The Axe and the Oath (ebook)

Argumento de The Axe and the Oath (ebook)

"The result is a sweeping new vision of the Middle Ages that will entertain and enlighten readers."--Spartacus Educational

"What did men and women eat, drink, and wear in the Middle Ages? How did they work, fight, pray, and laugh? This book reduces medieval life to its most elemental functions. It encompasses not only material and social conditions, thought, and belief, but the natural environment as well. In other words, it raises all the questions that one never dares to ask. Among France's most active medieval scholars, Robert Fossier has spent more than six decades studying historical documents. Now he steps back from them to propose a deeply personal perspective. The result is a tour de force. Viewed in their bare flesh, humans living in the Middle Ages appear not much different from us."--John W. Baldwin, Johns Hopkins University

"This is a provocative meditation on the human condition in the Middle Ages, written by one of the field's most distinguished historians. Robert Fossier thoughtfully probes the continuities and discontinuities of everyday life for ordinary people, with constant and daring comparisons to modern knowledge and experiences."--William C. Jordan, Princeton University

"This is an outstanding book, an ambitious and strikingly successful attempt to capture the huge experience of human life in the Middle Ages. The most impressive aspect of this extraordinarily vivid work is the author's breathtaking mastery of everything he writes about. And the beautifully crafted and translucent prose gives the effect of a friendly and seamless conversation with the reader."--Piotr Górecki, University of California, Riverside

"This remarkable book . . . belongs with William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire as a window into a world so far removed from us and yet still very much present today."--Nick Schulz, National Review

"[A] grand-scale, breathless, dizzying tour, whisking us through a labyrinth of concepts, texts, authors and centuries in pursuit of the lives of the ordinary people who make up the world of medieval Europe."--Juanita Feros Ruys, Australian

"Fossier draws upon over four decades of experience in the social history of medieval France to produce what is an immensely wide ranging, eclectic and engaging study of human life from conception to burial."--Carol Hoggart, Parergon

"The immense value of a book like this lies in its latent ability to stimulate readers--be they historians professional or amateur--to ask stimulating questions. If a reader drinks in Fossier's readable, intriguing discussion of medieval lay-learning, and learns enough from his wide-ranging discussion to ask a question either of Fossier or of the medieval sources, he has made great progress."--Emily A. Winkler, Oxonian Review

"The subject of this skillful, elegantly produced translation of Ces gens du Moyen Age is immensely important and represents the culmination of a lifetime of work by one of the leading French medievalists of his generation. Fossier examines 'ordinary life' under a series of illuminating thematic headings: the physical being of man himself, growth from childhood to adulthood, private life, the workplace, and death. But he also considers external and psychological categories, such as the weather, trees, animals, memory, expression, faith, and salvation. In doing so, Fossier has been careful not to impose the arbitrary divisions of modern society upon a civilization that know no such compartmentalization, doing readers a great service."--Choice

"Fossier writes with a passion that makes this amazing period of European history come alive for any reader interested in medieval or social history."--Library Journal

"This is a wonderful book--the product of a lifetime's immersion in the documents and artefacts that survive from the 1,000 years that we call the 'Middle Ages.'. . . In the end, Fossier concludes, 'I felt like saying all this, and that is enough.' More than enough, when a book as absorbing and challenging as this is the result."--Helen Castor, Times Higher Education0Preface ix

Part One: MAN AND THE WORLD
Chapter 1: Naked Man 3
A Fragile Creature 3
An Ungainly Being 3
Fairly Content with Himself 5
But Are There Nonetheless Nuances? 8
But a Threatened Creature 11
Does Man Really Know Himself? 11
"Abnormal" Assaults on Man 16
The Illness That Lies in Wait 19
The Black Death 23
Can Those Men Be Counted? 27

Chapter 2: The Ages of Life 37
From the Child to the Man 38
Expecting a Baby 38 When the Child Arrives 41 "Childhoods" 44
The Child in the Midst of the Family 48
Man in His Private Life 51
As Time Goes By 52
Nourishing the Body 59
The Shaping of Taste 67 Adorning the Body 69
Man, Woman, and the Others 77
The Two Sexes Face-to-Face 78
Sexual Concerns 82
Living by the Fire and by the Pot 87
The Chains of Marriage 91
. . . And Their Locks 96
Kin 102
. . . And "Relations" 107
The Workplace 108
The House 109
. . . And What Was Found in the House 115
Man Is Born to Toil 117
But What Work? 121
And Tools? 127
The End of Life 131
The Elderly 132
The "Passage" 136
After Death 139

Chapter 3: Nature 145
The Weather 145
The Paleo-Environment 146
What Did They See or Feel? 149
Fire and Water 154
Fire, the Symbol of Life and Death 154
Saving and Beneficent Water 157
The Sea, Horrible and a Temptress 160
The Products of the Earth 164
Mastering the Soil 165
Making the Earth Render 168
Grasses and Vines 171
The Trees and the Forest 175
The Forest, Overwhelming and Sacred 175
The Forest, Necessary and Nourishing 180
And the People of the Forest? 183

Chapter 4: And the Animals? 186
Man and Beast 187
Fear and Disgust 187
Respect and Affection 189
Knowing and Understanding 194
What Are the Beasts? 195
Penetrating This World 198
Utilize and Destroy 202
The Services of the Beast 203
Killing: Man's Job 208
A Contrasting Balance Sheet 215

Part Two: MAN IN HIMSELF
Chapter 5: Man in Himself 223
Living in a Group 224
Why Come Together? 225
How to Assemble? 229
Where to Gather? 235
Laughter and Games 246
Precautions and Deviations 252
Order and the "Orders" 254
Peace and Honor 260
Law and Power 265
Gaps 276
And People from Elsewhere 285

Chapter 6: Knowledge 292
The Innate 293
Memory 293
The Imaginary 298
Measurement 303
Acquisitions 310
Act, Image, Word 312
Writing 317
What to Learn? 323
And Where? 329
Expression 335
Who Wrote and What Did They Write? 336
For Whom and Why Did Authors Write? 341
The Artist's Part 343

Chapter 7: And the Soul 348
Good and Evil 350
The End of Dualism 351
Virtue and Temptation 356
Sin and Pardon 362
Faith and Salvation 365
Dogma and the Rites of Medieval Christian Faith 366
The Church 371
The Other World 376
Conclusion 382