Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #754285 in Books
• Published on: 1975-01-01
• Binding: Library Binding
• 338 pages

Customer Reviews

A "Medieval Journey" that rings true
"Pilgrims, Heretics and Lovers" is delightful. The book explores the beauty, love and generosity expressed in the art, poetry and architecture of the Middle Ages. We usually imagine cruel centuries when interminable warfare and dogmatic religion stamped their marks on lives that seem to us painful, unrewarded and short.

Claude Marks explores the light behind the darkness, leading us through medieval France with learned, sympathetic eyes. In the sixth century he detects the "dawn of gallantry" that accompanied the spread of Christianity. Then he takes us forward: art discovers meter and rhythm, love finds expression in words, pipes and strings release music that tugs at emotions, part-singing introduces harmony that displaces Gregorian chant; and the physical world takes shape in Romanesque, then gothic, stonework of churches and castles. New buildings become points of focus imposing order on their worlds. Next, Marks delivers us into the twelfth century and the poetic triumph of the troubadours.

The age of the troubadours occupies perhaps two-thirds of "Pilgrims, Heretics and Lovers." The first troubadour, Count Guilhem VII of Poitou, unleashed a century of poetry and song. He owed much of his legacy to his grand-daughter, Eleanor of Aquitaine, an important patron of the arts. As the queen of England, Eleanor, "the arbiter of honor, wit and beauty" was not above commissioning books and verse as propaganda. She, and later her first child, Marie of Champagne, breathed new life into the legends of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. Eleanor's commissioned author, Wace, introduced Arthur's Round Table as a tool of politics. With simple clarity, Marks also explains the "mystery" that was Eleanor's Court of Ladies.

Marks was an artist and a stage designer. His book is generous in its use of well-chosen black and white illustrations from contemporary documents as well as his charming line drawings and photographs. A Briton who became an American, Marks knew France as well as he knew his beloved medieval period and its people, poetry and architecture. To read his book is to be transported to the sunlight (mostly) and the scents of thyme and lavender in southwest France. In his second career, Marks brought his medieval world alive in lectures at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. His subtitle, "A Medieval Journey," is well chosen: there can be no better preparation than this book for a modern visitor planning to explore the medieval world. "Pilgrims, Heretics and Lovers" is a time-traveling machine. Having said that, I must declare a conflict. Claude Marks autographed a copy to my wife and me. Later, I dedicated a book to his memory. His work continues to be an important source of research and inspiration. Beyond that, "Pilgrims, Heretics and Lovers" is a wonderful read. Timeless, really.

Robert Fripp, author...
"Power of a Woman: Memoirs of a Turbulent Life: Eleanor of Aquitaine"