‘The Cathedral Builders’ is a masterpiece that impresses and irritates

There are books that seem to close off a field. They are so comprehensive and well thought out that later researchers would be wise to look elsewhere for work. It was such a book The cathedral builders. The impression it made in 1976 was crushing. Here spoke someone who had fully thought through and understood the spirit of the Middle Ages. A new, beautifully illustrated edition of this work therefore seems appropriate.

But the spirit of the times is cruel. Anyone who reads the book now can easily become lost in the meandering prose, peppered with comments such as that there is ‘no doubt’ that the Black Death of 1349 led to the ‘decline’ of painting due to the rise of ‘nouveaux riches without cultural education’. ‘. Or you get caught up in the hundreds of cross-lines that Duby draws, from monasteries to knights to art and back again, without clear reason or hard evidence. For example, we read that the colorful clothing of noble women was inspired by stained glass windows. And he casually adds that those windows and those clothes were intended to ‘transpose the real into the unreal’. In short, in his desire to revive the Middle Ages, Duby created a masterpiece that impresses and irritates. But the beautiful illustrations make up for a lot.