Philippe de Mézières and His Age: Piety and Politics in the Fourteenth Century

by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (Editor), Kiril Petkov (Editor)

Philippe de Mézières (1327-1405) was the quintessential man of all seasons of the fourteenth-century Mediterranean. A scholar, a soldier, a mystic, a man of affairs, a royal adviser and an incessant traveler around the Mediterranean, a prolific writer and an associate of religious orders, a champion of the crusade and no less an ardent advocate of peace in the West, a Frenchman, a Cypriot, and a Venetian citizen, he captures the spirit of his age like no other man.

This volume, the first to address Philippe and his legacy comprehensively since 1896, gathers twenty-two contributions of original research shedding new light on Philippe’s literary, political, and mystical writings, and places him in the context of his age and his contemporaries.

Contributors are Michel Balard, Adrian Bell, Joël Blanchard, Kevin Brownlee, Evelien Chayes, Philippe Contamine, Anne Curry, Daisy Delogu, Peter Edbury, John France, Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Henri Gourinard, Michael Hanly, David Jacoby, Sharon Kinoshita, Anna Loba, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, Sylvain Piron, Andrea Tarnowski, Stefan Vander Elst, Lori Walters, and David Wrisley.

608 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2011

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but another excellent guide to understanding the period. I really do prefer to concentrate on a few people once I have an overview, on my way to getting some idea of the intellectual and ethical world in which they lived. This book was excellent for that, but not sure it would be anyone's everyday read.