Book Review: The Axe and the Oath by Robert Fossier

In 1309 as the cause for canonization of King Louis of France was advancing, a hagiography of the monarch was presented by the Sire of Joinville who had known the king some fifty years prior. In his The Axe and the Oath, Robert Fossier discusses this text while considering the state of writing in the medieval era. Fossier says, “the problem is not to scrutinize the accuracy of an octogenarian’s memories . . . but to know how these narrations were brought together.” Unfortunately, Fossier could easily have been speaking of his own book, for these are both precisely the issues that confront the reader of The Ax and the Oath. While Fossier is clearly indebted to the method and analysis of Marc Bloch, even while calling into question Bloch’s central thesis, it is Fossier’s use of sources and divergent style that cause the reader to question the way he has constructed his narrative and to fear that we are dealing with faulty memories or mere opinions.

The Axe and the Oath is clearly indebted to Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society. In several places, Fossier’s description of the decline of authority (pg. 261), the selection of names (pg. 35), the understanding and use of time (pg. 56), and the importance of custom (pg. 265) Fossier sounds as if he is quoting Bloch wholesale. Twice Fossier cites Bloch by name as correctly advancing a theory of “brownian movement” against a theory of medieval stability (pg. 34, 234). And he clearly shares Bloch’s fundamental determination to “give human beings and their efforts their full place” (pg. 170). Fossier writes that, “Marc Bloch had established once and for all, that the territory of history was the human condition, man or men in society” (pg. ix). This is the very basis of Fossier’s model of anthropological history. Going beyond even Bloch, Fossier employs biology, archaeology, geography, and sociology in a cross disciplinary attempt to address nearly every aspect of daily life.

At the same time, Fossier dismisses out of hand the central thesis of Bloch’s Feudal Society. He refers to speaking of “feudal society” as an “abuse of language” (pg. 243) and goes onto to say, “I have already rejected the terms ‘feudal society’ and ‘feudalism,’ and I have no intention to debate the matter again . . . I do not believe in their interest or even in their existence” (pg. 272). What is debatable is whether or not Fossier adequately substantiates his thesis that “ordinary folk understood nothing of [feudalism] and cared little about it” (pg. 273).

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for the average reader, and perhaps even the historian, to evaluate Fossier’s thesis because of his use, or better, misuse of sources. Though he makes passing reference to demographic data (pg. 26), statistics (pg. 60), and archaeological excavations (pg. 109), Fossier uses not a single footnote, and unlike Bloch goes so far as to eschew the need even for a list of bibliographic references. Fossier repeatedly anticipates his potential critics: “My documentation and most of the scholarly work I intend to pillage,” he warns from the beginning (pg. xi). “It is useless to accuse me of mixing up centuries, of being content with simplistic generalizations, of eliminating nuances of time or place, of using deceptive words and impure sources,” he says; “I know all this and assume responsibility for it” (pg. 383). But most troubling of all is the sense that in doing so, Fossier was willing to “retain from it only what serves [his] purpose” (pg. 265).

Fossier’s decision to forgo the mention of any sources whatsoever is particularly disconcerting given the fact that his announced intention is “to shake up certitudes” (pg. xi). Throughout The Axe and the Oath Fossier asserts his own theses over a “grotesque,” “ignorant historiographic tradition” and its “poor interpretations,” “solid stereotypes,” and “myths” surrounding everything from the role of women in the home (pg. 88), to medieval justice (pg. 268), war (pg. 280), anarchy (pg. 244), the universities (pg. 331-334), and the Cathars (pg. 352). But however accurate his own theses may be, they are usually only asserted, not substantiated, as he races from one topic to the next. The reader is never quite certain why we should abandon the long-held perspectives of medieval historians. And as can easily be gleaned from the quotes above, Fossier does all this with a nearly intolerable condescension for the “few nostalgic historians” (pg. 355), “of a certain mind” (pg. 31), who he expects will offer “facile criticism” (pg. xii), and “outmoded attitudes to dispute evident truth” (pg. 77).

Book Review: The Armada by Garrett Mattingly

As you can well imagine, most of my time is now given over to reading and writing for class.  I don't imagine that too many of the books I'll be reading will be of general interest, but since this particular book fits that bill, I thought I'd share a review I wrote recently:

Garrett Mattingly's The Armada is not only an account of the famous defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English, but of the entire political and religious drama in Europe that coincided with and gave rise to the battle. It is, therefore, a work not only of military history, but also of political, religious, and even gender history. Thanks to Mattingly’s narrative style, The Armada integrates all of these genres of history and succeeds as truly great popular history: accessible and interesting not merely to the academic, but to a broad audience (pg. vii).

