Review: Lotharingia by Lara Byrne

Synopsis: Against the backdrop of the Investiture Controversy, a young woman is forging her own special destiny.

AD 1062. One day warrior Countess Matilde will rule like a man, and inherit her mother's mysterious relics, but she cannot escape the marriage arranged for her.

When her enigmatic overlord King Heinrich rescues her from her abusive husband, friendship blossoms into forbidden love. But her personal journey has only just begun.

A medieval tale of love, political intrigue, and relic hunting.

~ ~ ~

A fictional account of the early life of Matilda of Canossa, a formidable women who stood up for what she believed in, in the face of opposition from more powerful political players. And that is where my interest started and stopped.

By the author's own words, the plot is entirely fictitious and is her own creative attempt to tie up "historical" loose ends, to provide both herself and the reader a semblance of a satisfactory explanation / conclusion to historical events that actually presented none and to fill in gaps in the historical chronology.

Unfortunately, it read more like a medieval Dan Brown novel than what could have been a more considered and structured historical novel of a woman at the centre of one of the most important political and religious events of not only her time but of our own.

To throw in relic hunting and an undocumented illicit love affair in order to explain things or tie up loose ends is really doing your subject a great disservice - and just didn't work on so many levels.

I will be labeling this one as alternate historical fiction - as that is what it represents, especially for those of us who have actually taken the time to get to know Matilda and invest in her story a little more seriously. I won't be pursuing the second in this series.

If you are truly interest in Matilda, then invest in "The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa 1046-1115" by David J. Hay or even "Tuscan Countess: The Life and Extraordinary Times of Matilda of Canossa" by Michele K. Spike

Review: Cathedral by Ben Hopkins

Synopsis: A thoroughly immersive read and a remarkable feat of imagination, Cathedral tells a sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art, and earthly desire in gripping prose. It deftly combines historical fiction and a tale of adventure and intrigue.

At the center of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 12th and 13th centuries in the town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. Around this narrative center, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise.

Ben Hopkins' "Cathedral" is definitely one for readers of The Pillars of the Earth and Cathedral of the Sea, both of which I have and love, so it's a no-brainer that this tome will be joining them on my book shelves. Like those two tomes mentioned, Hopkins' "Cathedral" has a carefully constructed and engaging narrative, a mix of first and third person, of the citizens of Hagenberg and is told against the backdrop of the construction of the city's Cathedral, their lives intersecting across the pages as the years progress. And like the two aforementioned tomes, "Cathedral" may also be worthy of a mini-series of its own

Hopkins' "Cathedral" deftly taps into the psyche of the people associated with its construction - the masters, the guilds, the merchants, the Church, the nobles, whilst exploring the complexity of the mores and prejudices, the political and religious discord of the time. Many of the cathedral workforce was itinerant, moving from one job to another, and so new social elements or social / religious groups would be introduced into these often small, insular communities. 

When I read historical fiction I love to know if events were based on real people, places and events - and to that end I go in search of the "back story". I am now going to touch on some of the themes within the narrative that fascinated me. 

Medieval Cathedral Building 

The building of monumental cathedrals in the middle ages was a reflection of faith and the channel for much of the creative energy of medieval European society. As cathedrals took decades, and often even centuries to complete, few people who worked on them expected to see them finished during their lifetimes. Being involved in the construction of a cathedral, even as the building patron, required a willingness to be part of a process that was larger than oneself. As architectural technology developed further, greater expanses of glass became possible. This led to stained glass becoming an important decorative medium in religious buildings

The most obvious starting point was for an architect to be found who would design a cathedral. An architect would also know who were the best master craftsmen to employ – and many highly skilled men were needed. Each master of his own trade ran a workshop for his own particular trade - these were skilled men and they would not do any labouring – unskilled labourers who lived near to where a cathedral was being built would do this. Many of the skilled workers relied on other trades to keep them at work.

It was typically the Cathedral Chapter that determined how much money could be spent on what. It was the Chapter that would decide on the final design of the cathedral – and it was the Chapter that would instruct the architect on just what they wanted. The cost of these buildings was vast – but the money to pay for these huge buildings came from the people via the many payments they had to make to the Roman Catholic Church in Medieval times.

