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This classic study of art, life, and thought in France and the Netherlands during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ranks as one of the most perceptive analyses of the medieval period. A brilliantly creative work that established the reputation of Dutch historian John Huizinga (1872-1945), the book argues that the era of diminishing chivalry reflected the spirit of an age and that its figures and events were neither a prelude to the Renaissance nor harbingers of a coming culture, but a consummation of the old.Among other topics, the author examines the violent tenor of medieval life, the idea of chivalry, the conventions of love, religious life, the vision of death, the symbolism that pervaded medieval life, and aesthetic sentiment. We view the late Middle Ages through the psychology and thought of artists, theologians, poets, court chroniclers, princes, and statesmen of the period, witnessing the splendor and simplicity of medieval life, its courtesy and cruelty, its idyllic vision of life, despair and mysticism, religious, artistic, and practical life, and much more. Long regarded as a landmark of historical scholarship, The Waning of the Middle Ages is also a remarkable work of literature. Of its author, the New York Times said, ""Professor Huizinga has dressed his imposing and variegated assemblage of facts in the colourful garments characteristic of novels, and he parades them from his first page to the last in a vivid style.""An international success following its original publication in 1919 and subsequently translated into several languages, The Waning of the Middle Ages will not only serve as an invaluable reference for students and scholars of medieval history but will also appeal to general readers and anyone fascinated by life during the Middle Ages.… (more)
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This brilliant portrait of the life, thought, and art in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is our most trenchant study of that crucial moment in history when the Middle Ages gave way to the great energy of the Renaissance. From an analysis of the dominating ideas of the times – those that held the medieval world together, supported its religion and informed its art and literature – emerges the style of a whole culture at the extreme limit of its development.
The writing/translation flows magnificently as Huizinga covers topics such as: the passionate intensity of life, the static social structure, failure of knighthood, the preoccupation of death and fear of life, power of religious imagery, the dualism of piety and worldliness, a failure of imagination and art and literature. Huizinga takes a bleak view of the period and says at the end of the first chapter:
"It is an evil world. The fires of hatred and violence burn fiercely. Evil is powerful, the devil covers a darkened earth with his black wings. And soon the end of the world is expected. But mankind does not repent, the church struggles, and the preachers and poets warn and lament in vain."
Huizinga warns us that to understand the culture the reader should transpose his/her thoughts into the minds of the the medievals' and no matter how incomprehensible they are to us we must accept them. The real strength of the book is the attempt to see the world through the eyes of the participants in the history. We learn that they are intensely passionate, cruel aggressive but easily reduced to tears, a belief that God made the world good but man's sinfulness has made it miserable, a mind stuffed with religious imagery and proverbs preventing critical thought and a propensity to take every thought and argument to the highest level (God)
This book has given me an insight to books that I have recently read on this period I have a better understanding of why King Edward III was so intent on securing his French territories and why Chaucer wrote the way he did.
The book was first published in 1919 and academic study of the late middle ages has moved on since then. This is no reason to ignore this marvellous book which gives a view of the period that still has plenty to offer.
I don't think I would recommend reading this book even to art history students (unless to quote mine it, I guess). There are better books out there making good cohesive and readable arguments about the late middle ages (and they'll likely boil down Huizinga's main point more succinctly than he ever did).