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Medieval Lives: Eight Charismatic Men and Women of the Middle Ages
A fascinating look at life in the Middle Ages that focuses on eight extraordinary medieval men and women through realistically invented conversations between them and their counterparts.
197 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1994
21 people are currently reading
509 people want to read
About the author
Norman F. Cantor
54 books91 followersBorn in Winnipeg, Canada, Cantor received his B.A. at the University of Manitoba in 1951. He went on to get his master's degree in 1953 from Princeton University and spent a year as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. He received his doctorate from Princeton in 1957 under the direction of the eminent medievalist Joseph R. Strayer.
After teaching at Princeton, Cantor moved to Columbia University from 1960 to 1966. He was a Leff professor at Brandeis University until 1970 and then was at SUNY Binghamton until 1976, when he took a position at University of Illinois at Chicago for two years. He then went on to New York University, where he was professor of history, sociology and comparative literature. After a brief stint as Fulbright Professor at the Tel Aviv University History Department (1987–88), he devoted himself to working as a full-time writer.
Although his early work focused on English religious and intellectual history, Cantor's later scholarly interests were far more diverse, and he found more success writing for a popular audience than he did engaging in more narrowly-focused original research. He did publish one monograph study, based on his graduate thesis, Church, kingship, and lay investiture in England, 1089-1135, which appeared in 1958 and remains an important contribution to the topic of church-state relations in medieval England. Throughout his career, however, Cantor preferred to write on the broad contours of Western history, and on the history of academic medieval studies in Europe and North America, in particular the lives and careers of eminent medievalists. His books generally received mixed reviews in academic journals, but were often popular bestsellers, buoyed by Cantor's fluid, often colloquial, writing style and his lively critiques of persons and ideas, both past and present. Cantor was intellectually conservative and expressed deep skepticism about what he saw as methodological fads, particularly Marxism and postmodernism, but also argued for greater inclusion of women and minorities in traditional historical narratives. In both his best-selling Inventing the Middle Ages and his autobiography, Inventing Norman Cantor, he reflected on his strained relationship over the years with other historians and with academia in general.
Upon retirement in 1999, Cantor moved to Miami, Florida, where he continued to work on several books up to the time of his death.
After teaching at Princeton, Cantor moved to Columbia University from 1960 to 1966. He was a Leff professor at Brandeis University until 1970 and then was at SUNY Binghamton until 1976, when he took a position at University of Illinois at Chicago for two years. He then went on to New York University, where he was professor of history, sociology and comparative literature. After a brief stint as Fulbright Professor at the Tel Aviv University History Department (1987–88), he devoted himself to working as a full-time writer.
Although his early work focused on English religious and intellectual history, Cantor's later scholarly interests were far more diverse, and he found more success writing for a popular audience than he did engaging in more narrowly-focused original research. He did publish one monograph study, based on his graduate thesis, Church, kingship, and lay investiture in England, 1089-1135, which appeared in 1958 and remains an important contribution to the topic of church-state relations in medieval England. Throughout his career, however, Cantor preferred to write on the broad contours of Western history, and on the history of academic medieval studies in Europe and North America, in particular the lives and careers of eminent medievalists. His books generally received mixed reviews in academic journals, but were often popular bestsellers, buoyed by Cantor's fluid, often colloquial, writing style and his lively critiques of persons and ideas, both past and present. Cantor was intellectually conservative and expressed deep skepticism about what he saw as methodological fads, particularly Marxism and postmodernism, but also argued for greater inclusion of women and minorities in traditional historical narratives. In both his best-selling Inventing the Middle Ages and his autobiography, Inventing Norman Cantor, he reflected on his strained relationship over the years with other historians and with academia in general.
Upon retirement in 1999, Cantor moved to Miami, Florida, where he continued to work on several books up to the time of his death.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 12, 2010
This book is something that I would not normally have read. This book is about a period of History that, despite being a History nerd, I have only limited knowledge of. This is a lovely book that I enjoyed immensely.
Norman Cantor constructs imagined tales and conversations between eight figures of Medieval historical importance and in the process tells more about the period, the changing ideas and attitudes, and the lives of the folk covered than any 'history book' could hope to achieve. In addition it's all done with a 'readability' that I found utterly pleasurable.
In the beginning I found the construct of the stories slightly contrived but as I went from person to person I got used to the tone and content and relaxed into the enjoyment of the lessons of Medieval History that Professor Cantor was giving me.
As a teacher, I'll certainly use extracts from this book to enliven my Medieval lessons, and to illustrate often difficult philosophical, ideological, and religious arguments from the period.
A change from what I am used to but I will be much more willing to take on "historical fiction" as a consequence. My gratitude Mr. Cantor.
Norman Cantor constructs imagined tales and conversations between eight figures of Medieval historical importance and in the process tells more about the period, the changing ideas and attitudes, and the lives of the folk covered than any 'history book' could hope to achieve. In addition it's all done with a 'readability' that I found utterly pleasurable.
