War and words
A depiction (opposite page) of the Israelite leader Joshua in battle reimagines the combatants as 13th-century French warriors, while (this page) a woman teaches a child to read in the 15th century. By the end of the Middle Ages, warfare was losing its allure and women were challenging the male stranglehold on intellectual life
What does the word "medieval" summon up in your mind? Whether the first thing you imagine is a castle or a monastery, the chances are that the word will come with connotations of violence, ignorance, lawlessness and superstition. You only need to think of Marsellus Wallace's line in the film Pulp Fiction to know what I mean: "I'm gonna git medieval on your ass." Even if you're not a Quentin Tarantino fan, you will have come across the word "medieval" frequently applied by journalists and politicians to the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Russian troops occupying Ukrainian towns. In short, many people today use "medieval" as a synonym for "uncivilised".
Cruel obsessions Louis the Pious (above) has a prelate shorn of his hair and his nephew Bernard blinded in a detail from a 14th-century manuscript. Modern views of the Middle Ages continue to be dominated by depictions of brutality
Historians have generally been unable to shift these perceptions in the public mind, and a few have sought to exploit this prejudice rather than deny it. Twentieth-century popular books, like William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire and Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, emphasised the brutality of the medieval period, seemingly drawing their evocative power from these aspects. This is despite the fact that warfare has grown progressively more deadly since the Middle Ages, as the Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin showed in the 1940s.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 2023-Ausgabe von BBC History UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 2023-Ausgabe von BBC History UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
"It had been a tiny triumph, but it had been a British triumph"
MAX HASTINGS talks to Rob Attar about a daring airborne raid that provided a much-needed boost to Britain's morale in the darkest days of the Second World War
Dancing with the Devil
ROGER MOORHOUSE is impressed by a book that traces the fortunes of the diplomats charged with managing the west's wartime alliance with Josef Stalin
Victorian cucumber ice cream
ELEANOR BARNETT samples the delights of an unusual and refreshing version of one of the world's favourite summer treats
Anne Boleyn, ‘princess' of France
JOANNE PAUL is impressed by an account of how the Tudor queen's continental connections shaped her meteoric rise and dramatic fall
FIVE THINGS YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT...Roman Britain
Rob Collins, who is teaching our new HistoryExtra Academy course, shares five surprising facts about life in Britain during the Roman occupation
War and pieces
Far from idle pursuits, games have transformed the way societies have made sense of life and death, order and conflict for centuries. Kelly Clancy picks five examples that reveal how playtime has often been a serious business
Gulbadan Begum The Mughal Jane Austen
Gulbadan Begum was meant to live a quiet life in the confines of a Mughal harem. Instead she made her mark on history twice: first, embarking on a pioneering pilgrimage to Islam’s holy cities; second, writing a remarkable history of her dynasty. RUBY LAL tells her story
Succession 1603
The passing of the English crown from Elizabeth I to James VI & I was welcomed by a nation hungry for change. But, writes Susan Doran, it wasn't long before tensions began to rise between the incoming king and his new subjects
Horror in France
On the morning of 10 June 1944, the residents of Oradour-sur-Glane were going about their lives as normally as was possible in occupied France: cooking, washing, shopping, playing. Little did they know that they were about to become the victims of one of the most infamous massacres of the Second World War.
"IT'S TIME TO WRITE WOMEN BACK INTO THESE WORLD-CHANGING ANCIENT EVENTS"
Daisy Dunn tells the story of the Greco-Persian Wars through the deeds of the extraordinary female figures who shaped them