Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Georges Duby, Formerly at the College de France'Georges Duby is one of the brightest stars in that sparkling galaxy of French historians which has lit up the historical writing of the later 20th century ... the book contains short expositions of many of his most brilliant insights.' <i>The Guardian</i> <p>'There is little doubt that Duby is one of the most interesting and original historians at work in Europe today. This book is up to his usual high standards of scholarship, penetration and readability.' <i>Peter Burke, University of Cambridge</i></p> <p>'Duby's vision is fascinating [and] compelling.' <i>Emma Hawkes, University of Western Australia</i></p> <p>'It is difficult to think of any other historian who has been surrounded by so much respect and esteem.' <i>Douglas Johnson, The Guardian</i></p>
Authors Note.
Part I: Love and Marriage.
1. Marriage in early medieval society.
2. What do we know about love in twelfth-century France?.
3. The matron and the mismarried woman.
4. On courtly love.
5. Le Roman de la Rose.
6. Towards a history of women in France and Spain.
Part II: Family Structures. .
7. Family structures in the West during the Middle Ages.
8. An examination of aristocratic family structures in eleventh-century France in relation to State structures.
9. Philip Augustus's France. Social changes in aristocratic circles.
Part III: Culture, Values and Society. .
10. Problems and methods in cultural history.
11. The history of value systems.
12. The Renaissance of the twelfth century: audience and patronage.
13. Observations of physical pain in the Middle Ages.
14. Memories without historians.
15. Heresies and societies in pre-industrial Europe between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries.
Index.
By examining the poetry and practice of courtly love and the mores of aristocratic marriages, Duby shows the Middle Ages to be male-dominated. Women were regarded as symbols, as figures of temptation who paradoxically had no desires of their own. Duby argues that the structure of sexual relationships took its cue from the family and from feudalism - both bastions of masculinity.
In the second part of the book, Duby reflects on general issues in the writing of cultural history, on the history of pain and heresy, and gives a personal view of the state of historical research in France over recent generations.