The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or
The Waning of the Middle Ages, (published in 1919 as
Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen and translated into English in 1924) is the best-known work by the Dutch historian
Johan HuizingaJohan Huizinga , was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.-Life:Born in Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of Indo-Germanic languages, earning his...
.
Its subtitle is 'a study of the forms of life, thought and art in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries'.
In it, he presents the idea that the exaggerated formality and romanticism of late medieval
courtThe court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
society was a defense mechanism against the constantly increasing violence and brutality of general society.
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The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or
The Waning of the Middle Ages, (published in 1919 as
Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen and translated into English in 1924) is the best-known work by the Dutch historian
Johan HuizingaJohan Huizinga , was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.-Life:Born in Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of Indo-Germanic languages, earning his...
.
Its subtitle is 'a study of the forms of life, thought and art in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries'.
In it, he presents the idea that the exaggerated formality and romanticism of late medieval
courtThe court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
society was a defense mechanism against the constantly increasing violence and brutality of general society. He saw the period as one of pessimism, cultural exhaustion, and nostalgia for the past, rather than of rebirth and optimism.
Huizinga's work has later come under criticism, especially for relying too heavily on evidence from the rather exceptional case of the
BurgundianThe Duchy of Burgundy was a feudal territory in Medieval Europe. It roughly conforms to the modern Bourgogne, although it grew to have considerable possessions in the Low Countries as well...
court. A new English translation of the book was published in 1996 because of perceived deficiencies in the original translation, although the new translation itself was criticized for being based on a German translation of the original Dutch book.
Editions
- The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of Forms of Life, Thought, and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Dawn of the Renaissance, trans. Fritz Hopman, London, 1924 (many reprints).
- The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch, Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Literature
- William J. Bouwsma, "The Waning of the Middle Ages," Daedalus 103 (1974), 1: 35-43.
- Edward Peters and Walter P. Simons, "The New Huizinga and the Old Middle Ages," Speculum 74 (1999): 587-62.
External links
Sources
- The Waning of the Middle Ages, Edward Arnold & Co, 1924. Scanned book via Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building and maintaining a free and openly accessible online digital library, including an archive of the World Wide Web....
. (In Original Dutch)
Other