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Preface by Georges Duby 1. Introduction by Georges Duby Private Power, Public Power 2. Portraits by Georges Duby, Dominique Barthelemy, Charles de La Ronciere The Aristocratic Households of Feudal France Communal Living Kinship Tuscan Notables on the Eve of the Renaissance 3. Imagining the Self by Danielle Regnier-Bohler Exploring Literature 4. The Use of Private Space by Dominique Barthelemy, Philippe Contamine Civilizing the Fortress: Eleventh to Thirteenth Century Peasant Hearth to Papal Palace: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 5. The Emergence of the Individual by Georges Duby, Philippe Braunstein Solitude: Eleventh to Thirteenth Century Toward Intimacy: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries Bibliography Credits Index
Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France. Georges Duby, a member of the Académie Française, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collège de France.
What gives the volume its unity is not so much a rigorous
definition of the subject, private life, as a consistency of
concentration on a series of very interesting, interrelated themes:
living space, and the degree of privacy that it can afford; family
relationships, with special references to the nuclear group that
centers around a single married couple; relations between the sexes
(both amorous and domestic); attitudes toward the body and nudity;
the sense of individuality and self-perception… This volume offers
a very full, richly variegated picture of the life, in different
places and at different periods, of the Middle Ages. It has lavish
and well-chosen illustrations to match the text.
*New York Review of Books*
Profusely and intelligently illustrated, generously margined, and
wisely and clearly written…[this volume] invites a profound
reconsideration of our notions about much of the past and suggests
new ways of looking at it… We ought to be inspired to think about
our own notion and practice of private life.
*The Nation*
The material in this second anthology…is personally involving and
profoundly informative… This immense work of imaginative history
lifts us out of our own constructed walls. It reveals to us not
only the shapes and colors of another time, but of our own.
*Bloomsbury Review*
Like its predecessor in the same series, [this book] makes full use
of the whole range of evidence and, most strikingly, the visual…
This thoughtful, handsome book would be a fine addition to any
library.
*Boston Globe*
Spanning the period from the 11th century to the Renaissance and
focusing on France and Tuscan Italy, this continues the projected
five-volume history of private life from the Roman world to the
present. ‘Private’ is here defined as what medieval people
considered intimate, familial, domestic… [The book] display[s] an
astounding knowledge and use of sources and offer rich detail about
everything from affection and sex to domestic arrangements and
latrines. The many illustrations strongly support the text.
Essential for both research and general collections.
*Library Journal*
The new emphasis on the history of everybody has now been
consecrated in [this] ambitious five-volume series…masterfully
translated by Arthur Goldhammer… Copious illustrative
materials—paintings, drawings, caricatures, and photographs, all
cannily chosen and wittily captioned to display domestic life…
Magnificent.
*New York Times Book Review*
Together these five compact volumes cover much of the history of
the classical world, and do so with both ease and authority.
*Washington Post Book World*
What gives the volume its unity is not so much a rigorous
definition of the subject, private life, as a consistency of
concentration on a series of very interesting, interrelated themes:
living space, and the degree of privacy that it can afford; family
relationships, with special references to the nuclear group that
centers around a single married couple; relations between the sexes
(both amorous and domestic); attitudes toward the body and nudity;
the sense of individuality and self-perception... This volume
offers a very full, richly variegated picture of the life, in
different places and at different periods, of the Middle Ages. It
has lavish and well-chosen illustrations to match the text. --
Maurice Keen * New York Review of Books *
Profusely and intelligently illustrated, generously margined, and
wisely and clearly written...[this volume] invites a profound
reconsideration of our notions about much of the past and suggests
new ways of looking at it... We ought to be inspired to think about
our own notion and practice of private life. -- Edward Peters * The
Nation *
The material in this second anthology...is personally involving and
profoundly informative... This immense work of imaginative history
lifts us out of our own constructed walls. It reveals to us not
only the shapes and colors of another time, but of our own. -- Paul
Kafka * Bloomsbury Review *
Like its predecessor in the same series, [this book] makes full use
of the whole range of evidence and, most strikingly, the visual...
This thoughtful, handsome book would be a fine addition to any
library. -- David Herlihy * Boston Globe *
Spanning the period from the 11th century to the Renaissance and
focusing on France and Tuscan Italy, this continues the projected
five-volume history of private life from the Roman world to the
present. 'Private' is here defined as what medieval people
considered intimate, familial, domestic... [The book] display[s] an
astounding knowledge and use of sources and offer rich detail about
everything from affection and sex to domestic arrangements and
latrines. The many illustrations strongly support the text.
Essential for both research and general collections. -- Bennett
Hill * Library Journal *
The new emphasis on the history of everybody has now been
consecrated in [this] ambitious five-volume series...masterfully
translated by Arthur Goldhammer... Copious illustrative
materials-paintings, drawings, caricatures, and photographs, all
cannily chosen and wittily captioned to display domestic life...
Magnificent. -- Roger Shattuck * New York Times Book Review *
Together these five compact volumes cover much of the history of
the classical world, and do so with both ease and authority. *
Washington Post Book World *
People of the Middle Ages were suspicious of solitude. Feudal dwellings were promiscuously crowded, monastery layouts reflected a fear of isolation. Yet, the idea of privacy, linked to an inner life, stubbornly took root. Intimacy found expression in peasant hearths, in orchards where lovers embraced, in noble households with their areas for retreat, in towers and fortresses that gave ordinary people a refuge from the havoc of war. The private sphere spilled out into the neighborhood. Moving from the anonymous 11th century to the stirrings of Renaissance individualism, this second volume of essays in a projected five-volume opus is a marvelous re-creation of history as it was actually lived, an archeological excavation of daily life few historians have attempted. Hundreds of apt illustrations complement discussions of bedroom design, table manners, discovery of the body, customs. The growing importance of the individual is traced through fables, romances, poems and a new realism in painting. The contributors are French scholars; Duby is a professor at the College de France. History Book Club alternate. (March)
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