- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press; illustrated edition edition (2 Feb 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0691117195
- ISBN-13: 978-0691117195
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.6 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,049,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
A gripping, educative and quite often disquieting excursion into [an] alien land. . . . Robert Bartlett examines with verve, scholarship, and gusto the extraordinary story.
(Maurice Keen London Review of Books )
Rich in drama, mystery, curiosity and coincidence. . . . [Bartlett's] performance opens for us a panoramic window into the world of the Middle Ages and encapsulates an entire culture within the context of a botched execution and a theological inquiry. It is a virtuoso display of scholarship.
(Jan Morris The Times (London) )
As well as revealing the mechanics of execution, the politics of a Marcher lordship and the dynamics of miracle, the testimony in the Cragh case enables us to explore issues as intimate and elusive as how medieval people remembered distant events and how they described units of space and time. Voices of the distant past can be heard again.
(History Today )
A delightful book. . . . Professor Bartlett's 168 pages are . . . more readable than most thrillers. . . . [I]n The Hanged Man men and women long dead (and, in one case, resurrected) walk and talk across 800 years.
(Byron Rogers The Spectator )
An absorbing book that is elegantly, lucidly and entertainingly written.
(Sean McGLynn Medieval History Magazine )
It is . . . a complex look at history from the point of view of a particular, diverse set of subjects . . . that has the power to generate considerable interest in the medieval period.
(Patricia Clare Ingham American Historical Review )
The Hanged Man. . . . is a fascinating and well-told tale, well worth the reading.
(James Given Speculum )
The author shows that memory is flawed--as modern witnesses all too often demonstrate--and is shaped by the fullness of experience. . . . [T]he genius of this work is that . . . it is a model for teasing every bit of evidence from a brief source to reveal the mental world of medieval people.
(Joyce E. Salisbury The Historian )
The Hanged Man is an outstanding introduction to the politics and culture of late thirteenth-and early fourteenth-century Britain. I recommend it unequivocally.
(Michael Cichon Canadian Journal of History )
The Hanged Man is a yarn in the best tradition, all the better for its historical provenance, a satisfying, engrossing, and remarkable read.
(Michael G. Cornelius Bloomsbury Review )
(Maurice Keen London Review of Books )
Rich in drama, mystery, curiosity and coincidence. . . . [Bartlett's] performance opens for us a panoramic window into the world of the Middle Ages and encapsulates an entire culture within the context of a botched execution and a theological inquiry. It is a virtuoso display of scholarship.
(Jan Morris The Times (London) )
As well as revealing the mechanics of execution, the politics of a Marcher lordship and the dynamics of miracle, the testimony in the Cragh case enables us to explore issues as intimate and elusive as how medieval people remembered distant events and how they described units of space and time. Voices of the distant past can be heard again.
(History Today )
A delightful book. . . . Professor Bartlett's 168 pages are . . . more readable than most thrillers. . . . [I]n The Hanged Man men and women long dead (and, in one case, resurrected) walk and talk across 800 years.
(Byron Rogers The Spectator )
An absorbing book that is elegantly, lucidly and entertainingly written.
(Sean McGLynn Medieval History Magazine )
It is . . . a complex look at history from the point of view of a particular, diverse set of subjects . . . that has the power to generate considerable interest in the medieval period.
(Patricia Clare Ingham American Historical Review )
The Hanged Man. . . . is a fascinating and well-told tale, well worth the reading.
(James Given Speculum )
The author shows that memory is flawed--as modern witnesses all too often demonstrate--and is shaped by the fullness of experience. . . . [T]he genius of this work is that . . . it is a model for teasing every bit of evidence from a brief source to reveal the mental world of medieval people.
(Joyce E. Salisbury The Historian )
The Hanged Man is an outstanding introduction to the politics and culture of late thirteenth-and early fourteenth-century Britain. I recommend it unequivocally.
(Michael Cichon Canadian Journal of History )
The Hanged Man is a yarn in the best tradition, all the better for its historical provenance, a satisfying, engrossing, and remarkable read.
(Michael G. Cornelius Bloomsbury Review )
Review
Superb. Robert Bartlett takes an utterly unnoticed text from the canonization dossier and uses it as a window into the politics, society, culture, and devotional world of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. I can think of no other book that gets as much of the Middle Ages into so small a compass.
(Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania )
(Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania )
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
In the summer of 1307 an inquiry opened in London to investigate whether Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford, who had died twenty-five years earlier, could rightly be regarded as a saint. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
In the summer of 1307 an inquiry opened in London to investigate whether Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford, who had died twenty-five years earlier, could rightly be regarded as a saint. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
What a wonderful book; but I should have expected that after reading Bartlett's The Making of Europe and his England under the Norman and Angevin Kings; 1075-1225. It tells the story of William Cragh, a Welshman, hung for homicide at Swansea in around 1290. He had been sentenced by his feudal lord, William de Briouze, Lord of the Marcher lordship of Gower. Briouze's young wife, Mary, had pleaded unsuccessfully for mercy but, after the hanging, William allowed her to have the body. She prayed for assistance to Thomas de Cantilupe, the Bishop of Hereford, who died in 1282. William was then restored to life and made a pilgrimage with Mary to Hereford cathedral to give thanks. We know of the case because in 1307, after much prompting from Cantilupe's successor, Richard Swinfield, a papal commission considered evidence prior to deciding whether to recommend whether the late bishop should be canonised.
In a beautifully structured, scholarly tour de force Bartlett brings the story to life with great understanding. He peels away layer after layer revealing more and more of the detail. We find out that Cragh was not an ordinary murderer but a supporter of one of the last Welsh rebellions against the English. We learn of the two Williams de Briouze, father and son, and their hostile attitude to Cragh as well as the softer Mary, step mother of the younger William. We hear the words of the soldier who was in charge of the execution squad and the men present when Cragh showed signs of life. The story links the quiet Sussex villages of Wiston and Findon to Swansea to Hereford to Gascony to Avignon to Cyprus. He are told of the men who gave their evidence in London and at Hereford and the foreigners who provided most of the Commissioners. Bartlett tells us a great deal about the nastiness of medieval execution practices, and how medieval man remembered events and dates as well as how they measured time. The well organised inquisitorial papal inquiry system becomes understandable. The sweep of Bartlett's story also encompasses the fate of the Knight Templars, Anglo-Welsh relations in the crucial thirteenth century and the phenomen of the comfortable, upper class widow of the period. The development of the notorial system in England adds more interest. The complications of conducting business in a multi-lingual society are shown, the witnesses gave evidence in three different languages and the record was kept in Latin. And we learn about the `little people' too. The story of Roger of Conway, a little boy who was saved from harm through Cantilupe's saintly intervention when he fell into the moat of Conway castle as a little boy, so touched one of the Commissioners, Bishop Ralph Baldock of London, that he provided for his future.
To tell this story, Bartlett has used brilliantly not only Latin, English, French, German and Welsh printed sources but manuscripts now at the Vatican, Oxford, Hereford, the British Library and The National Archives at Kew. He even manages to trace Mary's lady-in-waiting, in an eyre roll. A book to recommend thoroughly.
In a beautifully structured, scholarly tour de force Bartlett brings the story to life with great understanding. He peels away layer after layer revealing more and more of the detail. We find out that Cragh was not an ordinary murderer but a supporter of one of the last Welsh rebellions against the English. We learn of the two Williams de Briouze, father and son, and their hostile attitude to Cragh as well as the softer Mary, step mother of the younger William. We hear the words of the soldier who was in charge of the execution squad and the men present when Cragh showed signs of life. The story links the quiet Sussex villages of Wiston and Findon to Swansea to Hereford to Gascony to Avignon to Cyprus. He are told of the men who gave their evidence in London and at Hereford and the foreigners who provided most of the Commissioners. Bartlett tells us a great deal about the nastiness of medieval execution practices, and how medieval man remembered events and dates as well as how they measured time. The well organised inquisitorial papal inquiry system becomes understandable. The sweep of Bartlett's story also encompasses the fate of the Knight Templars, Anglo-Welsh relations in the crucial thirteenth century and the phenomen of the comfortable, upper class widow of the period. The development of the notorial system in England adds more interest. The complications of conducting business in a multi-lingual society are shown, the witnesses gave evidence in three different languages and the record was kept in Latin. And we learn about the `little people' too. The story of Roger of Conway, a little boy who was saved from harm through Cantilupe's saintly intervention when he fell into the moat of Conway castle as a little boy, so touched one of the Commissioners, Bishop Ralph Baldock of London, that he provided for his future.
To tell this story, Bartlett has used brilliantly not only Latin, English, French, German and Welsh printed sources but manuscripts now at the Vatican, Oxford, Hereford, the British Library and The National Archives at Kew. He even manages to trace Mary's lady-in-waiting, in an eyre roll. A book to recommend thoroughly.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Gower farmer William 'the Scabby' Crach let himself in for much, much more than he bargained for when he took part in a bit of routine insurgence against his Norman overlord. Hounded down, hanged three times in one day (the first two attempts were botched), revived through the intercessions of a dead bishop, frogmarched by the neck to Hereford to give thanks for his salvation, he was finally allowed to return to his subsistence existence. Then, two decades later, along came a summons to give evidence about his private miracle to a papal commission investigating whether or not to recommend the Bishop for canonisation.
Professor Bartlett traces this charming medieval mystery tale through the remarkably detailed papal records, and sets the people and events they reveal against the wider social and political scene of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England, Wales, France and the Vatican. It raises some intriguing paradoxes. So while the Popes and their commisioners pondered the sanctity of Scabby William's saviour, they were organising the dissolution of the Knights Templar (who coincidentally held estates neighbouring William's village)and watching them burn at the stake.
Only one thing mars this elegant little volume - the illustrations. The US publishers have been unforgivably unimaginative in choosing pictures; and the Welsh placenames in the maps obviously defeated the best efforts of their proofreaders. Otherwise this coat-pocket sized work provides a diverting, thought-provoking and fulfilling read for historians and general readers alike. I highly recommend it.
Professor Bartlett traces this charming medieval mystery tale through the remarkably detailed papal records, and sets the people and events they reveal against the wider social and political scene of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England, Wales, France and the Vatican. It raises some intriguing paradoxes. So while the Popes and their commisioners pondered the sanctity of Scabby William's saviour, they were organising the dissolution of the Knights Templar (who coincidentally held estates neighbouring William's village)and watching them burn at the stake.
Only one thing mars this elegant little volume - the illustrations. The US publishers have been unforgivably unimaginative in choosing pictures; and the Welsh placenames in the maps obviously defeated the best efforts of their proofreaders. Otherwise this coat-pocket sized work provides a diverting, thought-provoking and fulfilling read for historians and general readers alike. I highly recommend it.
Format:Hardcover
Superb, only bought it recently and have read it three times already - Professor Bartlett has written an academic study in a style easily accessible to the amateur and with a suprising amount of humour given the topic - whets one's apetite for more of his writings -
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