Tag Archives: history

Book review: Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery

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Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor. London: Methuen Publishing Ltd. 2003. 420 pages.

Geoffrey Chaucer was justice of the peace, knight of the shire, friend of the king, and “greatest living poet.” Abruptly, around 1400, this “public man of affairs” was never heard from again. Who Murdered Chaucer? stems from a coroner’s inquest into Chaucer’s disappearance staged at the Sorbonne in 1998 for the New Chaucer Society Congress. The resulting book is a smart, often irreverent layman’s probe into the fate of the man who, through The Canterbury Tales and other works, helped to establish English as a literary language.

Even at a 600-year-old crime scene, context is everything, and the authors explore the efforts that Henry IV and his allies may have made to obscure Chaucer’s memory. Painstakingly sifting through the clues that remain, they develop a convincing case that Chaucer was murdered for his political loyalties, religious leanings, and advocacy of the written English language.

The authors set the stage on which Chaucer played a number of roles, describing the progressive court of his patron, Richard II, and the turmoil that conflicting values and change invariably bring. On one side were John Wyclif and his followers, trying to make the Bible and God accessible to the people and to shame the church into reforming itself. On the other were the conservative barons and church leaders who stood to lose money and power in a world in which art and discourse might take the place of conflict, and the common man might be empowered to question age-old beliefs and practices. With the usurpation by Henry IV and the return of Thomas Arundel as Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Chaucer became a prominent man who suddenly stood on the wrong side of the important questions.

Much of the initial focus here is not on Chaucer, but on the history surrounding Richard II and the nature of his court, the barons’ rebellion, and the Peasants’ Revolt, and Henry’s usurpation. Later, the authors examine Chaucer’s surviving works, including The Canterbury Tales and illustrations, as well as the writings of his contemporaries, for clues as to how he may have antagonized the new regime and how he may have met his end. For example, they speculate that Hoccleve’s eulogy hints at an end that is both untimely and violent: “Death was too hasty to run at you and rob you of your life.” Puzzled by the discrepancies between Chaucer’s text and the Ellesmere manuscript illuminations, the authors examined the art microscopically and discovered that some of it had been clumsily altered, then speculate why.

Academics and historians may chafe at such conjectures, but generally they make sense. Occasionally, though, they do not. According to the authors, the Peasants’ Revolt “presented the royal faction with a tempting opportunity to eliminate the baronial opposition,” but they offer no feasible explanation for why Richard II turned on the rebels after he “signed their pardons and granted their requests.” Without understanding what happened and why Richard acted so treacherously and brutally, it’s hard for the authors to make a solid case, as they try to do, that Richard was not the unpopular monarch portrayed by Henry’s chroniclers. Later, they mention the “persistent rumours that Richard was still alive . . . the kind of rumour that would only gather round a figure who enjoyed strong support and even affection.” Yet the same type of rumours surrounded Hitler, as much from fear as from “support and even affection.” The case for Richard’s popularity is weaker than the one for Chaucer’s murder.

Although not addressed directly, one implied issue stands out — the importance of separation of church and state. Thomas Arundel and Henry IV need each other to usurp their respective positions, and their combined power, with no checks or balances, emboldens them to repress political foes and “heretics” with terror and torture. The danger of such of a broad spectrum of power concentrated in such ruthless, self-serving hands is clear — as Chaucer must have observed.

Well researched, engaging, and passionately and wittily written, Who Murdered Chaucer? shines a spotlight at a different and revealing angle on a turbulent time in English history and a definitive one in English literature. Whatever your interest in this period, Who Murdered Chaucer? will make you look at The Canterbury Tales and Geoffrey Chaucer in a more appreciative light as part of a greater story.

29 December 2008
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus

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America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus edited by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. Highly recommended.

In America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus, editor Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., presents a series of essays that dispel the popular idea that the American continents were sparsely populated by primitive hunter-gatherers (or, after Hollywood, Plains Indians whooping on horseback). These essays, written by contributors such as Alan Kolata and Peter Nabokov, reveal the breadth and depth of Indian language, culture, arts, spirituality, and life ways. Part One covers the continents geographically, from northern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, while Part Two examines language, religion, family and tribal or clan life, migration and cultural influence, systems of knowledge, and the arts. Renowned Native American writers N. Scott Momaday and Vine Deloria, Jr., contribute the first chapter, “The Becoming of the Native: Man in America Before Columbus,” and the afterword, respectively.

