Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World (The Hinges of History)

I agree with most of the comments by the reviewers so far. I was, in fact, surprised when I read those comments: it is not very often that reviewers express as similar opinions as they have when describing this book. For such reason, I will not go into details about the subjects covered and how they are presented. That has already been done. I will only confirm that the book is not perfect, it has flows and can be at times irritating. For example, its purpose is not always clear, it does not limit itself to the description of people and events during the Middle Ages (as one would expect from the title), it does not always show continuity, the last chapter regarding "the sins" of the catholic church today is unnecessary (the reader almost has the impression that the author has something personal against its representatives). One additional flaw that the reviewers did not recognize: many of the quotations in foreign languages have more spelling mistakes than one would expect to see in a published book.And yet, we cannot deny that the book - in addition to providing much information that is not generally available all in one place and that is conveyed in a (usually) easy to read manner - has an interesting charm, a charm that is, at least in part , due to the illustrations. These are not limited to pictures of the individuals discussed in the text, of cathedrals, paintings and other works of art, as traditionally done in similar books. It also includes period maps (or more likely, maps that are made to look as originated in the Middle Ages), as well as many medieval illuminations which do not add much information to the text, yet help transport the readers into the times about which they are learning.Of the four stars above, two are for the text, two are for the illustrations.

The title of the book being reviewed is Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the beginning of the Modern World. Some quick research on this book however divulges the original title of Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and the Arts from the Cults of Catholic Europe. This primary title gives a better understanding of what Thomas Cahill’s intentions are for this book. Cahill’s purpose of this book is to display the Middle Ages (which Cahill Breaks into three groups ) as a time where the roots of modern Europe were developed. He is fighting the idea that the middle ages was a wasted period of time where nothing happened except the decline of civilization until the Renaissance; a time period that Cahill will argue is part of the Middle Ages. The purpose of this paper is to review of how well Cahill accomplished his Thesis, but before that is addressed, there are a few things in this book that need to be mentioned which degrade his ability to prove his thesis. The first is the over use of references to his other books within this book. Cahill has written several books on the history of the modern world, and multiple times he stops himself from going on a tangent by stating that he covered a certain topic in another book and that the reader should go read it there. There is also a few instances where Cahill references pop-culture writings, such as the Da Vinci Code, while this is understandable because that is the history that most readers are aware of, it takes away from the academic authority of this book by lowering it to retort to a pop culture rather than an academic retort to historical ideas. In this same vain, Cahill often appeals to the popular cultural by making witty remarks for the sake of readability that have no bearing on factuality such as “we probably all know a few people whose apartness might be better if such a socially approved role were still available” or “take that, b****” . Things like this to an academically focused reader are red flags that cause a heightened scrutiny of the book because of it’s lack of academic professionalism. The book starts for the third time (more on this later) with the issue of the Cult of the Virgin. This section will be looked at in more detail than the rest because it is a microcosm of one of the bigger issues of this book. Cahill has a tendency to use specific individuals for his factual basis. The problem with this is that there is no way of knowing whether Cahill is pulling out the rules, or the exceptions to the rules. What is more troubling is that history written about the everyday life as a practice not become a writing form until the 19th century at the earliest. Especially in an age where the ability to write made you an exception to the general population- even the act of keeping something as simple as a journal was uncommon. Cahill admits this much when he states on 73 that since Constantine “no one would again attempt such personal autobiography till the Renaissance” but he does not give any application of this statement to the use of his sources for his support. This is seen in terms of his points on Feminism, of which his first supporting point is the Cult of the Virgin. In order to show his perspective that feminism was growing or improved upon in the Middle Ages Cahill uses a grand total of two women: Hildegard (the virgin) and Eleanor of Aquitaine. These two women are not just exceptions to the rules, they are exceptions to the exceptions. These women are that rare of characters. It is almost impossible to find more writings by a single woman in the course of history than those of Hildegard. She was a woman whose virtue allowed her to be accepted across gender lines, though it is more likely that what she was capable of doing this not because of her gender, but rather a mix of superstition and an assumed holiness that allowed her to be so widely accepted. Eleanor was just a whore who slept her way to power. One of the most frustrating things about this book is the formatting of it. Just like this was a horrible transition so are most of the transitions Cahill uses. The book starts out with Alexandria, then moves onto Rome, then moves onto Hildegard, then onto the topic of sex in the middle ages, from the topic of sex he goes to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and then eloquently transitions to Francis of Assisi with the sentence “In 1182 three years after the death of Hildegard and in the same year Eleanor turned sixty, a boy was born…” The section on Assisi ends with the sentence “And that is how romance became prayer.” The word romance doesn’t even appear in any of the pages before this sentence! Then in order to transition from Francis of Assisi Cahill needed to insert an entire “Itermezzo” as he calls it so that he can change topics. At this point in the book it feels like there has been four different books due to it’s sporadic topics and this is all before chapter 3.By the third chapter this book begins to feel cohesive as Cahill Swings from University of Paris, to Abelard, to Thomas Aquinas then fluidly into Chapter four and the University of Oxford and Roger Bacon. From these great academic Minds Cahill Transitions to the arts with Bonaventure to Giotto and Dante. Again however the flow of the book seems to be impeded by the gushing’s of Cahill over Giotto whose writings seem to be more about how the man moved him than about how the man moved history, which is what his book is supposed to be about.Though the form of this book derails the attempt of this book, it is the content that causes most of the derailment. There are a few major omissions of the impact of the Middle Ages from this book. The first is the unification of the People and the rise of nationalism. This is the single greatest impact of the Middle Ages on the modern world. This gave rise to nation states, which gave rise to colonialism, which gave rise to a world run by sovereign nations that lead to the world as it is today. Other things, such as the development of the Church and the rise of humanism are completely left out. The other issue is that by omission to any contrary thought there seems to be an omission to the fact that most of the writing that exists from this time period comes from those of monastic orders because these were the only groups who had the freedom to be able to spend their days writing and serving God as opposed to struggling in a field for their meager existence.Ultimately, the biggest weakness of this book is that it tries to cover too much in too little space. Cahill tries to show major themes in specific characters, but what it actually does is show specific exceptions and not general rules. It could be argued that Dante gave more to the Italian language than he did to literature, and it is easily argued that Hildegard gave more to Christianity than she gave to feminism. These weak points of the book coupled with Cahill’s use of opinion and emphatic statements at times when he isn’t sure of all the facts leads to a unpersuasive book. Cahill is an excellent writer, and while he wrote a good book, it is a book about a less than a dozen characters in s an Eleven-Hundred year time span which he tries to use as proof of the impact of the Middle Ages on the modern world.