Holy Roman Empire & Habsburgs

Alsace and Strasbourg have been the object of rival claims by France and Germany up until the very recent past and have experienced multiple changes of possession. Alsace experienced great prosperity during the 12th and 13th centuries under Hohenstaufen emperors. Frederick I set up Alsace as a province to be ruled by ministeriales, a non-noble class of civil servants. The idea was that such men would be more tractable and less likely to alienate the fief from the crown out of their own greed. The province had a single provincial court and a central administration. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II designated the Bishop of Strasbourg to administer Alsace, but the authority of the bishop was challenged by Count Rudolf of Habsburg, who received his rights from Frederick II's son Conrad IV. 

Cathedral of Hagenberg or Strasbourg

Unlike the actual city of Hagenberg (located in Austria), our fictional city is located along the Rhine, and - to my mind anyway - the fictional Cathedral of Our Lady of Hagenberg seems to have much in common with the Strasbourg's Notre Dame Cathedral (or Cathedral of Our Lady). 

The Cathedral of Strasbourg was founded in 1015 on the remains of a previous cathedral. This wooden structure burnt down in 1176-177 and was replaced by a new, Gothic stone building was being built from 1220. Its construction was financed by the free city of Strasbourg , a rich merchant and financial republic. It is also one of two contemporary structures that made use of architectural drawings.

Strasbourg began to grow to become the most populous and commercially important town in the region. Until 1200, the development was limited to the island, which was covered with a grid of narrow streets and lanes.  As the economy flourished, the original medieval city began expanding. 

France and Germany had a long history of "warrior bishops". These bishops in medieval Germany were born into aristocratic or knightly families which prided themselves upon their proficiency in war­fare. It appears that Hopkins tapped into this as inspiration for one of the components of his nove1.  The city of Strasburg rose in defence of its rights against the new bishop, Walter of Hohengeroldseck (r. 1260 - 1263), in 1261. Benjamin Arnold as written a fascinating piece on this phenomenon entitled "German Bishops and their Military Retinues in the Medieval Empire" as has Nicholas Friend in his thesis entitled "Holy Warriors and Bellicose Bishops: The Church and Warfare in Early Medieval Germany".  After this long struggle, its citizens gained the status of a free imperial city in 1262. 

Church & Inquisition in Germany

In 13th cent Germany & France, the Inquisition was alive and well. Their focus was on the Waldensians and Albigensians or Cathars. Conrad of Marpurg, Inquisitor General over Germany sought them out with impugnity in the 1230s, after Pope Gregory IX began to commission Dominicans and Franciscans in Germany, France,Spain and Italy as delegated judges tasked with the prosecution of heresy in 1231.

The bishops were, by default, responsible for the purity of faith in their dioceses. The de-cretal Ad abolendam of Lucius III (1184) ordered that bishops and archbishops, acting either in their own person or through their archdeacon, should conduct an inquiry once or twice a year within those parishes in which any form of heresy had begun to circulate, If there was an indication of heresy, the suspects were to be called to the bishop or to the archdeacon to exculpate themselves through oath. Those who might defy oath-taking,fail to exculpate themselves, or relapse into heresy after purgation, were to be judged by the bishop and handed over to the secular arm. (source: Bishops and the inquisition of heresy in late medieval Germany by Reima Välimäki in Dominus Episcopus Medieval Bishops between Diocese and Court).

Cathars

The Cathars were largely local, Western European/Latin Christian phenomena, springing up in the Rhineland cities (particularly Cologne) in the mid-12th century, northern France around the same time, and particularly the Languedoc—and the northern Italian cities in the mid-late 12th century. 

The Inquisition was established in 1233 to uproot the remaining Cathars. Repentant lay believers were punished, but their lives were spared as long as they did not relapse. Having recanted, they were obliged to sew yellow crosses onto their outdoor clothing and to live apart from other Catholics, at least for a while. Those Cathars who refused to recant or relapsed were hanged, or burnt at the stake. Hunted by the Inquisition and deserted by the once supportive nobles of their districts, the Cathars became elusive, scattered fugitives. 

In the Languedoc and northern Italy, the Cathars attained their greatest popularity, surviving in the Languedoc, in much reduced form, up to around 1325 and in the Italian cities until the Inquisitions of the 14th century finally extirpated them.

Medieval Jewish Community

Into our small fictional community, many arrive looking for work - as do our main characters of Rettich and Emmle Schaffer. The arrival of new transient groups also exposes the community to new thoughts and ideas - and different religious beliefs (see above for the Cathars). 

