A World Lit Only By Fire

[Zorro]

Finished this book last week by William Manchester (American Caesar, Churchill biographies, others).

It's a remarkable description of 16th century Europe as it transitions from an era dominated by superstition to an enlightened period where logic and reason become more prominent.

The corruption of the Papistry and the reaction to Luther's criticisms have a tremendous effect on the arc of European history, and plays a central part in the book's narrative. It's a relatively quick but insightful and interesting read.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Read it several years ago. Remarkably, it began as an introduction to another book ...

... about Ferdinand Magellan.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130718003851/http://www.ahshistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/A-WORLD-LIT-ONLY-BY-FIRE.pdf

While a very readable and lively narrative, I later learned that it was panned by scholars, citing numerous innaccuracies.

[Zorro]

2. I was aware of the criticism beforehand

It seems some of the criticism is because it's not based on the latest scholastic works about life in the middle ages, and that it's derivative from a conglomeration of other sources (Durant's 11 volume History of Civilization is one example) with little original research.

Defenders of Roman Catholicism may also be particularly offended by descriptions of church and papal excesses (Lucrezia Borgia's reported incestuous relations with both her brother and her father the Pope, wild bacchanals in the Vatican, bestowing Cardinalships on the bastard sons of high ranking clergy members, selling indulgences to forgive those already dead, etc).

Nevertheless it is an interesting and illuminating read; for example, the Pope's refusal to grant Henry VIII a divorce from Catherine of Aragon (after a 5 year wait) was because he did not want to offend Charles V of Spain (her cousin), as the Pope was promoting him to assume the crown of Holy Roman Emperor in hopes that he would squelch the rising protestant movement in the German territories.