Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error is an exceptional book, which dives into the lives of peasants of Montaillou in the 14th century. Montaillou is a village, presently French, and is situated in the south of the present day department of Ariege, in southern France. What sets this book apart from others written about the same subject is that it focuses mainly on the testaments of the peasants of the 14th century, before this book there was a small amount of information available which was a direct indications of the peasants. Ladurie does an astonishing job by providing the testimonies of the peasants and shepherds, and this in turn helps the reader to understand the lives of villagers in the 14th century. While providing an outlook in the lives of the villagers, Ladurie covers many aspects of the time, such as environment and authority, the great migrations, the shepherds mental outlook and also more personal aspects such as body language and sex, marriage and love and religion in practice. Out of the many aspects covered in this book I will mainly focus my attention on the concept of marriage and love and observe its role in the 14th century in a village such as Montaillou.
In the introduction of the book we learn a bit about the history of Montaillou, and then it informs the reader that the village was experiencing an inquisition since the village was swarming with Cathars. It was because of this that Jacques Fournier, who was the “Bishop of Pamiers in Ariege in the Comte de Foix (now southern France) from 1318 to 1325” (Ladurie vii). Fournier later became Pope of Avigon with the name of Benedict XII. Fournier orders an extensive inquisition against the...
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... of now and then and to see how things have changed and what things have remained the same. Also another intriguing topic was that of religion and its practices. This section displayed many different viewpoints and illuminated to me that in any period different beliefs on religion and its practice and different interpretations of them can be seen. As previously stated another aspect of this book that I appreciate is that it gave me an understanding of our studies of the Mediterranean and it was helpful to see real life examples and testimonies of individuals who lived through it.
Works Cited
1. Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1995.
2. Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. New York: Vintage, 1979.
The Return of Martin Guerre, written by Natalie Zemon Davis, is the tale of a court case that takes place in sixteenth century France. Martin Guerre is a peasant who deserted his wife and family for many years. While Martin Guerre is gone, a man named Arnaud du Tilh arrives at Martin’s village and claims to be Martin Guerre. Bertrande, who is Guerre’s wife, Guerre’s sisters, and many of the villagers, accepts the imposter. After almost three years of being happily married, Bertrande takes the fraud to court under pressure of Pierre Guerre, her stepfather and Guerre’s brother. Arnaud du Tilh is almost declared innocent, but the real Martin Guerre appears in the courthouse. Throughout this tale, many factors of the peasant life are highlighted. The author gives a very effective and detailed insight to a peasant’s life during the time of Martin Guerre. Davis does a successful job of portraying the peasant lifestyle in sixteenth century France by accentuating the social, cultural, and judicial factors of everyday peasant life.
Saint Christina of Markyate’s story provides more than the religious experiences of a hermit, it presents twelfth-century life in, mostly, the Huntington area of England in a very detailed manner. Baptized as Theodora, Christina of Markyate’s path of religious devotion is claimed to have begun in her early teen years with a vow of chastity (35). This vow was only known to one other person, a close friend named Sueno, until her parents attempted to arrange a marriage for her. Being described as attractive and intelligent, as well as coming from a wealthy family, this was not uncommon for women in Christina’s lifetime. Upon declining the first suitor, a bishop, her hardships begin and, at times, seem as though they were both unlikely to end and
Throughout the Lais of Marie de France there are several themes presented as central to the various stories. Some of these themes are present in all of the lais. One such example is that of courtly love and it’s implications. Courtly love being one of the more prominent themes in all of medieval literature, it is fittingly manifested in all of the lais as well. Another theme present in two of the lais is isolation. The theme of isolation plays a large role in the stories of Guigemar and Lanval. In each of these lais we see isolation as a factor in determining the fates of the central figures. Within each lai isolation is represented on several different occasions, each time having a direct impact on the outcome. These instances of isolation may be seen at times to be similar in nature and consequence, and different at other times. By sifting through both works these instances may be extrapolated and analyzed.
When comparing the epic poem of The Song of Roland to the romantic literature of Ywain, the differences between the early medieval period and the high medieval period become evident. Both The Song of Roland and Ywain depicts the societies from which each story derives its fundamental characteristics. Through close observation, one is able to see the shifts in customs and mentality that make the move from the epic to the romance possible. In his chapter 'From Epic to Romance', R.W. Southern shows how this transformation manifests itself through changing ecclesiastical and secular thoughts and feelings.
In my opinion this book is not the evaluation of how approximately fifty million people from two thousand years ago thought about the world that they lived in at the time, but about how a few dozen men wrote about it, in a viewpoint illustrative of only a few thousand. In order to support her view, Edith Hamilton tries to bring these people together, threading together their common thoughts and ideologies. Save for the fact that this book only represents a handful of Roman citizens and the way that they saw the world in which they lived, I do feel like I got a better understanding of the “Roman Way” and the way that life was back then. Along with the history that I learned in class on the subject it makes me be able to picture it better in my mind’s-eye.
