Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine: A biography of the Black Prince

by Richard Barber

Worn dust jacket is in a protective sleeve, foxing to page edges, some tape tears on reverse of boards. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Medieval, Medieval History, British Literature, 14th Century

298 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Richard William Barber is a prominent British historian who has been writing and publishing in the field of medieval history and literature ever since his student days. He has specialised in the Arthurian legend, beginning with a general survey, Arthur of Albion, in 1961, which is still in print in a revised edition. His other major interest is historical biography; he has published on Henry Plantagenet (1964) and among his other books is the standard biography of Edward the Black Prince, Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine. The interplay between history and literature was the theme of The Knight and Chivalry, for which he won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1971 and he returned to this in The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (2004); this was widely praised in the UK press, and had major reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

His other career has been as a publisher. In 1969 he helped to found The Boydell Press, which later became Boydell & Brewer Ltd, one of the leading publishers in medieval studies, and he is currently group managing director. In 1989, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, in association with the University of Rochester, started the University of Rochester Press in upstate New York. The group currently publishes over 200 titles a year.

Reviews

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

More readable than Goodman's JOHN OF GAUNT, fewer specific data. Richard Barber complains that there is very little to tell the character of Prince Edward -- since he isn't relying on Froissart for good and sufficient reasons. He does point out that the best-known personal stories about Prince Edward weren't mentioned until long after the prince's death. That's the story of his massacre of Limoges, which Barber dismisses as unbased propaganda; and the title The Black Prince, which doesn't show up until the reign of Edward IV almost a hundred years later. That leaves us, outside of the financial rolls, knowing only Edward's love of battle and dislike of diplomacy. Those can be seen by his actions and business letters. However, what is left for Barber to report appears to be reliable. He finishes with a report of the prince's legend, and again dismisses that as not an accurate picture of the prince. Basically, this biography gives no sense of the prince's personality for most of his life, until his late marriage to Joan the Fair Maid of Kent.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Barber’s biography of the Black Prince is a solid, scholarly work that, unfortunately, is rather dry and dense. It is packed full of data and lends itself more to being a political/military biography than a biography of the man. Part of that may be linked to the limited evidence available – Barber discounts much of Froissart as unreliable and there is little remaining to build up an image of the Prince. As such, Barber concludes that there is little one can say about the Prince’s character besides he liked campaigning and had little patience for diplomacy – though there are little moments where Barber seems to hint at more, such as the mention of the Prince standing silent and ashamed after the Battle of Crecy or his Lollard sympathies. At times, the Prince gets lost in Barber’s narrative simply because there’s not much evidence of what he, personally, was doing. It’s also worth noting that the biography was first published in 1978 and is dated in parts, particularly around the discussions of Edward II and the Prince’s illness. Barber’s main goal in his biography was to strip away the legends that have sprung up around the Prince and look at contemporary evidence for his life and personality. Unfortunately, what remains is so little that there is no real spark of life in Barber’s account. For me, the most serious flaw in this text is that the writing itself is dry and dense and makes reading it a chore.

For those with an interest in learning about the Prince, I’d recommend starting with Michael Jones’s The Black Prince as an engaging, readable and more recent account of the Prince’s life. But Barber’s Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine is still worthwhile reading for those who want to supplement their reading about the Prince or a more scholarly approach.

[Jimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome! Richard Barber is an excellent, well studied historian who writes with a great impartial eye. Everything about the Prince is here, with a fair report of his successes and failures. Anyone interested in the life and campaighns of the Black Prince must read this book!

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book I read a page or two at a time - I appreciated the background it gave on the Black Prince, but it was quite dry most of the time. It dovetailed nicely with Timeline as it was during the same war.