In the beginning I found the construct of the stories slightly contrived but as I went from person to person I got used to the tone and content and relaxed into the enjoyment of the lessons of Medieval History that Professor Cantor was giving me.
As a teacher, I'll certainly use extracts from this book to enliven my Medieval lessons, and to illustrate often difficult philosophical, ideological, and religious arguments from the period.
A change from what I am used to but I will be much more willing to take on "historical fiction" as a consequence. My gratitude Mr. Cantor.
August 13, 2014
Lives of prominent historical figures of the Middle Ages told through discourses, conversations and debates with their contemporaries. The literary equivalent of history channel dramatic reenactments. I don't have as much interest in the era, but I love history and wanted to have a fairly well rounded self education in it. This book however didn't really work for me, specifically the format didn't really work for me. I would have preferred traditional biographies. It was educational, certainly, but too plodding of a read at times, not quite as exciting as history ought to be.
January 31, 2020
This history was admittedly hard to engage with in the beginning due to the language of its narrative style. Instead of approaching ease of historical conversation with a casual or entertaining narrator’s tone, Cantor chooses to invent scenarios wherein multiple historical contemporaries are gathered together, conversing about the current political, religious, and economic state of affairs.
The aspect of this book I enjoyed the most was the organization of the subjects...presenting each figure not only chronologically, but in a way that clearly connects to the preceding and following figures. This method of connection is fluid and is instrumental in the reader seeing the author’s vision of central themes that drove the Middle Ages.
I mentioned that the style of writing was off-putting. This is definitely my biggest complaint. Another, slightly smaller, complaint would be his habit of having these historical figures referring to provinces, kingdoms, and lands by their modern names and titles rather than what they were known as during the Middle Ages. This repeatedly took me out of engaging with the scenes Cantor wrote. If you’re going to write a narrative that has these people conversing in fictional ways, wouldn’t you naturally have them using phrases and names that were contemporary to them?
All in all, an entertaining little book.
The aspect of this book I enjoyed the most was the organization of the subjects...presenting each figure not only chronologically, but in a way that clearly connects to the preceding and following figures. This method of connection is fluid and is instrumental in the reader seeing the author’s vision of central themes that drove the Middle Ages.
I mentioned that the style of writing was off-putting. This is definitely my biggest complaint. Another, slightly smaller, complaint would be his habit of having these historical figures referring to provinces, kingdoms, and lands by their modern names and titles rather than what they were known as during the Middle Ages. This repeatedly took me out of engaging with the scenes Cantor wrote. If you’re going to write a narrative that has these people conversing in fictional ways, wouldn’t you naturally have them using phrases and names that were contemporary to them?
All in all, an entertaining little book.
July 6, 2015
The only Norman Cantor book of history that (to date) doesn't meet with my approval. He tries something different here: creating dialogue and presenting the information about his subjects as fictional debates between his chosen characters and their friends/enemies/rivals. It's a bold attempt at something different, but it doesn't succeed, for a number of reasons.
First of all, Mr. Cantor doesn't have an ear for natural dialogue; this approach calls for someone like Phillipa Gregory, and the end result feels like reams of info-dumping worthy of Sir Basil Exposition. The second problem is that it occasionally degenerates into scenes straight out of a prime-time soap opera, especially when sneaking modern sensibilities and word-play into the mix. The Eleanor of Aquitaine section is a partcularly egregious example. Finally, there are a few surprising historical errors that stand out: (1) Eleanor outlived Richard I and died during the reign of John, not in 1194 as stated; (2) the kings of France, barring a handful of exceptions, were always crowned in Reims, not Orleans as stated in the Duke of Bedford chapter.
I'll give this credit for being an interesting experiment...but in my opinion, it falls rather flat.
First of all, Mr. Cantor doesn't have an ear for natural dialogue; this approach calls for someone like Phillipa Gregory, and the end result feels like reams of info-dumping worthy of Sir Basil Exposition. The second problem is that it occasionally degenerates into scenes straight out of a prime-time soap opera, especially when sneaking modern sensibilities and word-play into the mix. The Eleanor of Aquitaine section is a partcularly egregious example. Finally, there are a few surprising historical errors that stand out: (1) Eleanor outlived Richard I and died during the reign of John, not in 1194 as stated; (2) the kings of France, barring a handful of exceptions, were always crowned in Reims, not Orleans as stated in the Duke of Bedford chapter.
I'll give this credit for being an interesting experiment...but in my opinion, it falls rather flat.
February 21, 2016
Cantor plops readers right in the middle of the power struggles and controversies that defined the middle ages by presenting his subjects a characters and making them debate their opinions. This does a good job of making their theological and political positions comprehensible to modern readers, but also leads to some jarringly unnatural expository dialogue. Still... a good read for medieval history buffs.
February 7, 2017
I usually love narrative history, but this one dragged just a bit for me. Not bad at all, but not as good as others I've read. My favorite story was about Eleanor of Aquitaine. That one was very good!