I liked the condition of the book. It was just as the seller described.

Thomas Cahill is an academic best known for his "Hinges of History" series. I read the four previous books in the series and written reviews about two of them: "How the Irish Saved Civilization", "The Gifts of the Jews". The fifth book in the series is about the "Mysteries of the Middle Ages". Cahill takes a different approach in this book. Whilst the first four books centered around one topic (Irish clergy in the Middle Ages, the Jews' contribution to mankind, Jesus and the Ancient Greeks), in this book Cahill picks a few "over arching" themes that, in his mind, define the Middle Ages and writes about them from the perspective of one major city. So Alexandria is used to describe Reason; Bingen and Chartres to describe the worship of the Virgin Mary; Florence - poetry; Ravenna - politics; and so on. The book is also different from the previous ones in its beautiful layout and the images and illustrations that adorn every page. Whilst I don't think Cahill has unearthed any "mysteries" in this book, he deserves credit for the presentation and popular (sometimes too popular) style of writing.

Not finished with this yet I admit, but I've read most of his other books in this series. Well written and thought out, unique point of view (if you haven't read "How the Irish Saved Civilization" you need to start with that one, his initial writing in the series) . Professor Cahill's books have introduced me to new ideas, forgotten history, and I recommend them to all students of history. These aren't textbook dry books that are hard to slog through, he keeps the reader interested and I think they would spark a love of history even in those who think they don't like the subject!

I have preferred his other books this was good but a little heavy and told me a lot of what I already knew.

Cahill does a superb job of sifting through history to find the gems in the rubble. What an awesome gift. Thank you Thomas Cahill.