Early on we are introduced to the resident Jewish population, and the role assigned to them by the dictates of the day - finance. Because pre-modern Christianity did not permit money-lending for interest and because Jews generally could not own land, they played a vital role as money-lenders and traders.  As European commerce grew in the late Middle Ages, some Jews became prominent in trade, banking, and moneylending, and Jews’ economic and cultural successes tended to arouse the envy of the populace.

Jews were denied citizenship and its rights, barred from holding posts in government and the military, and excluded from membership in guilds and the professions.  However, where they were permitted to participate in the larger society or were merely tolerated, Jews thrived. 

The history of the Jews in Alsace is assumed to dates back to around the year 1000. Although Jewish life in Alsace was often disrupted by outbreaks of pogroms, at least during the Middle Ages, and reined in by harsh restrictions on business and movement, it has had a continuous existence ever since it was first recorded. The city-dwelling Jews of the Middle Ages, lived in walled-up, segregated ghetto districts, which naturally aroused suspicion. Jews were subsequently forbidden to settle in the town and were reminded every evening at 10 o'clock by a Cathedral bell and a municipal herald blowing the "Grüselhorn" to leave. 

The outbreak of plague became the trigger for Black Death persecutions. in 1349, Jews of Alsace were wrongfully accused of poisoning the wells with plague. On February 14, Saint Valentine's day, several hundred Jews were massacred during the Strasbourg pogrom - either burned at the stake, or rounded up in synagogues and private houses that were then set aflame. This mass slaughter of German Jews saw them flee in large numbers to Poland. You can read more about this in "Jews in the Medieval German Kingdom" by Alfred Haverkamp

The Characters

The medieval bishops of Hagenberg are, to my mind, based on the medieval Bishops of Strasbourg, specifically: Berthold I von Teck (r.1223 – 1244); Heinrich III von Stahleck (r.1243 - 1260); Walter von Geroldseck (r. 1260 - 1263) - see above; and Heinrich IV von Geroldseck (r. 1263 – 1273).  I am also thinking that one Arnold von Uissigheim (ex. 1336), a medieval German highwayman, bandit, and renegade knight, is possibly the basis of the character of the Count von Schwanenstein.  Baron von Kronthal is surely named from the area located twenty-one kilometres west of Strasbourg. And could the cathedral architect Achim von Esinbach be based on Erwin von Steinbach, architect of the Cathedral of Strasbourg master mason and architect (1277-1318)?  

Throughout Hopkins' complex narrative of political and religious discord, the fictional characters develop as the story and the cathedral building progresses. All are linked by money which sees personal ambitions and fortunes rise and fall, as the city of Hagenberg expands and becomes possibly a distorted image of that which originally aspired to be.

Verdict: Immense, immersive, imaginative, indelible, impressive.

Medieval mystery unlocked: The Light of Ages by Seb Falk

From Express:

THE MEDIEVAL knack for stories and myths has created some of the world's most sought after mysteries, pushing scores of the Middle Ages' most groundbreaking scientific achievements from the history books, an historian told Express.

Religious myths adorn the Medieval period. Things like the Shroud of Turin have captured the imaginations and speculation of academics, religious figures and history buffs the world over. Yet, it is so-called mysteries like the Shroud that, in fact, have quickly overshadowed the true pioneering discoveries that were characteristic of the Middle Ages, according to Dr Seb Falk, a Medieval historian at the University of Cambridge. Science boomed in the period that is generally accepted to run from the 5th to the 15th century.  There was a whole slew of inventions that we still use today.

From the Publisher:

A spellbinding journey through the life of an English monk, an age of discovery and the mysteries of the medieval mind

The Middle Ages were a time of wonder. They gave us the first universities, the first eyeglasses and the first mechanical clocks as medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky. In this book, we walk the path of medieval science with a real-life guide, a fourteenth-century monk named John of Westwyk - inventor, astrologer, crusader - who was educated in England's grandest monastery and exiled to a clifftop priory. Following the traces of his life, we learn to see the natural world through Brother John's eyes: navigating by the stars, multiplying Roman numerals, curing disease and telling the time with an astrolabe. We travel the length and breadth of England, from Saint Albans to Tynemouth, and venture far beyond the shores of Britain. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy and the Persian polymath who founded the world's most advanced observatory.An enthralling story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man and an extraordinary time, The Light Ages conjures up a vivid picture of the medieval world as we have never seen it before. 

