THE KINGS WHO MADE MEDIEVAL FRANCE

The Capetians are the subject of my favourite new history book of the year so far

Twice a year the books desk at the Sunday Times in London sends me a long list of books due for publication in the coming six months.

It’s one of my favourite moments of my working calendar. I clear my diary for an hour, turn off my emails, then go through the list with a pencil, underlining anything that catches my eye, and getting excited about the prospect of some new history (and occasionally, sport, fiction, true crime, etc) titles that take my fancy.

Then I send my wishlist to the editors, hope they approve my choices, and wait for the commissions to come in. I usually write once or twice a month. It’s a lovely job, one I’ve enjoyed for the last decade and would be very sorry to give up.

When the most recent list came in, the first book I stuck up my hand to review was House of Lilies by Justine Firnhaber-Baker. It’s a dynastic history of the Capetians, who ruled France from the tenth century until the fourteenth, and produced some of the most fascinating monarchs in medieval history: Louis VII, Philip Augustus, Louis IX and Philip IV among them.

The rulers of France are relatively poorly served in English historical writing, so the idea of a new dynastic biography, providing an overview of both the family and their times, was very appealing. I have Professor Firnhaber-Baker’s book about the Jacquerie on my shelves and hoped she would do as good a job with a broad-strokes ‘popular’ history as she did with that slightly more academic and narrowly focused monograph.

House of Lilies does not disappoint. My review appeared in this weekend’s Sunday Times. I’ve pasted it below for subscribers to this newsletter. (Of course, if you’re a Times subscriber, you can check it out on their website via this link.)

The short review is: I would encourage anyone with an interest in the later Middle Ages to pick up a copy of this book. It’s a bright, brilliantly readable narrative with a tight scholarly thesis at its core and more weird and wonderful anecdotes than you can shake a baguette at.

It is early in the year to pick my favourite history book of 2024. But when Christmas comes, I expect House of Lilies to be in the conversation.