and he covers events as far away as Scotland, Flanders, Britany, and the Popes involvement from the Avignon palaces.

His strategic interpretation is superb, without equal. He has an ability to get into the head of participants and show their ultimate motivation in fighting. Why particular courses were decided upon are also fittingly reviewed; why a campaign in Flanders? Why get involved in Britany? How did England ultimately expand and prevail in Aquitaine when their foothold was so tenuous? Why were the French completely unable to exploint a fundamental postion of strength by working with their internal lines of communication? All of these questions are answered in good detail.

There are no real weaknesses in this work but there are a few things that readers should be prepared for:

1) Sumption is not writing a biography of any of the characters and although we understand a lot of their emotions in the heat of dimplomacy and battle, we hear little about the individual idiosyncracies of both Edward III and Philip VI. We learn almost nothing about their respective sons in this volume, which is amazing considering the future role they played.

2) Although this is a story of battle and slaughter, we are largely spared the details of the minutea of battle, who fought whom, the real intricacies of the weapons involved and the fate of those who were turned to bones. Sumption leaves that to other military historians who have written hundreds of pages on individual battles. There are however amazing revalations here about Crecy which deserve to be noted; Sumption notes that the repeat regrouping and charging of the English lines was not characterisitic of a disorganised French attack. As such this contracdicts the traditional version of the French falling over themselves in the battle. In the end the longbow won the battle. No new surpises here.

3) There is little actual focus on how the war effected the peasant. Perhaps because we know so little of them, but Sumption's research is so exhaustive that he purposefully concentrates on the diplomatic, military alliance structures and their respective figures.

This was a major project to get through. I had to admit that times I did wander in my attention span. But the detail in the text is rich and his coverage of the impact of the war in Britany and the northern English Marches against the Scots, is something largely ignored by other historians of this war.

I have already bought volume II and determined read all future volumes as he finishes.... although at this rate it will be a total of at least 10 volumes to get throught this particularly depressing interval in human history.

Rating:
Summary: Readable, knowledgeable and intelligent history
Review: The Middle Ages in Europe, a time of poor sanitation and brutal men terrifying local communities into submission; where the rule of law may have been as tenuous as the mortality people might expect to achieve. The Middle Ages in Europe is as near as one might get to the post apocalyptic nightmare depicted in the movie Mad Max 2 the Road Warrior where decisions are terrible and give very short shrift to our political correct world of today. This is the world Jonathan Sumption evokes in his Trial by Battle. It's a time of shortages of food and resources, the golden age of the plentiful thirteenth century is drawing to a close and the economy of Europe is coming under strain. Thrust into this crisis are the rulers of the lands of those times. Principally the Kings of England and France. But theres a host of other lesser nobles, of Dukes, Earls and Counts in north west Europe effected and effecting the politics of the times. In this book, Mr. Sumption gives a crash course in the organisation of the various kingdoms, principalities, counties and dukedoms as they become involved in the story of the Hundred Years War. Its not necessary to know in depth about the running of a kingdom though it might help to have a little background knowledge. The pace of the book carries this history at a good rate of knots. My only criticism is while Mr Sumption produces a suitable statistic here and there to back up the picture he paints in words, there can be a lack of colour, the description of an event or cultural or technological details, is lacking in places. This left me at a loss for an image to anchor my understanding (after all I am a product of an age addicted to visualisation), That said it is only a small detraction from a really interesting work. The battle descriptions are spot on and the developments in between give the theme a sense of continuity. This volume brings the history from the origins of the war to ten years into its execution. You'll have to buy the next volume (which I did) to find out what happens but Trial by Battle is good in itself if you like the at times bizarrely mystical and nonsensical Middle Ages and at times utterly no nonsense people of those hard times

Rating:
Summary: Readable, knowledgeable and intelligent history
Review: The Middle Ages in Europe, a time of poor sanitation and brutal men terrifying local communities into submission; where the rule of law may have been as tenuous as the mortality people might expect to achieve. The Middle Ages in Europe is as near as one might get to the post apocalyptic nightmare depicted in the movie Mad Max 2 the Road Warrior where decisions are terrible and give very short shrift to our political correct world of today. This is the world Jonathan Sumption evokes in his Trial by Battle. It's a time of shortages of food and resources, the golden age of the plentiful thirteenth century is drawing to a close and the economy of Europe is coming under strain. Thrust into this crisis are the rulers of the lands of those times. Principally the Kings of England and France. But theres a host of other lesser nobles, of Dukes, Earls and Counts in north west Europe effected and effecting the politics of the times. In this book, Mr. Sumption gives a crash course in the organisation of the various kingdoms, principalities, counties and dukedoms as they become involved in the story of the Hundred Years War. Its not necessary to know in depth about the running of a kingdom though it might help to have a little background knowledge. The pace of the book carries this history at a good rate of knots. My only criticism is while Mr Sumption produces a suitable statistic here and there to back up the picture he paints in words, there can be a lack of colour, the description of an event or cultural or technological details, is lacking in places. This left me at a loss for an image to anchor my understanding (after all I am a product of an age addicted to visualisation), That said it is only a small detraction from a really interesting work. The battle descriptions are spot on and the developments in between give the theme a sense of continuity. This volume brings the history from the origins of the war to ten years into its execution. You'll have to buy the next volume (which I did) to find out what happens but Trial by Battle is good in itself if you like the at times bizarrely mystical and nonsensical Middle Ages and at times utterly no nonsense people of those hard times