Obviously, any book on the defeat of the Spanish Armada should be able to qualify as military history, but The Armada is not merely a recounting of the details of the fleets’ engagement. Mattingly also outlines Parma and Phillip’s diverging plans for the invasion, as well as Drake and Elizabeth’s plans for defending England (pg. 41-48; 76-79; 85; 88-92). Sufficient attention is also paid to the evolution of shipbuilding and design (pg. 196), the tactics of using long-range weapons (pg. 312), the famed crescent formation of the Spanish Armada (pg. 275), and the place of ship-boarding in the English and Spanish strategies (pg. 280).

But true to his conviction that the battle should be seen as part of a total war, Mattingly also places the naval engagement in the context of, and describes carefully, the corollary military preparations and conflicts that occurred on land. Among others, these include the Battle at Coutras between the Henries (pg. 153-157), Parma’s campaigns in the Netherlands (pg. 130-145), and the English preparations for Parma’s invasion (pg. 342-351). Ultimately, Mattingly makes the case that his narrative is significant for military history because the battle marked “the beginning of a new era in naval warfare” (pg. 277). “No naval campaign in previous history,” he writes, “and none afterward until the advent of the aircraft carrier, involved so many fresh and incalculable factors” (pg. 262).

The Armada is also a work of political and diplomatic history. From the beginning, Mattingly states that the events in his narrative are significant “not just as a naval duel between Spain and England, but as the focus of the first great international crisis in modern history” (vi). And so the story begins with the contest between Elizabeth and Mary for the throne of England (pg. 6-28) and is set in motion by the various reactions, in Spain, Rome, and France, to Mary’s execution. Mattingly then convincingly shows how the rivalry between the three Henries for the kingship of France (pg. 218-244), the murder of Henry of Guise (pg. 377), the work of English Catholic exiles in Rome (pg. 56-68) and several other political strands are all interwoven. In particular, Mattingly explores the ways in which the Spanish, especially through the diplomacy and espionage of Bernardino de Mendoza, manipulated religious and political forces to advance the Enterprise of England (pg. 40, 52, 148).

Homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

One of the things I like most about traveling is that it gives me the opportunity to spend time reading on the plane and in the airport. This past month, on my trip home for Christmas, I had the opportunity to finish off a couple of books, both of them memoirs that I had been working on over the previous weeks and months.

The first was “Big Russ and Me” by Tim Russert, the famous journalist and moderator of Meet the Press who died suddenly last spring. Russert wrote this book about his growing up in Buffalo, New York and all the lessons that his dad, Big Russ, had taught him along the way.

The other was “Called Out of Darkness” by Anne Rice, the well-known author of so many vampire novels, including “Interview With a Vampire.” After living for over thirty year as an atheist, Rice wrote this spiritual autobiography upon her return to the Catholic faith of her youth.

Of course, these are, in many ways very different books by very different people. But what struck me about both authors’ reflections was how the Church played such an instrumental part in their upbringing and had shaped their way of thinking and living for the rest of their lives.


Tim Russert paints a picture of his growing up in 1950s Buffalo: attending Catholic school, serving Mass in his home parish and working in the rectory to help pay for high school.

He tells of praying grace before meals, of abstaining from meat on Fridays, and of the Sacraments being rites of passage in school and in the neighborhood. Perhaps most importantly, he tells of a handful of nuns and priests who helped him believe in himself, work hard, and to trust that politics and journalism could in fact be means of service.

Just seven months ago, when Tim Russert died so unexpectedly, his colleagues spoke not only of his work ethic and expertise, but of his deep devotion as a son, as a father, and as a faithful Catholic who simply refused to ever miss Mass on Sunday.

Ann Rice paints a very similar picture of growing up in 1940s New Orleans. She remembers being enthralled by the lives of the saints and praying to their statues at home, and in the church where she attended daily Mass. She tells of New Orleans’ civic calendar revolving around the Church’s yearly feasts and seasons.

And perhaps most importantly, she speaks of being moved, even as a child, by the beauty of her parish church and realizing even then that its beauty was not at all separate from the beauty she also appreciated in the city’s many gardens and tree-lined streets.

