Millennium

Millennium
by Tom Holland (2009)

Millennium is Tom Holland’s third non-fiction book. Like the previous two books this one is excellently written. If only school history books were written with similar flair.

Quite a lot happened around the year 1000. Saxons, Vikings, Saracens and others roamed Europe. Popes acquired more power. Life back then was violent and thus kings, nobility and peasants alike had a short lifespan. One could say that in those days social security was on the tip of one’s sword. Provided one was wealthy enough to own one. There is one nice example how people dealt with difficult situations in those days. A wife of a nobleman organised a revolt in a town that belong to her husband and also she had an affair. The response of the husband? He stormed the town and destroyed it. Then he captured his wife and burned her at the stake. All done swiftly and with style. Why indeed bother with divorce lawyers when one can use siege engines.

People back then had a way with words as the following quote demonstrates: ‘…despite their private scorning of Philagathos as ‘slime, the son of perdition, worthy of every curse, a pile of steaming excrement, obese, a man whose true god protrudes just below his wobbling paunch…’’ Nice. Then there was this one pope who was accused of enjoying pornographic floor shows…

All in all a good story about life a thousand years ago.