Franklin Library: Fourteenth-Century Europe: Plague

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Franklin Library: Barbara Tuchman: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century Franklin Library FULL Leather top-of-the-line edition of the Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitious Fourteenth Century, one of the FIRST EDITION SOCIETY series, published in 1978. Bound in a Most Handsome black Moroccan cowhide, the book has scarlet red French moire endleaves, satin book marker, hubbed spines, 22 kt. gold gilding on three edges---in near FINE condition. Barbara Wertheim Tuchman, who lived from 1912 – 1989, was an American historian and Pulitzer Prize winner. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century , published in 1978, focuses on life in 14th century Europe. To provide a central figure to weave a narrative around, Tuchman chose the French nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy, partly because he lived a relatively long life and could therefore stay in the story during most of the 14th century. Coucy was born in 1340 , seven years before the Black Death began in southern Italy . Coucy was a French noble, but he married Isabella , the eldest daughter of Edward III of England . Europe was no stranger to the plague. In the sixth century a devastating epidemic struck Constantinople and swept westward through much of what is today Greece, Italy, France and Spain, and since then there had been periodic outbreaks of the disease. There would also be another notable plague in the sixteenth century. But these events would pale in comparison to the overwhelming pandemic of the 1340s and -50s that would later be known as The Black Death. The "Plague" spread swiftly through Europe from ship to city to village and countryside. The very whisper of its proximity could spark panic. It is no surprise that it followed trade routes both by land and sea, carried by infected humans as well as by rats and their attendant fleas. These routes were fairly well-established byways by which many people traveled, not only for purposes of trade but for pilgrimage and education. With the quickly-transmitted pneumonic form of the disease in such full force, it usually didn't take long for panicking victims to carry it from a stricken city into the countryside. This phenomenon allowed the Black Death to cover more territory away from seaports and major trade routes and into more isolated places than any previous epidemic. The book covers the Hundred Years' War , the Black Plague , the papal schism , pillaging and popular revolts. The title A Distant Mirror refers to the author's implication that the death and suffering of the 14th century reflects that of the 20th century, especially the horrors of World War I. In a Special Message to subscribers, Tuchman wrote, "As we now live under the shadow of the bomb, people of the 14th century lived under the shadow of the Black Death (bubonic plague), which recurred every twelve to fifteen years after its initial, lethal eruption in mid-cnetury (1348-50). Like us, they suffered the underlying anxiety that comes when there is no sense of an assured future. Both periods feared for the survival of man, in our time through nuclear warfare and overpopulation, in theirs through the plague and underpopulation." Tuchman's "Distant Mirror" portrays fifty years of a tormented and bewildered society. It was a horrible pandemic that killed millions, initiated economic instability, and set the stage for acts of great cruelty, kindness, and the bizarre. No one really understood what it was or how it had been caused, so people prayed, sought answers in the mystical, tried extreme acts of penitance or struck out in fear. It touched virtually every soul in Europe from the far reaches of ice-laden Norway to the sun-drenched hills of Italy. The "mirror" of the title reflects no specific events but the image of an age caught like ours in recurring violence, collapsing assumptions, and a sense of forces beyond our capacity to control. Shipping in U.S. with media postage is $4.00 or $10.00 priority---or actual charges world-wide. Seller accept PayPal or personal checks---held until check clears bank---or i... read more

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