Barbara Tuchman's magisterial work, follows this great family in the service of the great nation of France. Scion of perhaps the most powerful and wealthiest baronial family in France, Coucy lead a fairly amazing life. And then, why even be afraid, cautious and serious about something you normally expect and see almost on a daily basis?

More pillaging, killing, raping and hostage taking ensued from mercenary Free Companies made up of former soldiers, mostly Englishmen who did not want to give up their way of life when the military campaigns ended. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, Tuchman was one of the great author/historians of her time, or any time. As in any age, it makes for more comfortable living being at the top rather than at the bottom of the social scale. One French nobleman, the Sire de Coucy who plays a central role in the book, tried to rein them in, hanging culprits daily, but against “men habituated to lawless force punishment failed to bring the violence under control. He is like Sean Patrick Flanery in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, showing up and playing a role in a remarkable number of landmark 14th Century events.The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 pitting the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois for control of the Kingdom of France. He had had one temperamental and extravagant wife eight years his senior, and a second approximately thirty years his junior. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review.

But given the amount of material that marshals in front of one’s eyes, as colorful as overwhelming pageants and breathtaking jousts, and as dense as the tightly woven wefts and warps of a tapestry, there is no way I could attempt to give a glimpse with my own words of what Barbara Tuchman has achieved with this book. I am now reading Tuchman’s The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam and I hope it will be equally good. From the high and mighty to the low and overworked, Tuchman touches on all the social, economic, and military changes, and disasters, of the time. Tuchman chose him as a central figure partly because his life spanned much of the 14th century, from 1340 to 1397. By the way, I have been up to see the castle of Chaucy which is the epicenter of this book and, unfortunately, there is precious little to see - the chateau was demolished during the World Wars of the 20th C.But then, I’ve read quite a few books on Ancient Greece and Rome and have never felt they are receding too far into the distance (although, admittedly, there is a sense in which Classical Societies do seem closer to us than those in the Middle Ages). This transformation from the feudal system enabled the lords to squeeze the peasants mercilessly by charging rents for everything while no longer bearing any responsibility for the peasants’ wellbeing.

In my own review (totally pathetic compared to yours), I explained that focusing on Enguerrand was clever. She describes the lives of peasants and knights and lords; she describes their faith; their clothing; their jobs; their sexual practices (apparently the chastity belt “rests on only the faintest factual support”).The internal lawlessness was also prevalent, especially after 1376, when the Statute of Labourers meant that the wages of farmers remained those of pre-plague years. Medievalists tend to take themselves rather seriously, so it’s fairly easy to ignore their sniffing (and their dry monographs). He is a perfect character to follow since he is thus connected to both the French and English nobility, the two warring nations.

The treatment of Jews throughout this century is also something that is designed to induce nightmares. Nadia May or Donada Peters) has narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, has earned numerous Earphones Awards, and was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine. The 14th century’s toll of countless wars, rampaging mercenaries, ruthless governance and mindless preoccupation with glory and indulgence of those in power left France and England in serious decline. One must take in score after score of kings, nobles, popes, prelates and others and their complex relationships as well as Middle Ages political geography.

But it's not so much Tuchman's command of language that draws you in as her infectious enchantment with her subject: the period of Western European history beginning with the Black Death of 1348 and ending with the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the early 1400s, all as seen through the life of a single French nobleman. I hadn’t read anything before this that had made History seem so weird, nor had any history book made me want to read much deeper into the subject.