Even after struggling with her faith, and leaving the Church, and living as an atheist for thirty years, Anne Rice found that all of her life as an author had been profoundly influenced by her Catholic sensibilities. All these many years later, her deep love of the Eucharist has drawn her back to the Church and she has published two novels on the life of Christ.

As different as these two lives and stories are, what makes them so similar is how thoroughly they are immersed in the life of the Church.

As children, every aspect of their lives was in some way touched by Christ, because every aspect of their lives involved the Church. The Church was able to form every aspect of these two famous people in innumerable ways, and it affected them for the good throughout the rest of their lives.

In today’s Gospel, we are given a metaphor and an invitation for precisely this kind of immersion in the life of the Church.

Hearing John the Baptist announce that Jesus is the Lamb of God, Andrew and another disciple follow after Him. When Jesus turns to question them, they ask, “Rabbi, where are you staying” and He responds, “Come and see.” And the two follow him to where He “was staying and they stayed with Him that day.”

Where is Jesus staying? – Where is the home of Jesus? – Where does Jesus abide?

Where else does Jesus abide, where else does Jesus make His home, but in the Church He founded, the Church that is itself His very body!

If we, like Andrew, want to know this Jesus who is the Lamb of God, we need to find the place where He is staying, and we need to spend the day with Him there – that is to say, we need to have every aspect of our lives, not just an hour a week, immersed in the life of Christ’s Church.

You can tell an awful lot about a person by taking a look around their house, can’t you? So then what might this house where Jesus is staying look like? Let’s imagine together, for just a moment or two, what we might find in Christ’s house.

What are the books we might find on the shelves? Certainly the Scriptures, and the lives of the saints, and the writings of the Church Fathers. But also the great works of literary history, like Dante’s Divine Comedy and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. And we’d find more modern novels and stories by Graham Greene, Flannery O’Connor, Shusaku Endo and hundreds of others.

What art would we find on the walls and in the hallways? The great sculptures of Michelangelo and Bernini, and the paintings of the masters like Bl. Fra Angelico, and Caravaggio and the moderns like Salvador Dali

What music would be playing there? Certainly the great hymns and Gregorian chant of the Church’s worship, but also the polyphony of Bach, Byrd and Palestrina, and the symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven.

What food would we be invited to enjoy there? – The Eucharist, of course, is the great banquet of Christ’s Church, but there would also be great wine, Trappist beer, Capuchin coffee, and all the special foods made to celebrate the feast days of saints, like Joseph, or Lucy, or Nicholas.

Who are the other guests that we would meet in this house? The Apostles and all the martyrs and saints, the great friends of Jesus throughout history would undoubtedly all be there.

The point isn’t that you have to be impeccably cultured to know Jesus – the point is that the Church is not merely somewhere we go once a week to pray. The Church is an entire world, a culture, a way of thinking and being. It is beautiful and joyful. It is filled with all the world’s treasures – filled with any and every kind of art, music, food, literature and person that is inspired by Him, and in turn, capable of revealing Him to those who partake of them.

As He did to Andrew in today’s Gospel, Jesus turns to each of us and asks, “What are you looking for?”

The fulfillment of our every longing is to know Jesus Christ, and to do that, we must follow Him to the place where He dwells and stay there with Him. May Christ make the beauty, the rhythms and the rituals of His Church the very center of our lives and the very air we breathe.

Announcing: "The Gift of the Cross" Fr. Andrew Gawrych, CSC, Ed.

With the overwhelming success of last year's "The Cross: Our Only Hope" Fr. Drew Gawrych, CSC has edited another collection of daily reflections penned by Holy Cross religious, this time specifically for the Lenten season. Once again yours truly has written an entry.

The book is now available through our own publishing house, Ave Maria Press, or through Amazon.com. At just $3.50 this is a steal as it will undoubtedly contain some truly amazing reflections about our congregation's charism.

Announcing: "Captive Audience" by Dave Reidy

I am most excited to announce that Dave Reidy's forthcoming collection of short fiction is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com.

Dave is a dear friend from Notre Dame days who pursued an MFA in creative writing at the University of Florida. He now lives and works back home in Chicago, but he has continued to write on the side.

Obviously I haven't yet read the stories, so I can't exactly do a book review, but knowing Dave, having read some of his previous work, and reading the reviews he has gotten so far, I am quite confident that this will be money and time well-spent.