The weaknesses of the approach are evident; some essays are stronger than others, depending on the writer’s skill and bias and on the material available. Some contradict one another. In “In the Realm of the Four Quarters,” Kolata’s admiration for the success of the Inca empire is nearly boundless, while in “American Frontiers,” Francis Jennings doubts the real strength of the empire over its conquered subjects and its economic, political, and military sustainability. Such a survey book can cover only so much information, and, not surprisingly, the Aztecs and Incas are more prominent than, for example, the nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy.

Another weakness of America in 1492 is focus, perhaps driven by lack of information in critical areas. Topics such as food, clothing, structures, tools, seasonal migration, major rituals, and so forth, are described in some detail, but whole areas are sometimes untouched or only briefly alluded to, such internal conflict resolution and justice systems, practical leadership (political vs. spiritual or hunting), the practicalities of daily life in large communal homes, and the frequency and practice of warfare. How often did conflicts occur and what provoked them? How were they conducted? How sustained were they?

Despite the inevitable shortcomings, 1492 does provide a good overview of life in the western hemisphere, from the head-hunting spiritual practices of some Amazonian tribes to the agricultural practices and cultivation of maize that spread from Mesoamerica, from trade routes to migration patterns. There are some surprises here for the novice, for example, that the Navajo so strongly associated in our contemporary minds with the southwestern desert migrated from the northern tundra; that the Great Plains were inhabited by farmers and that the tribes we associate with them, such as the Lakota, had not yet arrived there; and that extensive trade routes and trade centers existed, even if the concept of investment capital did not.

History emphasizes the differences between Europeans and pre-Columbian Indians, and certainly these differences — most obvious in the concepts behind language, in spirituality and philosophy, and in the ideas surrounding the individual and the community — are fundamental. As I read 1492, however, certain similarities to post-Roman Europe struck me. For example, there were the waves of migration that changed the face of Europe many times. There was all the ability of Europeans, and others, to establish and use trade routes and centers despite geographical, language, and transportation barriers. In very general terms, on both sides of the Atlantic there was restlessness over land and power combined with a need to live cooperatively and to exchange easily obtained goods, such as shells on the coast, for desired ones found inland, such as corn and furs.

This raises the question, “What is an Indian?” Indians are the native peoples of the Americas, just as Europeans are those who inhabit Europe. It is a broad category that does not reveal much. As in Europe, there are hundreds of languages, cultures, and beliefs, and most likely there is no common ancestry among many of the groups. “European” provides you with only a very vague notion of a person or group; “Swedish” or “Greek” paints two very definite, and different, pictures. That is what should be kept in mind when you read America in 1492. “The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus” changes with every few miles, every alteration in climate or topography, every season, and the world of the Incas is nothing like the world of the Arawaks or Arikara.

As Vine Deloria and others tell us, prophecies pre-dating Columbus predict the arrival of the white man and go on to say that his predominance will be the shortest of all. We look around at our impressive infrastructure that has altered (and in many cases ruined) the land, our health and long lives, and our prosperity, and think that such a prediction seems absurd. Yet we have been here a tiny fraction of the time the Indian has, and as the latest reports about climate change and other environmental and resource issues should remind us, our present way of life is not sustainable for the long term; in fact, it has become problematic in only slightly more than 100 years. The year 1492 in America marked the end of thousands of years of Indian tradition; what year will mark the end of our ways as we know them?

8 April 2007
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony

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Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony by Lee Miller. Not recommended.

Armed with a master’s degree in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University, Lee Miller tries to combine history with the arts of the novelist and dramatist. Not successfully, as she might say in one of her numerous misplaced sentence fragments.

As the subtitle implies, Roanoke focuses less on the mystery of the lost colonists than on Miller’s convoluted approach to solving it. She takes the reader on so many voyages, to so many places with so many peoples, and through so many plots and treacheries, none in chronological order, so that within just a few pages that reader feels as lost as the colonists themselves.

