Those Normans were Stormin! Arthurian legend, crusades, invitations to invade and more...
Written: May 29 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: First half and a bit is superb...
Cons: ... the last bit wasn't...
The Bottom Line: A very good light-hearted history book, it could have been great but the last section lets it down.
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| captaind's Full Review: Horrible Histories: The Stormin' Normans |
Horrible Histories is a series of books by Terry Dreary, light-hearted but gruesome history books aimed at getting kids an perhaps adults with an interest that doesn't extend to reading huge academic textbooks on the subject to delve into history. The latest one I've read, Horrible Histories: The Stomin' Normans deals with those conquerors of Britain and other countries. Here in the UK we spent quite a bit of time on William the Conqueror in 1066, but I was surprised to find just how little I knew about the Normans.
For just over half of its pages, the Stormin' Normans was perhaps the best book in the series that I've read so far. It was incredibly interesting, well-written, and with some very funny cartoons alongside (once more courtesy of Martin Brown). The two things that I really hadn't realised about the Normans (apart from their conquering countries where they had actually been invited in - to ward off other invaders!) were their strong involvement in the crusades and their development of Arthurian legend.
Of course it makes sense that, since the crusades started out from northwest continental Europe, and that's where the Normans were, that they would be among the most ardent supporters of the crusades. Their fondness for battle was, I suspect, their predominant concern in all this, with as so often happens religion being used as an excuse for bloodshed. They had many tales and legends surrounding their crusader knights, and entertainers called "jongleurs" who would recount such tales - while they weren't playing musical instruments, juggling, or performing acrobatics, that is.
Their love of a good story meant that they fell in love with the Arthurian legend the moment they heard it. That he was a great warrior probably appealed to them more than his reputation as a just and noble king, though from the sound of it this might have had novelty value appeal considering their own lords often poisoned each other. They even embellished the tales of the Round Table over time - in fact it is thought that a Norman jongleur called Wave added the Round Table idea back in 1155. About 1190 the bit about the Holy Grail was added, then sometime shortly after this the legend that Arthur isn't in fact dead, only sleeping. So now you know what a great debt Hollywood owes to the Normans!
Several other aspects of Norman life and history are dealt with in this book, including the invitation by the King of Italy (dubbed "The Simple", but that wasn't actually an insult at the time!), Hereward the Wake, quite a bit about William the Conqueror (of course), and other interesting historical figures. For about halfway and a bit more, this is a truly excellent book, And then, for some reason, it all goes a bit haywire. The information is neither as interesting or as interestingly presented, the level of writing and cartooning goes down, and the style seems determined to include as much white space as possible. Though some of it is still interesting it feels like filler material, and once or twice sources quoted seem to be taken out of context.
My theory is that either Deary and Brown didn't have enough time to finish this properly, or they found they didn't really have enough source material for 128 quality pages. The first bit is still so good that I would thoroughly recommend the book as a whole, but if the latter section had been better quality it would have been the best book yet in the Horrible Histories series.
One other feature of some note is that no mention is made of the Bayeux Tapestry (apart from the book's cover, in which one of the characters is saying "We're just part of life's rich tapestry"). Since this is one of the most famous Norman things ever, this seems a bit odd. Not a huge problem, but a couple of pages about it would probably have improved the last bit of the book quite a bit. Still, overall a very interesting book that definitely deserves a place in your collection if you have an interest in this period of history (and aren't too ashamed to have a book primarily designed for children! :-D).
(Thanks yet again to Arianej for adding this to the database for me!)
Links
Other "Horrible Histories" books:
Horrible Histories: The Awesome Egyptians
Horrible Histories: The Ruthless Romans
Horrible Histories: The Angry Aztecs
1066 And All That
Films based on Arthurian legend:
First Knight
Merlin
Merlin Returns
Films based on the crusades:
Kingdom of Heaven
Recommended:
Yes
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