by Richard Barber (link)
To be fair and upfront, this book left me with a somewhat unsatisfied feeling. It's title would suggest it is about Edward III's eldest son, known as the Black Prince, who was a legend in his own lifetime. It is, but I know nothing really more about the Black Prince that I did before I read this book. The most fundamental reason for this is not the fault of Richard Barber, at least not directly. Rather it is simply because very little personal detail has survived regarding the Black Prince. Some of this is just the luck of the dice, and some of it is a byprodut of the Black Prince being immortalised in his own lifetime. What we get therefore is a history of the times in which the Black Prince lived, centred on him. In essesence therefore this book is a history of the first forty years or so of the Hundred Years War, with one Spanish interlude.
In and of itself this is shift in perspective is actually quite interesting. Histories of the period inevitably view things from a more national perspective, or from the perspective of the respective rulers. Seeing the Poitiers campaign being told from the Prince's point of view is a benefit I take from it. However, that is not the book I really wanted to read.
Undoubtedly the great weakness of the book is Richard Barber's inablitiy to paint a picture. There are few direct personal details, but plenty of the accounts of the Black Prince survive. We get hints of these when Barber tells us a little of what the Prince's shopping bill was one Christmas, or the expenses for a tournament. What Barber is unwilling to do is take these bits and pieces - almost the literary equivalent of the archeologists rubbish dump - and weave them together. About the best he can manage to that the Black Prince liked the high life, but from what he quotes I am willing to wager a fuller picture could be crafted.
It seems that Richard Barber is unwilling to engage in even the most rudimentary speculation, why I do not know. As someone who cut his teeth in ancient history where speculation of one sort or another is a simple necessity I find this reluctance to use the the faculty of constructive imagination baffling to say the least, and I am always inclined to put such prejudices down to academic pretensions. This may or may not be true in this case, I genuinelly do not know.
Anyway, short review is that this is an interesting look at the Hundred Years War between the 1337 declaration of war and the end of the 1370s, but it at best a mediocre history of the Black Prince.
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