A Distant Mirror - The Calamitous 14th Century


Author: Barbara W. Tuchman
Rating: 5/5

The book is very carefully written.

It is a fantastic insight in the strife and catastrophes that characterized the ‘300.

It follows the lifetime of a certain Enguerrand VII, baron of Coucy.
Nor King (but close) nor peasant, but his life is an encapsulation of the “romantic” values of the Late Middle age.

While describing the events that characterized his life, the book touches all aspects of society (love, war, money, power, religion, all of them) and elegantly ties the narration with a basic framework of interpretation of the values of medieval life.

Despite being written before I was born, the book reads modern, and I never once had the feeling the Internet was never used for its research.
The other side of the coin is that, probably, recent academic research has updated some of the ideas and frameworks the author has used in fleshing out all the key areas of Medieval life.

Strongly recommend.

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