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Historians have only recently awakened to the importance of the family, the basic social unit throughout human history. This book traces the development of marriage and the family from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the Christian church to forge new concepts, customs, laws, and practices. Century by century it follows the development -- sometimes gradual, at other times revolutionary -- of significant elements in the history of the family:
This compelling and lucid chronicle of medieval life is worthwhile reading for students of history, sociology and women's studies.
Condole: To express sympathy or sorrow; I condoled with himin his loss.
— American Heritage Dictionary
You read it in the newspaper or the telephone rings; the loved one of a friend has died. Among the thoughts that cross your mind are the desire to help in some way, to respond to your friend's sorrow and pain. The wish to condole is such a human trait, yet most of us are at a loss to acknowledge, in a caring and loving way, the grief of others. That's understandable. No one has ever taught us the art of condolence. And when we try to draw from our own experiences of loss, we find that those who have tried to condole us, friends and relations with the best of intentions, have frequently said or done exactly the wrong thing.
We want to comfort, to condole, but we don't know what to write, what to say, o r what to do. Days fade into each other and the call never seems to be made; that letter just never seems to get written. Sound familiar?
What is it about our confrontation with another's anguish that causes a tightness in our chest, a constriction in our throat, the primal urge, tempered only by social form, to run? What causes the words to slip away when we are faced with another's grief? Is it overwhelming compassion, or is it the reflection of our own mortality mirrored in another's suffering? Sometimes, when we respond to the grief of others, our deepest fears surface and we are reminded of our own experiences with the pain of loss. Yet, we know intuitively that in offering comfortand sympathy to another, each of us gains.
Grieving embraces the mysterious, unknowable aspects of existence and has the possibility of lending insight into oneself, one's choices, and the profound human longing to understand. Those who grieve, as well as those who have died, c! an The Art of Condolence. Copyright © by Leonard M. Zunin. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
| I. | Origins | |
| 1. | Historians Discover the Family | 3 |
| 2. | Roots: Roman, German, Christian | 16 |
| II. | The Early Middle Ages | |
| 3. | The European Family: 500-700 | 45 |
| 4. | The Carolingian Age | 68 |
| 5. | Anglo-Saxon England | 99 |
| Marriage and the Family in the Year 1000 | 116 | |
| III. | The High Middle Ages | |
| 6. | The Family Revolution of the Eleventh Century | 121 |
| 7. | The Twelfth Century: New Family Models | 133 |
| 8. | Peasants Before the Black Death: 1200-1347 | 157 |
| 9. | The Aristocratic Lineage: Perils of Primogeniture | 186 |
| 10. | Children in the High Middle Ages | 196 |
| Marriage and the Family in the Year 1300 | 218 | |
| IV. | The Late Middle Ages | |
| 11. | The Impact of the Black Death | 223 |
| 12. | The Late Medieval Peasant Family: 1350-1500 | 235 |
| 13. | A Family of the English Landed Gentry | 251 |
| 14. | A Merchant's Family in Fifteenth-Century Florence | 271 |
| Marriage and the Family After the Black Death | 291 | |
| V. | The End of the Middle Ages | |
| 15. | Legacy | 295 |
| Notes | 307 | |
| Bibliography | 341 | |
| Index | 359 |
Anonymous
Posted April 22, 2000
I purchased this book for a school project. I found the book dry and boring. Too many details to follow and by the end of a page you were not sure what you had read. I was forced to completely read it. Only a history major might find it of interest.Don't wasted the $14.00 on it.
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Overview
Historians have only recently awakened to the importance of the family, the basic social unit throughout human history. This book traces the development of marriage and the family from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the ...