medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Cecilia Gaposchkin <[log in to unmask]>
>I do *not* know Zoe Oldenbourg. Sounds worth reading.
i think she is --though a bit "dated" (to the extent that a historical
novelist can be dated).
Russian born lower aristocracy, emigréed to France in the '20s,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9_Oldenbourg
and
http://books.google.com/books?id=ncN7uneLKrcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=Oldenbourg&f=false
her early translated novels (The World is Not Enough and The Cornerstone)
appeared in the U.S. in the mid-50s and are, as i said, rather common, being
Book of the Month Club selections --they deal with the travails (feuds and
pilgrimages) of a couple of generations of a single mid-level castellan family
from near Troyes in the 12th c.
by no means a writer of the same rank as, say, Sigrid Undset, her work is
nonetheless quite readable and, i find, worth doing so for the many
"incidental" details which are woven into her stories --most clearly taken
from contemporary literature. she does have the ability to "humanize" and
"flesh out" her characters in an interesting (and, i believe, historically
accurate) way.
after her virtual time in Champagne, she seems to have become increasingly
interested in the South, writing the non-fiction Le Bûcher de
Montségur/Massacre at Montségur (1959) and the Albigensian/Cathar novels,
Les Brûlés/Destiny of Fire (1960) and Les Cités Charnelles: ou, l'Histoire
de Roger de Montbrun/Cities of the flesh: or, The story of Roger de Montbrun
(1961).
these later novels are, if my dim memory serves, considerably denser than the
early ones, and, needless to say, much more "biased" (how can one write about
that "crusade" without bias?). both of these are quite scarce, never being
BoMC selections, but should be findable on The Innernets.
i've certainly not kept up with the literature, but they might be decent
reflections of the état de la question cathare at the time that they were
written.
Her history of Les Croisades/The Crusades (1965), another BoMC selection, is
commonly found in used book stores (if any of those quaint institutions still
exist) and Salvation Armies, charity shops, etc.
i've never seen her (untranslated) Saint Bernard. Textes de Saint Bernard,
Abélard, Pierre le Vénérable, Geoffroi de Clairvaux, Bérenger de Poitiers,
Bossuet (1970), and, indeed, had never heard of it.
but, she's not really an historian --rather, a quite good popularizer, writing
for what is now an almost non-existent audience: the literate, educated layman
(or, theoretically, i suppose, laywoeman).
i've not seen
Theodore L. Steinberg, "The Use and Abuse of Medieval History: Four
Contemporary Novelists and the First Crusade", Studies in Medievalism, II.1
(Fall 1982), pp. 77–93.
so i don't know whether he classes her as a User or an Abuser.
as i said, i'd certainly recommend her, for the purpose of making her subject
period easily accessible, to u.s. undergrads (or, grads, for that matter)
--and have-- but i'd be interested to hear some criticism of her fiction from
the point of view of historical "accuracy" (whatever the hell that might be).
c
p.s. though i've not looked at it in several decades, Sir Stephen Runciman's
The medieval Manichee: a Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy is a very good
read, as one might expect from an historian of his caliber.
appears to be all here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=d1LGB7u5iD0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=runciman+medieval+manichee&source=bl&ots=aR59RRetz6&sig=8T5c7fDAEz1513-58TBOEMOSFOI&hl=en&ei=5m2cTfnSF8KEtgfGvPDLBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
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