The Hanged Man: A Story of Miracle, Memory, and Colonialism in the Middle Ages by Robert Bartlett (PDF)

Description

Seven hundred years ago, executioners led a Welsh rebel named William Cragh to a wintry hill to be hanged. They placed a noose around his neck, dropped him from the gallows, and later pronounced him dead. But was he dead? While no less than nine eyewitnesses attested to his demise, Cragh later proved to be very much alive, his resurrection attributed to the saintly entreaties of the defunct Bishop Thomas de Cantilupe. The Hanged Man tells the story of this putative miracle–why it happened, what it meant, and how we know about it. The nine eyewitness accounts live on in the transcripts of de Cantilupe’s canonization hearings, and these previously unexamined documents contribute not only to an enthralling mystery, but to an unprecedented glimpse into the day-to-day workings of medieval society. While unraveling the haunting tale of the hanged man, Robert Bartlett leads us deeply into the world of lords, rebels, churchmen, papal inquisitors, and other individuals living at the time of conflict and conquest in Wales. In the process, he reconstructs voices that others have failed to find. We hear from the lady of the castle where the hanged man was imprisoned, the laborer who watched the execution, the French bishop charged with investigating the case, and scores of other members of the medieval citizenry. Brimming with the intrigue of a detective novel, The Hanged Man will appeal to both scholars of medieval history and general readers alike.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “A gripping, educative and quite often disquieting excursion into [an] alien land. . . . Robert Bartlett examines with verve, scholarship, and gusto the extraordinary story.”—Maurice Keen, London Review of Books”Rich in drama, mystery, curiosity and coincidence. . . . [Bartlett’s]performance opens for us a panoramic window into the world of the Middle Ages and encapsulates an entire culture within the context of a botched execution and a theological inquiry. It is a virtuoso display of scholarship.”—Jan Morris, The Times (London)”As well as revealing the mechanics of execution, the politics of a Marcher lordship and the dynamics of miracle, the testimony in the Cragh case enables us to explore issues as intimate and elusive as how medieval people remembered distant events and how they described units of space and time. Voices of the distant past can be heard again.” ― History Today”A delightful book. . . . Professor Bartlett’s 168 pages are . . . more readable than most thrillers. . . . [I]n The Hanged Man men and women long dead (and, in one case, resurrected) walk and talk across 800 years.”—Byron Rogers, The Spectator”An absorbing book that is elegantly, lucidly and entertainingly written.”—Sean McGLynn, Medieval History Magazine”It is . . . a complex look at history from the point of view of a particular, diverse set of subjects . . . that has the power to generate considerable interest in the medieval period.”—Patricia Clare Ingham, American Historical Review”The Hanged Man. . . . is a fascinating and well-told tale, well worth the reading.”—James Given, Speculum”The author shows that memory is flawed–as modern witnesses all too often demonstrate–and is shaped by the fullness of experience. . . . [T]he genius of this work is that . . . it is a model for teasing every bit of evidence from a brief source to reveal the mental world of medieval people.”—Joyce E. Salisbury, The Historian”The Hanged Man is an outstanding introduction to the politics and culture of late thirteenth-and early fourteenth-century Britain. I recommend it unequivocally.”—Michael Cichon, Canadian Journal of History”The Hanged Man is a yarn in the best tradition, all the better for its historical provenance, a satisfying, engrossing, and remarkable read.”—Michael G. Cornelius, Bloomsbury Review Review “Superb. Robert Bartlett takes an utterly unnoticed text from the canonization dossier and uses it as a window into the politics, society, culture, and devotional world of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. I can think of no other book that gets as much of the Middle Ages into so small a compass.”―Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania”The story of The Hanged Man is so good, so well written and so nicely inflected with wry humor that it makes Medieval history come alive.”―William Jordan, Princeton University From the Back Cover “Superb. Robert Bartlett takes an utterly unnoticed text from the canonization dossier and uses it as a window into the politics, society, culture, and devotional world of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. I can think of no other book that gets as much of the Middle Ages into so small a compass.”–Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania”The story of The Hanged Man is so good, so well written and so nicely inflected with wry humor that it makes Medieval history come alive.”–William Jordan, Princeton University About the Author Robert Bartlett is Wardlaw Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He is the author of The Making of Europe: Conquest, Coloniziaton and Cultural Change, 950-1350. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Thoroughly researched, insightful, and well written, this book delves into a 700 year old event: The miraculous resurrection of a hanged criminal at the intercession of a recently deceased cleric. For an event of that era, there is an unusual wealth of extant historic records, because the miracle was the focus of an official Church investigation to determine whether the deceased cleric was worthy of sainthood. The author sets the scene, providing just the right amount of historical context during the English conquest of Wales. He methodically fills in the backdrop of the hanging, including the central characters in the drama. The author avoids the condescending, politically correct tone that sometimes characterizes modern popular histories of the Middle Ages. He avoids cynical speculation as to the motives of those urging beatification for their hoped soon-to-be local saint. I very much appreciated his fair, evenhanded approach, as it enabled me to immerse myself in the events with all their ambiguity and complexity of faith, miracle, power, pride, and greed. It’s like reading an old newspaper, giving you the “you are here” feeling. I very much enjoyed this book.

