Middle Ages after Dark

[February 14, 2003] - Spanish mystic poet St John of the Cross captured a deep emotion, and deep sense of the Middle Ages, when he described the ‘dark night of the soul.’ The notion was mined by many a diarist and poet over the years that followed.

In Night in the Middle Ages, night takes center stage, and while the souls that make their transits there show their personalities at times, its night’s dominion over them that is the story.

How dark was it? Very. Night in the Middle Ages is determined. Jean Verdon digs amidst all kinds of documents to tell as well as possible what went on at night back then. If a murder took place, and it was after dark, then it is fodder for the author. Sometimes the feel is of a police blotter, and the perspective may be skewed. The feel is also that of Wisconsin Death Trip, which found a landscape of suicide, vagrancy and general doom in a late 19th Century Wisconsin that most folks’ memories had turned into a prarie of little happy homeland houses.

Sometimes Night in the Middle Ages seems unremitting. It becomes like one of those nights, when sleep is a job, the dreams come in series, and morning is always an eternity away. But St John, Francois Villon, Gregory of Tours and others make appearances. Which is a worthwhile. For a person who cant get enough of that medieval stuff, who finds enchantment in those wine cask days in those Scholastic years, may rate it a good read.

Last update: 4/12/2003; 11:47:35 AM.