The Autumn of the Middle Ages

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Summary: Detailed Analysis of 15th Century France and Holland
Review: First, I must admit that I am not a Middle Ages scholar, and this book is the first one I have read about Middle Ages culture. Having said that, I thouroughly enjoyed Huizinga's book about life in France and Holland during the 15th Century. I am glad that I put the effort into reading this book. I say effort, because Huizinga's analysis is not light reading. No, it is a detailed analysis of Late Middle Ages culture - art, literature, religion, and lifestyles are all covered at great length. Much of it is fascinating when viewed in contrast with the way we live today.

This translation of the book seems solid. It includes a lot of text from original documents, many in French, or Latin, but includes English translations in the footnotes section. A few parts of the book were more difficult to work through than others, but in the end I felt like I had gained a new insight into European history. I particularly think that Huizinga's thoughts about the Christian church in this era leading to the reformation make for fascinating reading.

If you are interested in what life in the late middle ages may have been like then I highly recommend this book. Keep in mind that it is a historical exposition about this era, not a textbook treatment full of facts. Personally, it has kindled enough interest in this subject for me to warrant further study- hopefully it will do the same for you.

Rating:
Summary: Kudos to the translators of this classic!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed one of the older, standard translations of this classic... but this translation is a work of art. Rodney Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch have transformed Huizinga's lucid work into something highly literate. I'd put this effort among the fine translations of Richard Lattimore and Arthur Goldhammer. This book has become the darling of my bookshelf. Bravo to all concerned!

Rating:
Summary: Enlightened Translation!
Review: In this venerable if somewhat dated work, Huizinga examines the social and cultural life in France and the Low Countries during the late Middle Ages (14th and 15th centuries). Court chronicles, legal documents, religious treatises and orations as well as works of poetry and art are scrutinized for their abiliy to shed light on the codes of behavior that ruled people's lives. Literary sources from the Roman de la Rose to the ballads of François Villon to simple folk tales and proverbs are searched for clues to medieval thought and conduct. Predictably, these sources reveal more about the aristocracy and church hierarchy than about the common man; and in the case of court historians, allowance must be made for hyperbole and embellishment.

Keeping all this in mind, Huizinga discerns a gradual rigidification of all manifestations of life: faith degenerates into superstition, love of beauty into ostentatious display, models of conduct deteriorate into empty formalism. Once-vital expressions of love, piety, courage and honor become so stylized that they lose all meaning. Profanation of the sacred, blasphemy and idolatry abound. Itinerant preachers whip up mass hysteria; witch hunts and prosecution of heretics are the predictable result. In the arts, excessive and repetitive use of imagery and allegory stifles creative impulses. Huizinga sees the best of the late-medieval spirit preserved in the visual arts, especially Flemish painting, rather than in the literary forms, which he pronounces "tiring and boring". The reader is inclined to agree.
While the "gods of antiquity" were never completely lost in the Middle Ages - only forced underground - a "new tone of life" had to emerge before the Renaissance could take hold.

For budding medievalists and Renaissance scholars, this book is still an indispensable study guide, mainly because of its abundant source material; but it requires patience and perseverance on the part of the reader. The translation is sometimes a little murky and contains some inaccuracies, especially in the copious Latin and French quotations. This detracts only slightly from the Herculean effort of rendering an older canonical work into fluent English.

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Summary: Interesting and exquisite, but...Is it for real?
Review: My problem with this book is one that has been stated by a couple other reviewers: Is it reliable as a source of what actually went through the people's minds and hearts during the era and in the locale in question as its author and its proselytes proclaim it to be? - My answer is, in a word, "No." No book can accomplish this feat. But that doesn't mean that attempts such as this one can't be "beautiful as shipwrecks from paradise," to borrow from Shelley.