Miller tries to use the techniques of the novelist and dramatist to heighten the effect, including a breathless tense that implies the present: “In one of the last glimpses we have of them, it [what?] has already begun: colonist George Howe has been found dead, floating face down among the reeds along the shore.” This, along with the use of the present tense elsewhere, makes this event sound ominous indeed, until later it is revealed who killed him, how, and why. While this information boded ill for the colony, it was not mysterious in the way Lee hints. Howe’s death plays a small role in the Miller’s solution of the “crime,” but it is for the most part a minor red herring.

The author plays up innumerable events and questions as though the revelation of identities and machinations will be shocking to the reader, much in the manner of the present-day tabloid. One of these questions is, “Who are the Mandoag?” This point, raised continually as other nations refer to them ambiguously, mysteriously, and with fear, seemingly becomes the crux of the mystery and the fate of the colonists. After such a buildup, the unveiling has no dramatic impact and little interest. Even worse, Miller’s case for their identity is speculative, weak, and inconclusive.

This describes much of Miller’s approach. She frequently comes to conclusions through process of elimination and then finds supporting evidence. Once she has determined the religious affiliation of the colonists, then their actions, and the mother country’s lack of interest in them, make sense. Such an argument is weak and easily undercut. Miller does so herself when she says that England had become so overpopulated that she didn’t want any colonists back, whatever their affiliation may have been.

Miller’s speculations do not always seem logical. She writes, “And why would they [the colonists] assume that a strange fruit, growing in an unfamiliar land, is fit to eat? In fact, we would expect them to err on the side of caution.” On the contrary, I might expect people who have been at sea for months, living on dry rations, to be so hungry for fresh fruits of the earth that caution might not occur to them in the excitement of the moment, that they might eat any fruit that appeared fleshy and edible. Miller does not speculate as to what the fruit might have been, but concludes that the colonists must have been told by a treacherous individual that it was safe to eat. I would question why an individual would take the risk of betraying such a large number of people in whose company he is stuck and why they would not punish him. The answer could be that they were utterly dependent on his him to get them to Roanoke and/or Chesapeake Bay. Still, the question of this particular betrayal is not as clear as Miller portrays; this is typical of her thought process throughout.

Her writing style and habit of jumping around erratically in time and space is frustrating and tiresome for a reader who is not familiar with the facts of the Roanoke voyages. She tries to use sentence fragments for dramatic effect, but has no idea how to do so. Most of these fall flat. For example, “White pushes ahead, the sailors following. Out of their element.” Since this fragment is not followed up with something that happens because White and the sailors are “out of their element,” it is pointless and adds nothing. Numerous fragments like these are distracting and detract from the narrative. A good writer knows to use such a device sparingly, but Miller indulges in it relentlessly.

By the end of the book, I knew a little more about Elizabethan England, John White, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the nations of the Roanoke area than I did before, although I have qualms about the reliability of Miller’s interpretations of her sources. Her ultimate conclusion about the fate of the colonists seems little different from that of other historians, although she probably presents the case differently. I recommend reading a more straightforward history of Roanoke colony before tackling this book and being prepared for more drama, badly done, than history.

30 November 2006
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

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The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto. Recommended.

Before New York, there was New Netherland, claimed for the Dutch by English explorer Henry Hudson. At the heart of New Netherland was New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan — a frontier village and the gateway to the vast American interior, ripe for exploitation.

In The Island at the Center of the World, Russell Shorto makes the case for the influence of the Dutch and their colony on the future United States and for Adriaen Van der Donck, who tried to convince the Dutch government to wrest control of the colony from the inept hands of the Dutch West India Company. He failed, leaving the colony vulnerable to the British, who took it with little effort and made it a mere footnote in American history textbooks.

The modern perception of the Dutch colony seems to support the adage that history is written by the victor. Adriaen Van der Donck lost; Peter Stuyvesant won, so that it is the latter who has a place in the history books. It is not much of a place, according to Shorto; as the loser to the British, Stuyvesant is portrayed “as almost a cartoon character: peg-legged, cantankerous, a figure of comic relief who would do his routine, draw a few laughs, and then exit the stage so that the real substance of American history could begin.”

Shorto covers the colony’s history from the time Hudson “found” it to Stuyvesant’s reluctant surrender to the British in 1664, as well as Van der Donck’s career from his university days and the writing of his book to his efforts at The Hague, followed by speculation about his death.

