The Normans (Peoples of Europe)

Rating:
Summary: History's Great Howler
Review: A scholarly but extremely dull book that contains history's great howler. On page 61, after tracing the descent of Matilda, Henry I's first wife, from the Saxon kings, the book insanely attributes the whole line of English kings to Henry I's second wife. As stated in Thomas R. Moore's book, "Plantagenet Descent: 31 Generations from William the Conqueror to Today," : "King Henry I had long been in love with Matilda ... great-granddaughter of the great English hero King Edmund Ironside. He proposed. The English were delighted. ... His example was followed by others, and intermarriages between Normans and English became common. ... His efforts were so successful that he has been called the refounder of the English nation. He did his part by fathering 25 illegitimate children. ... [Henry's] second wife ... proved barren. ... Ironically, after Henry's death she remarried and had seven children." pages 14-15.

Rating:
Summary: History's Great Howler
Review: A scholarly but extremely dull book that contains history's great howler. On page 61, after tracing the descent of Matilda, Henry I's first wife, from the Saxon kings, the book insanely attributes the whole line of English kings to Henry I's second wife. As stated in Thomas R. Moore's book, "Plantagenet Descent: 31 Generations from William the Conqueror to Today," : "King Henry I had long been in love with Matilda ... great-granddaughter of the great English hero King Edmund Ironside. He proposed. The English were delighted. ... His example was followed by others, and intermarriages between Normans and English became common. ... His efforts were so successful that he has been called the refounder of the English nation. He did his part by fathering 25 illegitimate children. ... [Henry's] second wife ... proved barren. ... Ironically, after Henry's death she remarried and had seven children." pages 14-15.

Rating:
Summary: A good introductory text, does exactly what it's supposed to
Review: This is a good survey by one of the best people in the field. I used it to good effect in an introductory course on the "Normans in European History" in the university this spring. Students found it very negotiable. The chart on p. 61 is wrong -- the vertical lilne should be under the first wife, but this is the kind of mistake that can be easily rectified in the next edition. A more substantive criticism is that the chapter on the Normans after 1215 is extremely truncated, but that doesn't negate the value of the book. This is a great starting place for anyone interested in the Normans as a people.

Rating:
Summary: A good introductory text, does exactly what it's supposed to
Review: This is a good survey by one of the best people in the field. I used it to good effect in an introductory course on the "Normans in European History" in the university this spring. Students found it very negotiable. The chart on p. 61 is wrong -- the vertical lilne should be under the first wife, but this is the kind of mistake that can be easily rectified in the next edition. A more substantive criticism is that the chapter on the Normans after 1215 is extremely truncated, but that doesn't negate the value of the book. This is a great starting place for anyone interested in the Normans as a people.