This course dove into medieval history and touched on all of the most critical elements of the period giving a well-rounded look into the lives and cultures of the middle ages. As the class moved forward it became evident that religion is central to understanding the people, advances, and set backs of this period. We learned how inseparable the middle ages and religion are due to how completely it consumed the people, affected the art, and furthered academics. Since, there is a tendency to teach about history and literature separately from religion and since religion possessed a dominant position in every aspect of a medieval person’s life, while many of us had already looked into the period we missed some crucial cultural context allowing
In the Return of Martin Guerre, Guerre himself was a prime example of the lack of individualism in the community. Clearly, there is a dilemma between collectivism and individualism within this French 16th century society. In the society of Artigat, religion was the determining factor for collective identities, and this collectivism added to the ideas behind the “individual identity” of a family –however, this left a singular identity behind an entire family name. Before Martin’ Guerre’s departure, individual identity was not based off of the individual person—By leaving Artigat, Martin Guerre demonstrated this new idea of ‘independent self-worth’. Martin Guerre made it clear that he had all the intention to leave Artigat and declare his own independence away from his family: “Martin "stole" a small quantity of grain from his father. Since they were both living in the same household, this theft probably reflected a struggle for power between the two heirs. But in any case theft was unpardonable by the Basque code, especially if done within the family. "The Basques are faithful," Judge Pierre de Lancre was to write; "they believe that theft is the work of a debased soul, of a low and abject heart; it bears witness to the demeaning neediness of a person." Martin Guerre h...
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is written in an entertaining and adventurous spirit, but serves a higher purpose by illustrating the century’s view of courtly love. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other pieces of literature written in the same century prevail to commemorate the coupling of breathtaking princesses with lionhearted knights after going through unimaginable adventures, but only a slight few examine the viability of such courtly love and the related dilemmas that always succeed. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that women desire most their husband’s love, Overall, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that the meaning of true love does not stay consistent, whether between singular or separate communities and remains timeless as the depictions of love from this 14th century tale still hold true today.
...t is how religion plays a part in enhancing the understanding of themes in Persepolis.
Historians wishing to study the culture of any preindustrial subordinate class are all challenged by the lack of evidence at their disposal. Such is the case with the peasant class of medieval Europe. Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, in an attempt to better understand the cultural attitudes of medieval peasants, takes on an innovative and controversial task in The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller. The book is centered on a curious sixteenth century miller named Menocchio and his interactions with the Inquisitorial board while on trial for heresy. Ginzburg, however, intends to do more than just tell the story of a miller’s trial and subsequent execution under the inquisition. Ginzburg scrutinizes, evaluates, and researches the details of Menocchio’s statements in an attempt to understand the origins of his strange worldview. Ginzburg then asserts that by determining the origins of Menocchio’s thoughts, one can understand the cultural and social attitudes of peasants of the time. More specifically, Ginzburg argues that interactions between the ruling class and the peasant class were more common than previously thought and even more importantly, that these interactions were more influential to the cultures of both parties than previously imagined. Although Ginzburg’s conclusion may appear radical, Ginzburg is successful in arguing that a reciprocal dynamic existed between the dominant and subordinate classes and that the latter’s reliance on oral culture was an essential part of peasant consciousness. Ginzburg recognizes the leaps and assumptions in his arguments and is careful to address them and validate them as they appear. It is also essential to note what Ginzburg’s intentions are with his narrativ...
The tales of King Arthur and many of their numerous characters are well known in literature. The Arthurian world is one of the great myths of modern times. Those great pieces of literature have many common themes, one of them being courtly love “L’amour Courtois”. This paper talks of courtly love as seen in King Arthur’s world especially examining “Yvain or the Knight with the Lion” and “Lancelot: or the Knight of the Cart”. Furthermore, one of the goals is to show how that courtly love could be seen in today in our world.
...ghthood within their story. Both poets remind the readers of the disparity between the ideals of chivalries presented in romances, and the reality of lived knighthood, highlighting how problematic the understanding of chivalry and Christianity (knighthood) could be for medieval audiences. Though chivalry shines as a brilliant light of the high civilization in the fourteenth century, both tales suggests that chivalry is at best a limited system, which achieves its brilliant at the cost of a distortion of natural life. It was part of the social and ethical system but did not take into account the entire range of human needs, mainly the fact of human morality and sense of human frailty. The context in which knights are depicted and celebrated in the medieval romance does not support a smooth connection between the harsh realities of a century of internecine strife.
The Church in the 1400’s was the center of everyone’s life and a peasant’s life was the hardest to live. The Church convinced everyone that if they broke the rules their soul would be damned. One of the rules was to devote time to the church where peasants would give hours of free labor in the churches’ fields instead of working on their own land to feed their family (“The Medieval Church”). The Church would gather tithes of food and money from every person and store them in a tithe barn where the food would rot or be poisoned by rats (“The Medieval Church”).
“Love and Marriage.” Life in Elizabethan England. Elizabethan.org, 25 March 2008. Web. 3 March 2014.
Many women in this period would engage in “arranged” marriages which were widely accepted and indeed, one of the most practiced forms of marrying at this time. Usually a marriage of convenience rather...