Synopses & Reviews
Review
Fourteen different French historians trace this triumph [of individualism] in richly illustrated chapters surveying the terrain of privacy by a variety of procedures...The book is a feast for the eye; it isfascinating, often compelling in its exquisite detail.
Review
Profusely and intelligently illustrated, generously margined, and wisely and clearly written...[this volume] invites a profound reconsideration of our notions about much of the past and suggests new ways of lookingat it...We ought to be inspired to think about our own notion and practice of private life.
Review
The material in this second anthology...is personally involving and profoundly informative...This immense work of imaginative history lifts us out of our own constructed walls. It reveals to us not only the shapesand colors of another time, but of our own.
Review
This volume offers a very full, richly variegated picture of the life, in different places and at different periods, of the Middle Ages. The lavish and well-chosen illustrations match the text.
Review
Like its predecessor in the same series, [this book] makes full use of the whole range of evidence and, most strikingly, the visual...This thoughtful, handsome book would be a fine addition to any library.
About the Author
Georges Duby, a member of the Acadandeacute;mie Franandccedil;aise, is Professor of Medieval History at the Collandegrave;ge de France.
Table of Contents
Preface
by Georges Duby1. Introduction
by GeorgesDuby
Private Power, Public Power
2. Portraits
by Georges Duby,Dominique Barthandeacute;lemy, Charles de La Ronciandegrave;re
The Aristocratic Households of Feudal France
Communal Living
Kinship
Tuscan Notables on the Eve of the Renaissance
3. Imagining the Self
by Danielle Randeacute;gnier-Bohler
Exploring Literature
4. The Use ofPrivate Space
by Dominique Barthandeacute;lemy, Philippe Contamine
Civilizing the Fortress: Eleventh to ThirteenthCentury
Peasant Hearth to Papal Palace: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
5. The Emergence of the Individual
by Georges Duby, Philippe Braunstein
Solitude: Eleventh to Thirteenth Century
Toward Intimacy:The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Bibliography
Credits
Index