Page 92 - All About History 58 - 2017 UK

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DISTANT MIRROR:

THE CALAMITOUS 14TH CENTURY

A century of warfare and disease in Europe
Author Barbara Tuchman Publisher Penguin Random House Price £13 Released Out now

or an author to attempt to tackle the sources, a third of the world. Its success was
best part of a century in one tome is largely due to the fact that the disease came
a hugely ambitious endeavour. But to in two forms; one caused pus and blood-
weave one’s way through the blood- filled buboes (boils) and was spread by
Fsoaked carnage of the 14th century contact, while the other brought on a fever
is another challenge entirely. Barbara and a bout of coughing up blood, which
Tuchman, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, helped it to spread via respiratory infection.
stands up to the task in this gripping book. With one catastrophe behind it, Europe
Told largely through the eyes of was soon engulfed by the Hundred Years’
Enguerrand de Coucy VII, a French War, of which the Battle of Poitiers in
nobleman blessed with a cool-headedness September 1356 was a critical event. Despite
often lacking in so many of his being woefully outnumbered, a courageous
contemporaries, this is a story of possibly English contingent managed to soundly
the most forlorn century in human history. defeat the forces of King Jean II of France
A 634-page-long book may sound like and, having cut through his desperate
a summit too high for some readers, but guard, capture the king himself.
Tuchman somehow manages to frame a Between numerous such accounts of war,
vast wealth of information around a fast- Tuchman delves into the strategic marriage
paced adventure of knights, plague, honour between de Coucy and Isabella of England,
and treachery. daughter of King Edward III, in 1365, an
After superbly setting the scene and arrangement that saw the Frenchman
introducing her central protagonist, granted the title 1st earl of Bedford. But
Tuchman goes on to assess the hostility any periods of tranquillity are few and far
that raged between King Edward III’s between in this book.
England and the kingdom of France he As if fading alongside de Coucy, Europe’s
so coveted. While the anticipated use of power began to wane, compounded by
swords is detailed, it’s the introduction of the incursion of the burgeoning Ottoman
the longbow (that could stand at almost Empire. Unfortunately for the nobleman,
two metres) and, albeit subtly, the first he was witness to a key moment in his
use of a gun in European warfare, that continent’s decline, fighting as part of a
immediately demand attention. Crusader army that was crushed at the
Tuchman then plunges straight into the Battle of Nicopolis on 25 September 1396.
devastation of the Black Death, explaining De Coucy would die shortly after, possibly
how it originated in China in 1346 before from wound incurred in the fight.
claiming almost 24 million lives across This book is nothing short of
Asia. Europe then suffered the same fate, breathtaking and stands as a testimony to “This is a story of possibly
with Genoese ships first bringing the lethal Tuchman’s enduring gift for storytelling.
plague to harbours in Sicily in 1347. Quite simply, it contains every element that the most forlorn century in
It would go on to ravage Europe on and an account of Medieval Europe should. It
off until 1353, killing, according to some cannot be recommended enough. human history”

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