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A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Town in Fourteenth-Century France, by Ann Wroe
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Ann Wroe brings to life a rich and perplexing culture of a city physically divided-as so many communities are today-by political factions in this skillful re-creation of fourteenth-century Rodez. Notes, bibliography.
- Sales Rank: #2448424 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Hill n Wang Pub
- Published on: 1995-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.75" h x 5.75" w x .75" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 243 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Publishers Weekly
Utilizing primary sources and skillful interpretation, Wroe, the American editor for the Economist, brings to life the medieval French town of Rodez in this engrossing cultural history that takes place during the Hundred Years War. Located in Languedoc (now southwestern France), Rodez was divided into halves with different governing bodies: the more spiritual "City," where the cathedral was located and the people were loyal to the English Crown; and the "Bourg," site of the commercial district and a fiefdom of the Kingdom of France. Although Bourg and City were separated by walls, their inhabitants occasionally interacted. Translating from court documents, Wroe details events taking place in 1369 or 1370, when a workman from the City discovered a pot of gold in a Bourg drain and sparked a legal battle over ownership of the gold between a Bourg man and his father-in-law. Although Wroe was unable to discover the outcome of the case, she successfully illuminates the texture of medieval life in the town.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Wroe, a writer for the Economist and author of Lives, Lies, and the Iran Contra Affair (LJ 9/1/91), offers a highly personal but soundly researched historical reconstruction, based on local court records, of an event that occurred in the small town of Rodez in southwestern France in the mid-14th century. Wroe uses the legal disputes arising from the discovery of a pot of gold in a sewer drainpipe to reveal the economic, social, political, and religious culture of the town during a phase of the Hundred Years War. Priests, nobles, ordinary laborers, lawyers, and businesspeople play a role in this imaginatively written mystery, which is a valuable contribution to French local history, family history, and the art of historical writing. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.
Bennett D. Hill, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Singularly engaging and informative, interesting and instructive. [Wroe shows] a sensitive and knowledgeable understanding of the medieval world and those who lived in it . . . [She depicts] a snippet of ordinary life that is also, in miniature, a portrait of medieval society on a larger scale." -- Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
unnecessary specificity
By moderatelymoderate
Just because the town's records named multitudes of people doesn't mean Wroe needed to include ALL those names. It's hard to see the forest for the trees when the trees are each mentioned.
For me, the book started off with some problems, then got interesting, but then got mired in details. I thought all the information about how Wroe came upon the town to research it was a weak way to begin the book. The information would have been better placed as an appendix. And suggesting that Mssr Marques' confusion was due to Alzheimer's makes no sense at all, as "sharp long-term memory" is not associated with the disease. With Alzheimer's you might think you were much younger and your wife was your mother, but this hardly is having good long-term memory.
Then Wroe presented some interesting topics that I wish had been written about systematically. These included the insularity of the residents, their not speaking French or considering themselves French, and the division of the city into one controlled by the bishop and the other by the count. These topics could have been developed better. For instance I was surprised to learn that other area towns had a nominal division, but nothing like in Rodez, with its locally-approved wall.
The court case of the gold coins didn't have a result in the town records. Wroe just writes "the judge made his decision ... [w]e do not know what it was." It seems like some speculation would be given, some reasons for either verdict. And that's sort of what happens, but in a meandering way. How do we know there was a verdict? Perhaps Marques died and the heirs dropped the case.
The worst problem was the lack of an index. I think this was inexcusable. That this sat around for 20 years before publication shows and reflects badly on the author's decision to publish it without revision.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
History From the Ground Up
By Gio
Why has no one made a movie of this book? A magnificent hill town in central France in the century of the Hundred Years War, a prolonged courtroom drama with gold at stake and with the whole community embroiled, a befuddled miser as the central character, his sly in-laws as the antagonists, the clergy and the bourgeousie in subtle conflict. Of course, a lot of the historical data and analysis would have to be omitted - that stuff about markets and trade, civic government, the effects of war on the economy, the efforts of people to avoid onerous taxes - and then a heady dose of imagination applied to achieve a satisfying denouement... but think of it, with Louis Malle directing and Gerard Depardieu as the judge!
I've read all six previous reviews of this book, all six complaining that too much historical information is included to distract the reader from the exciting tale of greed, all suggesting that Ann Wroe should have written anovel instead. Well, pardon me, friends, but you've missed the point. Yes, Ann Wroe writes very well and no doubt could have invented a proper novelistic ending for her narrative, but entertaining you was not her chief purpose. What she's written here is an insightful account of the life of ordinary people in an ordinary town, the sort of people who are seldom observed in history. Here's what she says about her own work:
**The story of [Peyre] Marques was preserved quite accidentally. We know about him only because a pitcher of gold was found buried in the floor of his shop. His son-in-law took it away, and ownership of the money was disputed in court. The result was a full-scale inquiry -- detailed character references, anecdotes, gossip -- about a man who was perfectly ordinary... For that reason alone, this case is precious. History keeps memorials of the great, the saintly or the vicious, but we may pine for the chance to hear about men and women more like ourselves: common folk.
Wroe's chief source for her narrative is the preserved court transcript from a trail in Rodez, France, in 1370. But Wroe also draws from other sources, principally her huge horde of general knowledge about the Middle Ages, the Hundred Years War, the history of the clergy in France, etc. In other words, the trial is only a framework for an attempt to describe the activities and values of a historical community, as little fictionalized as possible. I've studied a bit of this history also, and I've never read a book that captured an image of life in the Middle Ages more vividly yet reliably.
Like one of those reviewers who wanted a novel instead of a history, I enjoyed this book so much that I hoped for a sequel. The divided city of Rodez - the upper town dominated by the Church, the lower town by merchants - seemed so picturesque in the book that I actually drove half way across France to visit modern Rodez. Sadly, Rodez is perhaps the least well-preserved city in all the Massif Central, and much as I would like to follow the descendents of Peyre Marquez, like characters in Zola, on their journey toward the present, there can be no sequel to "A Fool and His Money" for the simple reason that no other such archival source is likely to be found. That the transcript of this trial has survived is a miracle in itself, which Ann Wroe has exploited brilliantly. With history this good, only a fool would ask for fiction.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
`The town was Rodez; the river was the Aveyron. The year was 1369 or 1370, though nobody can say for sure.'
By Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Who owned the pot of gold found in a drain in Rodez, France, in either 1369 or 1370? Was it the man who claimed it, or was it his father-in-law?
`The story was already set, had become news.'
Ann Wroe unearthed a court case related to this gold and while the outcome of the court case is not known, Ms Wroe's research has provided a wealth of information about life in Rodez. Consider: a fortified city internally partitioned into two communities: the more elegant and ecclesiastical City - subject to the English, and the commercial Bourg - subject to the French. At this time, during the Hundred Years War, bandits roamed the countryside, as did French and English troops and mercenaries.
And what was life like for people in this fourteenth century community? The City paid taxes to the Black Prince and the Bourg paid tax (when it couldn't be helped) to the Count of Armagnac. Some individuals managed to avoid tax completely by being unfindable in either place. With separate municipal governments, and considerable rivalry between the two it is easy to see how the ownership of the gold could be disputed and how, unfortunately, the outcome of the court case is unknown.
Ms Wroe's research has resulted in an interesting and readable account of everyday life in a city divided by more than a wall. Somehow, by the end of the book, knowing who owned the gold was less important than appreciating the everyday lives of those in the city where it was found. In dissecting this complicated case, Ms Wroe has put context around the lives and actions of those involved brought the town of Rodez to life.
Who needs fiction when fact is so interesting?
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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