English Wayfaring Life In The Middle Ages

by Jean Jules Jusserand, Lucy T. Smith

English, French (translation)

Genres: History, Nonfiction, France, Medieval, Medieval History

451 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1883

About the author

Jean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand (18 February 1855 – 18 July 1932) was a French author and diplomat. He was the French Ambassador to the United States during World War I.

He was born on 18 February 1855 in Lyon. Jusserand studied at the University of Lyon and then a Ph.D. in history and a law degree in Paris. Jusserand entered the diplomatic service in 1876. Two years later, he became consul in London. After an interval spent in Tunis (Tunisia was at that time a French protectorate), he returned to London in 1887 as a member of the French Embassy.

In 1890, Jusserand became French minister at Copenhagen. In 1902, he was transferred to Washington, where he married an American citizen, Eliza Richards, and remained there until 1925. He represented France during the Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge administrations. He was a confidant of President Theodore Roosevelt and part of his "secret du roi" group. During the Polish-Soviet War, Jusserand took part in a diplomatic mission to the Second Polish Republic. In 1919 he was involved with the Treaty of Versailles.

He died on 18 July 1932.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

This old book by a French guy completely knocked me out when I read it many years ago and I have utterly forgotten why. I can't remember a single detail, not one. But every time my eye rests on it as it sits undisturbed on my history shelf I get a little glow of what I think is happiness. So that makes me think two things - Pavlov's dogs were right, and I ought to reread this thing.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jusserand explores all aspects of life on the road in 14th century England, using literature (Chaucer and other poets, popular ballads, and Piers Plowman), documentary evidence (including a lot of ecclesiastical and secular legal documents, as well as other surviving records), and period illustrations, to create a picture of the roads themselves, the people who traveled them, and how travel affected the country's social and political changes. The sheer volume of records and literature he consulted to research this is staggering. This was actually a bit of a "bestseller" in the late 1800s, perhaps because the topic was both unusual and relate-able, and perhaps because despite the narrow focus on one century, Jusserand writes what we'd now call a "social history" and social histories attract a much wider audience than most history books do.

Although he is a French writer, he bows to English Victorian conventions and merely mentions (without describing) the scandalous behavior and songs of traveling "jongeluers" and buffoons. The section on pilgrims and pardoners includes a number of interesting digressions on relics and shrines, superstition and magic, and related topics. But the section on traveling laborers and "peasants out of bounds" (i.e. runaway serfs) is probably the most important, because he attempts to explain the pressure the Black Death put on the feudal economy when mass death drove wages up.

His thesis is apparently that England's relatively liberal government (especially as compared to the rest of Europe) can partly be traced to the excellent roads left behind by the Romans and maintained by the church and state, for these made travel easier and thus encouraged the spread of ideas -- especially ideas that promoted social change, carried by itinerant preachers, traveling laborers, and lampooning minstrels. I had never known much about the connection between the Lollards (non-academic priests) and the peasant's revolt of 1381. I thought it was just led by workers like "Wat Tyler." (Well really I did not know much about that revolt at all. The German and French revolts get all the publicity!)

Anyway despite some wordy passages (as you should expect in Victorian historiography) and a lot of Latin, I enjoyed this. I just skipped the Latin quotations and skimmed most of the archaic English, trusting Jusserand's summaries.

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly a "product of its time", as the original is around 130 years old. I like the style that history books had then, with a lot more personality and authorial voice in them.

That said ... the book was lacking in a lot of ways. Virtually no discussion of the lives of itinerant peddlers, tinkers, and so on, barely any real discussion of itinerant quacks/doctors, and so on. The discussions of messengers, pilgrims, and religious wanderers was more thorough, which is likely due to better sources on those subjects back in the day.

A pretty good read, but definitely only a small piece of the picture.