The King’s Bishops by E. Crosby

This is the first detailed comparative study of patronage as an instrument of power in the relations between kings and bishops in England and Normandy after the Conquest. Esteemed medievalist Everett U. Crosby considers new perspectives of medieval state-building and the vexed relations between secular and ecclesiastical authority. 

John Calvin as Sixteenth-Century Prophet by Jon Balserak

John Calvin as Sixteenth-Century Prophet examines Calvin's sense of vocation. Jon Balserak argues that Calvin believed himself to be a prophet "placed over nations and kingdoms to tear down and destroy, to build and to plant" (Jer 1: 10). With this authority, Calvin pursued an expansionist agenda which blended the religious, political, and social towards making France, upon which he turned his attentions especially after 1555, Protestant. 

Beginning with an analysis of the two trajectories of thought existing within Christian discourse on prophecy from the patristic to the Early Modern era, this study goes on to locate Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation. 

Balserak demonstrates how Calvin developed a plan to win France for the gospel; a plan which included the possibility of armed conflict. To pursue his designs, Calvin trained "prophets" who were sent into France to labor intensely to undermine the king's authority on the grounds that he supported idolatry, convince the French Reformed congregations that they were already in a war with him, and prepare them for a possible military uprising. An additional part of this plan saw Calvin search for a French noble willing to support the evangelical religion, even if it meant initiating a coup. Calvin began ruminating over these ideas in the 1550s or possibly earlier. In this analysis, the war which commenced in 1562 represents the culmination of Calvin's years of preparation.

The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216 by Hugh M. Thomas

The secular clergy - priests and other clerics outside of monastic orders - were among the most influential and powerful groups in European society during the central Middle Ages. The secular clergy got their title from the Latin word for world, saeculum, and secular clerics kept the Church running in the world beyond the cloister wall, with responsibility for the bulk of pastoral care and ecclesiastical administration. This gave them enormous religious influence, although they were considered too worldly by many contemporary moralists - trying, for instance, to oppose the elimination of clerical marriage and concubinage. 

Although their worldliness created many tensions, it also gave the secular clergy much worldly influence. Contemporaries treated elite secular clerics as equivalent to knights, and some were as wealthy as minor barons. Secular clerics had a huge role in the rise of royal bureaucracy, one of the key historical developments of the period. They were instrumental to the intellectual and cultural flowering of the twelfth century, the rise of the schools, the creation of the book trade, and the invention of universities. They performed music, produced literature in a variety of genres and languages, and patronized art and architecture. Indeed, this volume argues that they contributed more than any other group to the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Yet the secular clergy as a group have received almost no attention from scholars, unlike monks, nuns, or secular nobles. In The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216, Hugh Thomas aims to correct this deficiency through a major study of the secular clergy below the level of bishop in England from 1066 to 1216.

Review: Murder in St Paul's by Richard Dale

I, like many, others enjoy when an author takes on a long forgotten event or mystery, dusts it off, puts a new spin on it, or attempts to provide a credible alternate theory.

In this instance it is the mysterious death - or murder - of Richard Hunne - a medieval death in custody if you will, that was written off a suicide then heresy once the manner of Hunne's death became known. Whilst familiar with the Tudor period, I am not so much a student of Reformation history - so this episode was one I quite possibly passed over. 

In short, Richard Hunne was an English merchant tailor in the City of London during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547). After a dispute with his priest over his infant son's funeral, Hunne sought to use the English common law courts to challenge the church's authority. In response, church officials arrested him for trial in an ecclesiastical court on the capital charge of heresy. In December 1514, while awaiting trial, Hunne was found dead in his cell, and murder by church officials was suspected. His death caused widespread anger against the clergy, and months of political and religious turmoil followed. (source: wikipedia).

It is into this tumultuous period that "Hunne’s widow, Anne, takes centre stage in this narrative as she attempts to solve and avenge the death of her husband. "

I am not sure what I was expecting to be honest, as Hunne's wife is equally elusive as the facts surrounding Hunne's death. So I went in search of Anne - and found very little that I could use to corroborate or support the idea that she took on the Establishment in such a way as portrayed herein. I know the author, Richard Dale, prefaces the story by letting us know that he made that character of Anne stronger than she may have actually been - we will never really know how close to the truth this may be - and this fascinates me - how close the fictional and the actual historical figure are to being the same (and rather maddening when one cannot assess the truth of it all).