To cut to the chase, what the book succeeds in doing is not in demarking the Middle Ages from the Renaissance, but in contrasting the Middle Ages (as Huizinga would like to see them anyway) with Huizinga's own age. I'm not going to belabor the point, just one citation will suffice: On page 235,Huizinga asseverates, "There was no great truth of which the medieval mind was more certain than those words from the Corinthians, 'For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.' They never forgot that everything would be absurd if it exhausted its meaning in its immediate function and form of manifestation, and that all things extend in an important way to the world beyond." Really now? How does he know this? Has he conducted extensive interviews with the illiterate serfs whose lifetimes were a fraction of ours and who spent their waking hours trying to keep food in their bellies? What Huizinga is describing here is a mystical perception of the world prevalent among poets and mystically inclined philosophers throughout all ages and lands. Huizinga's own citation of Corinthians undermines the notion that this view was exclusive to the Middle Ages....But it's a beautiful picture nonetheless, though it be untrue to the reality.

In conclusion, Huizinga is a poetic, artistic historian, and the insights in this book are such as one would expect given this approach: Fascinating, richly textured, but, well, not verifiable or entirely true in many cases. Enjoy. But you may want to hang your critic's hat on a medieval peg somewhere. Surely you have one.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Exquisite.....But is it for real?
Review: My problem with this book is the same that has been expressed by a couple other reviewers: to wit, does Huizinga really know what was going through the hearts and minds of the people in the particular era and region with which the book deals, as the author and his proselytes claim? My answer is, in a word,-No. No book can. History is an elusive subject under the best of circumstances.

Let me cut to the chase. Huizinga is really not so much interested in demarking the Middle Ages from the Renaissance. After one gets into the thick of things, it becomes quite obvious that what he's actually about is contrasting the Middle Ages (as he understands or imagines them) from his own historical milieu. I won't belabor the point: one citation will suffice. On page 235, Huizinga asseverates that, "There was no great truth of which the medieval mind was more certain than those words from the Corinthians, 'For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.' They never forgot that everything would be absurd if it exhausted its meaning in its immediate function and form of manifestation, and that all things extend in an mportant way to the world beyond." How does he know? Did he conduct extensive interviews with illiterate serfs whose life expectancy was a fraction of ours and spent almost all their waking hours trying to put food in their bellies? - No, the worldview Huizinga describes above is one common to mystics and poets of all eras and climes. His very citation of the Corinthians subverts any notion that it was exclusive to the Netherlands in the Middle Ages.

Huizinga was essentially an artistic and poetic writer, and the insights one comes away with from his book are such as one might expect from one so gifted: textured and fascinating portraits of a time now lost. But they are just that, verbal pictures, calling to mind not so much Breughel or any of the other artists whose works are Plated in the middle of the book, but that of the Pre-Raphaelites.

This is an enchanting book and well worth the read. It's just that you may have to hang your critic's hat upon a medieval peg before sitting down to enjoy it. I trust you have one...a medieval peg that is.

Rating:
Summary: Subtle analysis.
Review: This book is original at least in one sense: it is a historic book without battles, thus a relief.
Huizinga evocates masterfully the change in the mentality and the way of life at the end of the Middle Ages.
The Roman Church becomes corrupt from head to foot: simony, selling of indulgences. She even excommunicates the Franciscan lifestyle.
The knighthood organizes tournaments.
Justice becomes a showdown: cities buy condemned persons in order to organize their public execution as a big show for their inhabitants.
Painting becomes naturalistic. Agnes Sorel, the mistress of the king, is a model for the Blessed Virgin.
Music becomes an imitation of natural sounds, e.g. yapping dogs.
Literature becomes playing with words or excessively romantic (Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles).
In one word, varnish.
Protestantism and the Renaissance will provoke a new revival.
I recommend this book to everyone interested in perceptive historical analysis.

Rating:
Summary: Subtle analysis.
Review: This book is original at least in one sense: it is a historic book without battles, thus a relief.
Huizinga evocates masterfully the change in the mentality and the way of life at the end of the Middle Ages.
The Roman Church becomes corrupt from head to foot: simony, selling of indulgences. She even excommunicates the Franciscan lifestyle.
The knighthood organizes tournaments.
Justice becomes a showdown: cities buy condemned persons in order to organize their public execution as a big show for their inhabitants.
Painting becomes naturalistic. Agnes Sorel, the mistress of the king, is a model for the Blessed Virgin.
Music becomes an imitation of natural sounds, e.g. yapping dogs.
Literature becomes playing with words or excessively romantic (Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles).
In one word, varnish.
Protestantism and the Renaissance will provoke a new revival.
I recommend this book to everyone interested in perceptive historical analysis.