In between, Shorto shows what was different about New Netherland from its encroaching Pilgrim and Puritan neighbors to the north. For one thing, the “Dutch” were not all Dutch in origin. They were Dutch, English, German, French, African, Jewish, Quaker, even Turkish. One of the founding couples of New Netherland was a “French-speaking teenager ” and a “Flemish textile worker,” “. . . two young nobodies” whose descendants are estimated to number more than one million. The Dutch, having been victims of religious intolerance, promoted an unusually tolerant society that naturally encouraged diversity, which continues today. Shorto notes that, where Peter Stuyvesant’s farmhouse once stood, “The same view takes in an Arab newsstand, a Yemenite Israeli restaurant, a pizza shop, a Japanese restaurant, and a Jewish deli.”

Perhaps the more important difference in the English and Dutch legacies lies in each colony’s original reason for existence. The Pilgrims and Puritans sought to escape persecution and to establish a society based on their own strictly interpreted religious beliefs, which did not preclude the persecution of others such as Quakers. New Haven and other cities were to be their equivalent of a promised land. The Dutch and others who settled New Netherland had a different motive — they saw opportunity. Here, anyone could obtain land, work hard, and succeed in a way not possible in the Dutch republic, with its limited space and resources. When writing of the initial report on New Netherland, Shorto says of the Dutch merchants reading it, “What jumped out at them, however, were other words, sharp, money-laden nouns — ‘Vellen . . . Pelterijen . . . Maertens . . . Vossen . . .’ — the report making a frank promise of ‘many skins and peltries, martins, foxes, and many other commodities.'” He reminds us that the colony was not managed by the government, but by a profit-making concern — the Dutch West India Company.

It was the opportunity that drew the French-speaking teenager and the Flemish textile worker and that allowed their descendants to proliferate, together with the Dutch attitude of religious, cultural, and social tolerance. It is easy to see the seeds of a democratic society in New Amsterdam, where the rules are different, where colonists of all skill sets are needed, and where opportunity is not restricted by class or status. Even the militaristic Calvinist Peter Stuyvesant can’t change the character of the colony that developed before his arrival.

The book would have benefited from quotations from primary personal sources, for example, letters and journals of Stuyvesant and Van der Donck. It appears that such historical riches have been lost or not yet translated. Shorto tries to fill in these deficiencies with colorful, evocative language and speculation about how these and other characters might have felt or acted at critical moments; for example, Van der Donck writes “like a man possessed,” while Stuyvesant might “stump off” in a fit of pique.

Shorto does bring the colony to life, including interesting and sordid details about court cases, facts such as that one-quarter of all businesses on Manhattan were taverns or breweries at one point, and details such as that one prostitute preferred to be paid in otter and beaver pelts rather than with money.

His evident passion for the subject and his frustration with Anglocentric (and mythologized) history leads Shorto to overstate the case for the influence of the Dutch colony. The United States today is not as uniformly tolerant, even in the Dutch sense, as Short believes, or as multicultural except in urban areas. Each urban area has not necessarily modeled itself after early Manhattan, but has evolved in its own way, not always offering equal opportunity to every group of immigrants or every individual.

Despite the Pilgrim/Puritan myths left to us and to which we cling, however, the United States, like Manhattan, is a unique creation born of a unique set of circumstances. Like the Pilgrims and Puritans, the Dutch were founding colonists and be given their due as such. If you are interested in a more complete picture of early American history, The Island at the Center of the World should be on your “must read” list.

Sunday, 6 August 2006
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age

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The Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age by Christopher Hibbert. Not recommended.

The adjective “Elizabethan” invokes a vision of an era of sumptuous dress, religious strife, European conflict, and the flourishing of the dramatic arts. The Virgin Queen is a study of the ruler for whom the time is named, and her rule, which lasted for an almost-unprecedented 45 years.

Hibbert takes a primarily episodic approach to Elizabeth’s life, from her birth as the unwanted daughter of Henry VIII and his second, ill-fated wife, Ann Boleyn. When Henry finally produces a legitimate male heir, Elizabeth is reduced from “princess” to “lady.” After her unpopular, Catholic half-sister Mary ascends to the throne and she is vaguely implicated in some plots against the new queen, Elizabeth is imprisoned despite her seeming subservience and her pleas of innocence, devotion, and loyalty.