I guess, for a plausible scenario to be put forth or light to be shed on a heinous act, someone must investigate - and who better to champion a dead man than his wife. However, I am not sure, in this instance, given the political and religious situation in England in the early 16th century, that Anne makes for a credible investigator; and this is where the story just fell flat for me.

In the end "... one kind of persecution is replaced with another ..."

further reading:

Murder of Richard Hunne London in the Early Reign of King Henry VIII by M. Clement Hall

> you can actually read the chronology leading up to the death of Hunne (though not a great deal beyond that)

Richard Hunne - A Tale of Old London by George Sargent

> read online here at the Lollard Society

History Today - Death at St Pauls

> online article here

Richard Hunne and the English Reformation by Bill Cooper

> synposis here at amazon

Richard Hunne by WR Cooper

> published online for the William Tyndale Society - Reformation Journal

The Convert by Stefan Hertmans

From Penguin Books:

A brilliant reconstruction of an incredible journey across medieval Europe to Egypt, and an untold story of forbidden love.

In the small village in Provence where Stefan Hertmans has made his home, people have long spoken of an ancient pogrom and hidden treasure. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, an extraordinary collection of Jewish documents was found in a synagogue in Cairo.

Hertmans has based The Convert on these historical sources, tracing the life of a young Christian noblewoman who abandoned everything for the love of a rabbi’s son. In this startlingly contemporary novel, Hertmans follows in her footsteps as the lovers flee through France together, pursued by crusading knights, and recounts her dazzling journey full of love and hardship, courage and hate, as she journeys on towards Jerusalem alone.

The Convert brings the chaos of the Middle Ages to life with boundless imagination and stylistic ingenuity, portraying the tragic love story of a woman in exile and a world in flux.

Seeking Sanctuary by Shannon McSheffrey

From Oxford University Press: 

Seeking Sanctuary explores a curious aspect of premodern English law: the right of felons to shelter in a church or ecclesiastical precinct, remaining safe from arrest and trial in the king's courts. This is the first volume in more than a century to examine sanctuary in England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Looking anew at this subject challenges the prevailing assumptions in the scholarship that this 'medieval' practice had become outmoded and little-used by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although for decades after 1400 sanctuary-seeking was indeed fairly rare, the evidence in the legal records shows the numbers of felons seeing refuge in churches began to climb again in the late fifteenth century and reached its peak in the period between 1525 and 1535. Sanctuary was not so much a medieval practice accidentally surviving into the early modern era, as it was an organism that had continued to evolve and adapt to new environments and indeed flourished in its adapted state. Sanctuary suited the early Tudor regime: it intersected with rapidly developing ideas about jurisdiction and provided a means of mitigating the harsh capital penalties of the English law of felony that was useful not only to felons but also to the crown and the political elite. Sanctuary's resurgence after 1480 means we need to rethink how sanctuary worked, and to reconsider more broadly the intersections of culture, law, politics, and religion in the years between 1400 and 1550.

read more by Shannon McSheffrey @ OUP Blog

Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion - Tom Hamilton

From Oxford University Press: 

The Wars of Religion embroiled France in decades of faction, violence, and peacemaking in the late sixteenth century. When historians interpret these events they inevitably depend on sources of information gathered by contemporaries, none more valuable than the diaries and collection of Pierre de L'Estoile (1546-1611), who lived through the civil wars in Paris and shaped how they have been remembered ever since. Taking him out of the footnotes, and demonstrating his significance in the culture of the late Renaissance, this is the first life of L'Estoile in any language. It examines how he negotiated and commemorated the conflicts that divided France as he assembled an extraordinary collection of the relics of the troubles, a collection that he called 'the storehouse of my curiosities'. The story of his life and times is the history of the civil wars in the making. 

