He had had one temperamental and extravagant wife eight years his senior, and a second approximately thirty years his junior. As the century entered its last quarter, the reality and power of demons and witches became a common belief….

Read around Richard III and - love him or hate him - along the way you’re not only going to get into the foreground detail of the Wars of the Roses, you’ll begin making some sense of the backstory of the Plantagenet dynasty. The Medieval Suite for Flute and Piano by Katherine Hoover: An Examination, Analysis, and Performance Guide (DMA thesis).Speaking of the populate, there is plenty of detail on the habits and round of daily life of the common people. It was a time when people were dying in droves even without the endless and senseless wars being waged to hurry them along to their graves. Once again the heavy fourteenth century plate armor constricted more than it helped against a disciplined mobile opponent. By way of example, here is one memorable happening where the French Queen gave a masquerade to celebrate the wedding of a twice widowed lady-in-waiting: six young noblemen, including the King who recently recovered from a bout of madness, disguised themselves as wood savages and entered the masked ball making lewd gestures and howling like wolves as they paraded and capered in the middle of the revelers. The author looks into the history of Western Europe between 1300 and 1450, drawing parallels with the 20th century and looks into Chaucer, Boccaccio, The Hundred Years' War, pilgrimages, plagues and revolts against a poll tax, amongst other things.

I have been a Tuchman fan for years but put off reading this book because it concerned a period of history of which I was not particularly interested.

Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights. Though I respect the hell out of dogged, elbow-patched professors digging through dusty primary sources, I can’t help but believe that most of this criticism is a mark of Tuchman’s commercial success. It’s the same with Barbara Tuchman’s terrific idea of approaching the war and politics of 14th century Europe, through just one man - Enguerrand de Coucy - whose lifetime fits so perfectly with the story she wants to relate. Their conquered subjects began identifying as French in response to the brutal treatment of their English overlords. And just when I thought I couldn’t get more enthralled, we actually begin the life of Enguerrand de Coucy VII.

Seaborne enterprise liberated by the compass was reaching toward the voyages of discovery that were to burst the confines of Europe….

Look, if you are going to have trouble with the idea of people putting their lips to pus filled sores, then you are going to find this part of the book challenging. In the book, I particularly appreciated the various insights into the peculiarities of the domestic life of men and women living in the medieval period. Every Christian found himself under penalty of damnation by one or the other Pope, with no way of being sure that the sacraments of their priest were valid or a sacrilege. One must take in score after score of kings, nobles, popes, prelates and others and their complex relationships as well as Middle Ages political geography. The book's focus is the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages which caused widespread suffering in Europe in the 14th century.

His reviews generally give valuable insights into a book and unfortunately far too often have me adding books to my ‘to read’ list that I really will probably never get around to reading – but if I ever do read any of them I will read purely due to Eric’s recommendations.But before I present the quote, I would like to draw attention to how shrewd Tuchman has been in the choice of her subject. This was a time of complex political ties and confrontations between England and France, with their allegiances and territories mingled.