Galbert of Bruges

An ugly incident and resulting civil war are laid out by a probable eye witness to part of the events. It's a good piece of journalism, and the translation is quite readable. As a window on the world of medieval government this is a first rate description of a local power structure and how it dealt with acts of violence. Any historian or fantasy writer should have a well read copy of this book. The incident occurred in 1127, and the writing shortly thereafter.

While this started out slowly, with a long introduction where Ross gave a great deal of background information and analysis concerning the people and events, once I came to Galbert's account that information was quite useful. This was history that was completely unfamiliar to me but turned out to be very interesting. Galbert was a notary at the court of Charles and he wrote a day by day account of the murder and its aftermath, some of which he was an eye-witness to. While the author did add show more some information later and reworked some of his entries, it does have a you-are-there feel. Also, I read many of the notes since they were right on the page and the extra information was sometimes very helpful, even though it slowed me down.

Originally published in 1959 and apparently meant for use as a college text in medieval studies, the editor/translator, James Bruce Ross, spent much of her academic career at Vassar. (Her students called her Miss Ross, her friends J.B.) show less