Focusing on a crucial individual for understanding Reformation Europe, this study challenges historians' assumptions about the widespread impact of confessional conflict in the sixteenth century. L'Estoile's prudent, non-confessional responses to the events he lived through and recorded were common among his milieu of Gallican Catholics. His life-writing and engagement with contemporary news, books, and pictures reveals how individuals used different genres and media to destabilise rather than fix confessional identities. Bringing together the great variety of topics in society and culture that attracted L'Estoile's curiosity, this volume rethinks his world in the Wars of Religion.

read more @ Oxford University Press & University of Cambridge

Virgin Whore - Emma Maggie Solberg

From Bowdoin Books:

In Virgin Whore, Emma Maggie Solberg uncovers a surprisingly prevalent theme in late English medieval literature and culture: the celebration of the Virgin Mary’s sexuality. Although history is narrated as a progressive loss of innocence, the Madonna has grown purer with each passing century. Looking to a period before the idea of her purity and virginity had ossified, Solberg uncovers depictions and interpretations of Mary, discernible in jokes and insults, icons and rituals, prayers and revelations, allegories and typologies—and in late medieval vernacular biblical drama.

More unmistakable than any cultural artifact from late medieval England, these biblical plays do not exclusively interpret Mary and her virginity as fragile. In a collection of plays known as the N-Town manuscript, Mary is represented not only as virgin and mother but as virgin and promiscuous adulteress, dallying with the Trinity, the archangel Gabriel, and mortals in kaleidoscopic erotic combinations. Mary’s “virginity” signifies invulnerability rather than fragility, redemption rather than renunciation, and merciful license rather than ascetic discipline. Taking the ancient slander that Mary conceived Jesus in sin as cause for joyful laughter, the N-Town plays make a virtue of those accusations: through bawdy yet divine comedy, she redeems and exalts the crime.

By revealing the presence of this promiscuous Virgin in early English drama and late medieval literature and culture—in dirty jokes told by Boccaccio and Chaucer, Malory’s Arthurian romances, and the double entendres of the allegorical Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn—Solberg provides a new understanding of Marian traditions.

The New Book That Will Change How We Understand The Crusades

From Forbes:

Jay Rubenstein is a MacArthur Fellow (2007) and currently Riggsby Director of the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His new book, Nebuchadnezzar's Dream: The Crusades, Apocalyptic Prophecy, and the End of History, argues that the Crusades really need to be understood from within, that medievals themselves began seriously thinking about what this all meant in the wake of the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 CE. This shocked their system and so sought meaning in what was most familiar to them, the Christian Bible - more specifically still the dream of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2.

read more here @ Forbes which features an interview with article author, Matthew Gabriele

Papal Protection and the Crusader: Flanders, Champagne, and the Kingdom of France. 1095-1222 by Danielle Park

Synopsis:

On taking the cross, crusaders received a diverse set of privileges designed to appeal to both spiritual and more temporal concerns. Among these was the papal protection granted to them and extended over their families and possessions at home.

This book is the first full length investigation of this protection. It begins by examining the privilege from its inception in around 1095, and its development and consolidation through to 1222. It then moves on to illustrate how this privilege operated in practice through the appointments of regency governments and close communication with both the papacy and local ecclesiastical officials, centring on the rich crusading evidence from Flanders, Champagne and the Kingdom of France. While the protection privilege has been seen as unwieldy and over ambitious, close analysis of particular cases and individuals reveals that not only were regents well aware of their privileged status, but that the papacy could directly intervene when its protection was contravened. 

Review by Brian Ditcham for De Re Militari:

On the whole, though, Park argues that the crusade regents did an effective job in upholding the rights of the absentee rulers and that this was recognised when the boss returned- for instance very few of their deeds required re-authentification. The job was eased by what look like conscious attempts to clear the books of outstanding issues before the would-be crusader departed. Park also hints that the constraints of crusade regencies may have been a stimulus for developments in bureaucratic governance.

She has undoubtedly identified an important part of what one might define as the backstage mechanics underlying heroic or ghastly deeds in the Holy Land. Hopefully she may in future widen her focus to consider the fate of those unable to call on the services of Ivanhoe to protect their rights.

Royal Books and Holy Bones by Eamon Duffy

From The Church Times:

This tremendous read is a collection of essays published (and lectures given) in the past two decades, some revised for inclusion here. The book is given unity by grouping them under thematic headings, but the profounder unity of these studies lies in Duffy’s remark that “Christianity is a material religion.”

A great strength of the author’s work has always lain in his ability to put theology in its place in the practical realities of Christian living, especially during the Middle Ages and the Reformation.

This is a book for the general reader, spiced throughout with Duffy’s profound scholarly understanding of the giant subjects with which each essay grapples. There are robust challenges to the conclusions of some other modern scholars.

The book is not cluttered with footnotes; it is selectively referenced chapter by chapter at the end. The excellent illustrations are in colour.