The Axe and the Oath: Ordinary Life in the Middle Ages (review)

In the preface to The Axe and the Oath: Ordinary Life in the Middle Ages, Robert Fossier states his aim as the examination of the ordinary life of the ‘human beast’ (p. x) in medieval Europe – ‘no economic exposé will be found here, no chart of technical achievement, no class struggle: just a poor everyday man’ (p. xii). This is perhaps as clear a description of what is to be found within this book as can be made. Fossier draws upon over four decades of experience in the social history of medieval France to produce what is an immensely wide-ranging, eclectic and engaging study of human life from conception to burial. Spanning a continent and a millennium, Fossier touches upon everything from the weather, attitudes towards animals, and perceptions of social order, to memory, and notions of good and evil. The scope is breathtaking. It was inevitable that it should fail in some respect.

The Axe and the Oath begins with the ‘human beast’. Chapter 1 blends biological imperative with theological world-view. Fossier delineates the physiological being of ‘medieval man’: the way in which it was viewed according to popular theology, and the threats to its well-being such as leprosy and the Black Death. In fact, much of Fossier’s focus throughout this book is upon the physical and material constitution of his subjects, perhaps inevitable given the author’s social–historical background. Fossier does not ignore intellectual and psychological aspects of medieval people – Chapters 6 and 7 treat of ‘knowledge’ and ‘the soul’ – yet it is undeniable that the weight of emphasis in the book falls upon the body of man and its material environment.

My use of the word ‘man’ is no accident. Perhaps a result of infelicitous translation, the all-too-frequent reference to ‘man’ throughout the book becomes grating. In Chapter 2, ‘The Ages of Life’, Fossier does to some extent mollify an impression of sexism. While reasonably pointing out that, so far as the majority of written records are concerned, ‘women were mute’, Fossier does what he can to ‘trace female “counterpowers”’ (p. 82). Yet one cannot help feeling that, while when explicitly speaking of women Fossier is laudably even-handed, the reference to ‘man’ throughout the book indicates more than a quirk of translation – Fossier’s focus does indeed fall predominantly upon medieval men.

Chapter 3, concerned with medieval ‘Nature’, combines elements of environmental science and climatology with medieval notions of the four elements and folk-superstitions. This is a fine example of the way in which Fossier’s eclectic approach can, at its best, effortlessly blend and explicate streams of historical investigation that too rarely meet in a cohesive way. However, Chapter 4, on ‘Animals’, is less satisfactory. Here Fossier’s generalizing grows too vague, and even at times descends into platitude and opinion. While the sweeping scope of Fossier’s topic doomed him to some degree of generality, a greater deployment of vignettes, statistics, and other such concrete examples would have enhanced both meaning and reader enjoyment.

In Part II, entitled ‘Man in Himself’, Fossier turns to less tangible aspects of medieval life, specifically: social organization, knowledge, written and artistic expression, and matters of the soul. This social historian admits feeling ‘ill at ease’ in addressing such ‘mental “superstructures”’ (p. 221), and the second half of the book is both less engaging in tone and more provocative in assertion than much of Part I.

Fossier concludes his book with: ‘In truth, I am not quite sure whom I am addressing. … Simplistic for the erudite, confusing for the student, obscure for the non-initiate? I don’t know; I felt like saying all this, and that is enough’ (p. 384). Here is an author well aware of his work’s limitations, yet refreshingly unapologetic. I have to agree with Fossier; the ideal readership for this book is indeed obscure. Elsewhere the...