Head on over to Amazon and show him some love.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own

On Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the annual Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C. Lecture at the University of Portland. This year's lecturer was Mr. Paul Elie, editor at Farrar Straus Giroux in New York City, and author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own.

Mr. Elie's book is the intertwined stories of four great American Catholic authors: Thomas Merton, Walker Percy, Dorothy Day and Flannery O'Connor, all of whom wrote during the 1940's and 50's. "The four exchanged letters, ardently read one another's books, and grappled with what one of them called a 'predicament shared in common'" - that of being a Catholic writer.

If you enjoy good writing, and if you get the chance, read this book. It is itself a very good piece of writing, and it's about some of the greatest American writers of all time - all of whom were Catholics as well.

Mr. Elie's lecture focused entirely on Flannery O'Connor, and what her life and work might have to say to us in our own time. Though in many ways conditions for Catholic culture in America have never been better (a significant portion of the laity are wealthier and better educated than ever before) it is still difficult to define 'Catholic culture' in a way that was much less true in the 1950's.

As a Southern Catholic writer O'Connor made the distinction between culture and Church. She felt that culture was passing, and the Church and true identity were not: they were what truly endured. And so her writing avoids many of the "trappings" of the Catholicism of her era and speaks to the fundamentals of faith: God's existence, grace, redemption, etc. 

As a result, O'Connors writing may resonate better with the searchers of today who would otherwise be bogged down by allusions to a Catholic culture that has radically changed since the 1960's.

I found this to be a most interesting thesis. It brought together so many of my interests: American Catholic history, culture, literature and the modern-day pastoral implications. I'm especially glad that Fr. Charlie Gordon, C.S.C. who organizes the "G.K. Chesterton Reading Group" that I belong to, has decided to have us read some Flannery O'Connor this semester as a little break from our usual fare. We've already had one great evening of discussion and I look forward to more!

Should Have Known Better

On my flight back from Newark I had a long layover in Denver and needed another book - after thoroughly devouring and enjoying Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential."

Having just seen Pope Benedict XVI, I was filled with a certain Papal excitement. Unfortunately, in this excitement I refrained from reason just long enough to purchase Thomas Cahill's biography of Pope John XXIII.

This is of course the "historian" made famous by his best-selling tribute to the Irish: "How the Irish Saved Civilization."  

Here, he uses his significant abilities in polemics and shoddy-history to advance Catholic liberalism.  Even Christopher Ruddy of Commonweal writes that this book is only enjoyable for those

"who like their biography Manichean-style.” In this case, it’s Good Pope John XXIII against Evil Pope John Paul II. 

With the Church I believe John XXIII to be a saint.  And with the faithful of the world, and Pope Benedict XVI I might add, I believe the same to be true of John Paul II.  I tire therefore of the "liberal conventions that only demean John XXIII by making the case for his greatness dependent upon denigrating the greatness of John Paul II" (so says Richard John Neuhaus in First Things).

What's worse, Cahill wields Scripture like a sword, dismissively asserting that every pope before and since John XXIII has failed to read the Gospels well enough - and then conveniently forgetting the Scriptures when it suits him . . . like, say, when celibacy was the topic. The great irony, of course, is that this animus "violates the gentleness so characteristic of Good Pope John, and fails to exhibit the ‘primacy of charity’ that Yves Congar held to be the first condition for all true reform in the Church” (Neuhaus again).

Do yourself a favor.  Just skip this one. 

Without Reservations

We interrupt this review of the Papal Visit to bring you a book review:  

A few months back when I was visiting Kevin and Jeanette Haley in Texas, Kevin introduced me to Chef Anthony Bourdain's show on the Travel Channel: "Without Reservations."  

Since then I've become totally addicted to the show.  It combines two things I'm really interested in: travel and food - and it does so with the most delightfully obnoxious (and yet sentimental) NY/NJ attitude. It's perfect.

So, as I prepared for for my recent trip East I picked up a copy of Bourdain's memoir, "Kitchen Confidential," at the famous Powell's Books here in Portland. I devoured the book on my flights to and from Newark - pun intended.

It's a no holds barred look at all that goes on behind the scenes in culinary schools and restaurant kitchens across the country. And from what some "cookie" (that's the term he uses for chef-types) friends at the University of Portland say, he captures the truth better than anything else out there.

If you're at all interested in things culinary you'll thoroughly enjoy this book.  I recommend it; you guessed it; without reservations.