Feudalism for All
The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042-1216. By Frank Barlow. (Longmans, 25s.)
FOR many years professional historians have been sniped at for their alleged failure to communicate their findings to the educated public. They have been accused of a mandarin contempt for lesser mortals outside the academic pate, of a narrow specialisation that stultifies the will and capacity for general synthesis, and of a pedantic distaste for stylistic elegance–Whatever truth there may have been in these charges before 1939, there is no doubt of their irrelevance to the post-war situation. Indeed, it is arguable that far too much time is now being spent by distinguished historians in writing ceuvres de grande vulgarisation, instead of advancing the frontiers of knowledge. (A cynical explanation of this development is the urgent need of both the young don and the retired professor tc augment his income in an inflationary age.)
For far too long the basic account of English history for the sixth form schoolboy and the interested layman has been the famous red Methuen series, edited by Sir Charles Oman. Admir- able in its day, it is now badly dated, and the appearance of a com- pletely fresh series, of which this is the second volume to be published, is warmly to be welcomed. In conformity with a current tendency to play down the significance of the Norman Conquest, Mr. Barlow begins his volume not in 1066 but in 1042. This is quite certainly a mistake, for if ever there was a really decisive event in English history, it was the dispossession of the whole ruling class of the country by some 6,000 alien adventurers in the years after 1066. Not even the democracy and death duties of the last half-century have 'wrought so fundamental ' a revolution in the possession of tvealth and power. After his preliminary canter around pre-Conquest England, Mr. Barlow settles down to tell his story, first of the settlement and exploitation of the newly conquered kingdom, then of the growing development of the centralised monarchy throughout the twelfth century, and lastly of the consequent tension between Crown and Church and Crown and baronage, culminating respectively in the murder of Becket, and Magna Carta. This is a competent, workaday book, which incorporates most of the findings of modern scholarship. It does not, however, convey much of the atmosphere of the period. The little incidental touches, the significant illustrations, and the striking character sketches that give life and warmth to history are rarely to be found. One looks in vain for the apt quotation or the pungent aside. And all too often the perfectly accurate generalisation is left naked aid
cold without the clothing of a concrete example. Even the Angevin kings, those ferocious individualists with their red hair and their flaming tempers, fail to come to life, despite the wealth of malicious anecdote left us by the chroniclers and raconteurs of the age. But there are also sterling merits. A long, central chapter on social changes provide an admirable picture of twelfth-century life, and the comments on military techniques and methods are always interesting and important. The narrative flows smoothly onwards, if perhaps with less analysis than is desirable, and the chapters are balanced and well proportioned. If Mr. Barlow's reader is rarely excited, he is certainly kept well informed and he knows he is in safe and sensible hands.
LAWRENCE RIVNE
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