Raised away from the court by hired nobility and taught by Cambridge scholars, Elizabeth appears to be both demure and autocratic. The important point is “appears,” because, while Elizabeth in her correspondence is deferential and in her appearance demure, her peers invariably see her as withdrawn, haughty, and “proud and disdainful” — traits that “much blemished the handsomeness and beauty of her person” (Sir William Sidney). Mary, not unjustifiably paranoid, does not believe in Elizabeth’s humility, honesty, or loyalty. Hibbert’s portrayal of Elizabeth, who craves the adoration of peers, councilors, and subjects alike, seems to support Mary’s assessment.

Elizabeth proves to be arrogant and autocratic, allowing no one to question either her or her rights as ruler. She is keenly aware of the importance of having the support of the populace, which she enjoys in contrast to the despised “Bloody Mary.” She ignores the advice of privy council, however, when it suits her, occasionally to the detriment of her popularity.

Hibbert does not explain why or how Elizabeth, kept out of the way during the reigns of her half-brother and half-sister, became so popular. This points to one of the flaws of Hibbert’s episodic approach; recounting Elizabeth’s life in terms of “Subjects and Suitors” (although not all of them), “Papists and Puritans,” “The Queen in her Privy Chamber,” “Traitors and Rebels” (again, not all of them), and so forth, veils or distorts much of the historical context of Elizabeth’s development and reign. Within one chapter, she may be young at one point and in late middle age at another. With England’s changing allegiances and relationships with France and Spain, it is difficult to track what is happening at a given time and why. Elizabeth’s most noted accomplishment, England’s defeat of the Spanish armada, is covered briefly and superficially, almost as an aside, leaving the reader with the impression that it was happenstance that no one, including Elizabeth or the privy council, had much to do with; it just happened, with little explanation.

The tale of Elizabeth’s suitors can be equally confusing. Hibbert describes her negotiations with Henry, Duke of Anjou (later Henry III of France), when he was 20 and, “in fact, twenty years younger than herself.” A few pages later, Hibbert discusses her negotiations with his younger brother Francis when Francis is “not yet nineteen” and she is 39, yet it appears that the talks with the older brother occurred first, which would make sense. Even more confusing, the negotiations with younger brother Francis continued until she was 45 (they would be the last hopes of getting her married).

Elizabeth’s treatment of religious conflict is glossed over. While Mary is noted for her brutal repression of Protestants, Elizabeth, at least in this biography, is a conservative Protestant who fears and loathes radicals of any kind, Protestant or Catholic. During her reign, repression is focused primarily on the rebellious poor; she is less interested in punishing the wealthy nobility than in grabbing their riches.

As portrayed by Hibbert, Elizabeth is a parsimonious, greedy, emotionally needy woman who wishes to rule absolutely but who cannot make a necessary, definitive decision, such as signing the death warrant for her conniving cousin, Mary Stuart. The privy council, led by Lord Burghley, the Earl of Leicester, and others, devote much of their efforts to manipulating this indecisive autocrat into decisions they want and to making sure that she cannot renege on them — an ironic situation for the woman who says to Burghley’s son, “Little man, little man, the word must is not to be used to princes.”

There are several weaknesses in addition to the episodic structure. For example, the queen herself is not quoted often enough in key areas, yet Hibbert devotes one-third of a page to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem speculating about how she might have felt during her confinement in the Tower of London.

Most notably, however, the book’s subtitle is never explained — neither why the era is “golden” nor why the queen was the “genius” of it. While the biography makes it clear that Elizabeth had a strong personality, as did her parents, the nation’s successes seem to have been the work of the privy council under the leadership of Lord Burghley and of adventurers like Sir Walter Ralegh. Elizabeth is not shown even to have played a role in, for example, nurturing the famed playwrights of the time, such as Shakespeare, Marlow, and Beaumont. The subtitle implies that Elizabeth’s brilliance inspired a benign, cultured age, while the text shows a woman so cold and petty that, when her best friend and seeming lover Leicester dies, she worries only about controlling his estates and monies, and so indecisive that her own privy councilors avoid working with her whenever possible. The age itself is brutal, with the crowd “disgusted by the spectacle” of a drawing and quartering performed, against tradition, while the victims are still alive.

At best, The Virgin Queen is a brief, superficial biography that leaves the reader hungry for more — more about Burghley, Leicester, Mary Stuart, and others, but not about Elizabeth herself, who somehow becomes a supporting player in her own biography.

13 March 2006
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf