The Secret Middle Ages

by Malcolm Jones

Using humble artifacts and everyday objects from the medieval period, Malcolm Jones paints a compelling picture of life as envisaged by the ordinary man or woman.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2003

Reviews

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book is about art, it is not about aesthetics. The author is an expert on trinkets from the Middle Ages, and uses these to understand the social world of the times. The images range from scatological to sacrilegious. They are not however pornography in the modern sense. Instead, many illustrate wisdom and foolishness, others seem to be apotropaic. The topic is fascinating, and the author brims with enthusiasm for his subject. For these features, as well as for the ways in which my understanding of the medieval world was enhanced, I would love to give the book at least four stars. Two factors hold me back. One is that the prose is uneven. At times witty and sharply-drawn, at other times repetitive and reading like a catalogue. I suspect that these portions were originally developed as text to accompany illustrated lectures. That brings me to the second caveat. Although the text refers to "color" illustrations, all of those in my copy of the book were in black-and-white, and only represented a small sample of the items to which the author refers. Nevertheless, on balance a good read, so in my book, three stars.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author has been collecting (images of) medieval European erotic, scatological and satiric art for many years, and here he describes it all in painstaking detail. Alas, the illustrations are scarce and generally poor quality b&w photos without captions (with just a few in color), and the text is a monotonous catalog of descriptions that I found myself slogging through after only a couple of chapters.

[Whitaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Times change, people don't - and we have always had a bawdy sense of humur and a desire to see the parts of the body we are required to cover up.