⭐The book places a miracle in the middle of a swirl of other activity. Political connections, war, religion, including a canonization, are all examined with this unusual event at the center. It is an interesting snapshot of life in the middle ages, with the camera focused on a man who was hanged twice in the same day and lived to tell about it.

⭐Bartlett does a fantastic job of transporting the reader to the 13th century. I found myself invested in the characters. Fascinating arguments about conceptions of time and space. Enjoyed getting some of the macro history as an informative backdrop. Appreciated the section in the book where Bartlett follows the lives of the notaries after their involvement with Cragh.

⭐Excellent guided walk through all the aspects of the miracle involving William Cragh and the canonization of Thomas de Cantilupe.

⭐a single event put into its context with rich detail about the historical context and participants.

⭐good product, great condition, speedy shipping, I was very impressed

⭐Excellent book.

⭐I don’t know about you, but when I hear that a book features hangings, miracles, and politics set against the backdrop of Medieval England, I think of a Showtime original TV series, not a book that probes into a true court case from 1307. Author Robert Bartlett (also author of

⭐) manages to craft an intriguing and in-depth account that makes the subject of Medieval Law interesting to both scholars and hobby historians alike in The Hanged Man: A Story of Miracle, Memory, and Colonialism.The “hanged man” in questions is one William Cragh, a Welshman who was hung not once, but three times and then resurrected as a result of what may or may not have been a miracle performed by Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford. Twenty-five years later, an investigation was opened to get to the bottom of what really happened in an effort to determine if de Cantilupe deserved to be made a saint.Bartlett takes this fascinating event and uses it as a window into Medieval society. As he explains, “By analyzing the record carefully, as if with a magnifying glass, we can see details of life and thought in the Middle Ages that would otherwise not be known to us. Reading the statements that the witnesses made gives us as good an idea as we are likely to get of spoken words of the past in the time before the tape recorder.”The Hanged Man is enjoyable, easy to read, and entertaining. Not many historical analyses can say that!

⭐The world was so different from ours 800 years ago that without books like this it would not be possible for those with only a casual interest in that period to understand it at all. Reading about battles is one thing, but understanding how the people assessed time and space, for example, gives a much better idea of the way their minds worked. And this book based on the hanging of a poor bloke called William provides more solid information about the period than a whole heap of stories about kings and battles. Recommended.

⭐What a wonderful book; but I should have expected that after reading Bartlett’s The Making of Europe and his England under the Norman and Angevin Kings; 1075-1225. It tells the story of William Cragh, a Welshman, hung for homicide at Swansea in around 1290. He had been sentenced by his feudal lord, William de Briouze, Lord of the Marcher lordship of Gower. Briouze’s young wife, Mary, had pleaded unsuccessfully for mercy but, after the hanging, William allowed her to have the body. She prayed for assistance to Thomas de Cantilupe, the Bishop of Hereford, who died in 1282. William was then restored to life and made a pilgrimage with Mary to Hereford cathedral to give thanks. We know of the case because in 1307, after much prompting from Cantilupe’s successor, Richard Swinfield, a papal commission considered evidence prior to deciding whether to recommend whether the late bishop should be canonised.In a beautifully structured, scholarly tour de force Bartlett brings the story to life with great understanding. He peels away layer after layer revealing more and more of the detail. We find out that Cragh was not an ordinary murderer but a supporter of one of the last Welsh rebellions against the English. We learn of the two Williams de Briouze, father and son, and their hostile attitude to Cragh as well as the softer Mary, step mother of the younger William. We hear the words of the soldier who was in charge of the execution squad and the men present when Cragh showed signs of life. The story links the quiet Sussex villages of Wiston and Findon to Swansea to Hereford to Gascony to Avignon to Cyprus. He are told of the men who gave their evidence in London and at Hereford and the foreigners who provided most of the Commissioners. Bartlett tells us a great deal about the nastiness of medieval execution practices, and how medieval man remembered events and dates as well as how they measured time. The well organised inquisitorial papal inquiry system becomes understandable. The sweep of Bartlett’s story also encompasses the fate of the Knight Templars, Anglo-Welsh relations in the crucial thirteenth century and the phenomen of the comfortable, upper class widow of the period. The development of the notorial system in England adds more interest. The complications of conducting business in a multi-lingual society are shown, the witnesses gave evidence in three different languages and the record was kept in Latin. And we learn about the `little people’ too. The story of Roger of Conway, a little boy who was saved from harm through Cantilupe’s saintly intervention when he fell into the moat of Conway castle as a little boy, so touched one of the Commissioners, Bishop Ralph Baldock of London, that he provided for his future.To tell this story, Bartlett has used brilliantly not only Latin, English, French, German and Welsh printed sources but manuscripts now at the Vatican, Oxford, Hereford, the British Library and The National Archives at Kew. He even manages to trace Mary’s lady-in-waiting, in an eyre roll. A book to recommend thoroughly.

⭐Really good book does not read like history but not culturally embarrassing like as a novel where everybody speaks in NOT REAL MIDDLE ENGLISH. I would read his work again as he manages to pitch it just right .

⭐Superb, only bought it recently and have read it three times already – Professor Bartlett has written an academic study in a style easily accessible to the amateur and with a suprising amount of humour given the topic – whets one’s apetite for more of his writings –

⭐Well written and fascinating account.

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