July 18, 2021
Highly recommend. covers 8 different people of the middle ages
June 26, 2022
Interesting method this quasi-novelization but in the end the author is too much of a historian and not enough of a novelist. Perhaps it was too much to hope to be both.
April 1, 2023
I'm going to be real with you: I was pretty disappointed with this book. I remember it was billed as 'dialogues with eight men and women from the Middle Ages' and I was wondering how that would work. It turns out that it's basically a bunch of short stories consisting of mostly dialogue with these figures.
And I'm not a scholar on these people so I could be completely wrong, but I don't think that it's a very good representation of the people? Or the time period? At times it's alright, but at other times it very much feels as if Cantor is injecting modern sensibilities or words into medieval people's mouths. For instance, Cantor has both Saint Helena and Saint Hildegard von Bingen argue for the ordination of women, which I don't think they did. Helena and Eleanor of Aquitaine are surprisingly frank about their previous sex lives (Helena's being, as far as I can tell, speculation on the author's part)--and in Eleanor's case, this is in front of all of her assembled courtiers? She has a reputation for being frank about things, but I don't think it would have gone down that way. And one scene has the word 'feminist' brought up in medieval English context, in talking about the way winners decide history, and it doesn't---
This feels like someone trying to do something like "Hamilton" with the Middle Ages. Minus the singing of course. Projecting modern ideals onto historical figures to tell a story about both that society and ours. Which would be fine if the author admitted that was what he was going. But it's not. This is presented as 'This is, more or less, what these people were like, translated for the modern audience,' and I don't think it's that close.
Also at one point he has the narration through Eusebius declare that the Nicene Creed was "deliberately vague" on the nature of Jesus in order to be more palatable to everyone and, uh... it's really, really not.
Also also! The narration refers to Saint Augustine as "the most controversial Christian theologian in history" and that's... not even really a little bit true? Thomas Aquinas? Zwingli? Martin Luther?! Really?!
The book *does* make a point to highlight exactly how antisemitic Christians in the Middle Ages could be, and I want to applaud for that, because that's not really something that gets represented too much in historical fiction. Here you can't ignore it. There are bad parts of history you have to own up to.
This is not a terrible book, but it's not a very good one about the medieval period. And I found it because I was looking for a book about Alcuin of York, and this is the only thing that came up in the catalogue when I typed it into the search engine.
Again, I'm bummed, because I wanted something better.
And I'm not a scholar on these people so I could be completely wrong, but I don't think that it's a very good representation of the people? Or the time period? At times it's alright, but at other times it very much feels as if Cantor is injecting modern sensibilities or words into medieval people's mouths. For instance, Cantor has both Saint Helena and Saint Hildegard von Bingen argue for the ordination of women, which I don't think they did. Helena and Eleanor of Aquitaine are surprisingly frank about their previous sex lives (Helena's being, as far as I can tell, speculation on the author's part)--and in Eleanor's case, this is in front of all of her assembled courtiers? She has a reputation for being frank about things, but I don't think it would have gone down that way. And one scene has the word 'feminist' brought up in medieval English context, in talking about the way winners decide history, and it doesn't---
This feels like someone trying to do something like "Hamilton" with the Middle Ages. Minus the singing of course. Projecting modern ideals onto historical figures to tell a story about both that society and ours. Which would be fine if the author admitted that was what he was going. But it's not. This is presented as 'This is, more or less, what these people were like, translated for the modern audience,' and I don't think it's that close.
Also at one point he has the narration through Eusebius declare that the Nicene Creed was "deliberately vague" on the nature of Jesus in order to be more palatable to everyone and, uh... it's really, really not.
Also also! The narration refers to Saint Augustine as "the most controversial Christian theologian in history" and that's... not even really a little bit true? Thomas Aquinas? Zwingli? Martin Luther?! Really?!
The book *does* make a point to highlight exactly how antisemitic Christians in the Middle Ages could be, and I want to applaud for that, because that's not really something that gets represented too much in historical fiction. Here you can't ignore it. There are bad parts of history you have to own up to.
This is not a terrible book, but it's not a very good one about the medieval period. And I found it because I was looking for a book about Alcuin of York, and this is the only thing that came up in the catalogue when I typed it into the search engine.
Again, I'm bummed, because I wanted something better.
March 17, 2014
It took a bit for me to get used to how the author writes about each person, but I did get used to it and I did enjoy it. I was expecting and probably would have preferred the format historians typically write in, but hats off to him for being creative. In the end, you get what you put into it, I think.
March 25, 2013
Recently I had become interested in the Middle Ages and was looking for a good book to provide an overview. I found this book at the library and really enjoyed it. The author's style puts you in the same room with these historical figures, overhearing their disputes and discussions.
Read
January 23, 2009940.1 Can
May 2, 2011
Finished as in quit. This book is decidedly crap.
October 9, 2011
Cantor attempts to describe how Europeans lived during the Middle Ages.
July 30, 2015
have hardback
October 16, 2009
Awful. Just awful.
October 9, 2012
Dry, dry, dry. Interesting people, but dull presentation
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews