Ce vaste récit historique plonge dans le tumulte du XIVe siècle, une époque marquée par des guerres dévastatrices, la peste et des bouleversements sociaux. L'auteur dépeint vivement la vie des gens ordinaires comme des dirigeants puissants, examinant comment ces calamités ont remodelé la civilisation européenne. Il offre une exploration captivante de l'une des périodes les plus difficiles mais les plus transformatrices de l'histoire occidentale. La série est saluée pour ses recherches méticuleuses et sa représentation évocatrice de la vie médiévale.
The 14th century gives us back two contradictory images: a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and a dark time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world plunged into a chaos of war, fear and the Plague. Barbara Tuchman anatomizes the century, revealing both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived.
The fourteenth century was a time of fabled crusades and chivalry, glittering cathedrals and grand castles. It was also a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.Here, Barbara Tuchman masterfully reveals the two contradictory images of the age, examining the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes and war dominated the lives of serf, noble and clergy alike.Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries and guilty passions, Tuchman recreates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, above all, knights. The result is an astonishing reflection of medieval Europe, a historical tour de force.