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Автор Ян Мортимер
The Perfect King
The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation
By Ian Mortimer
Non Fiction, History
SUMMARY:
King for 50 years (1327-77), Edward III - like Elizabeth and Victoria after him - embodied the values of his age. He re-made England and forged a nation out of war.
Ian Mortimer has BA and PhD degrees in history from Exeter University and an MA in archive studies from University College London. From 1991 to 2003 he worked in turn for Devon Record Office, Reading University, the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, and Exeter University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998. In 2003 the first of his medieval biographies, The Greatest Traitor was published by Jonathan Cape. He was awarded the Alexander Prize (2004) by the Royal Historical Society for his work on the social history of medicine. He lives with his wife and three children on the edge of Dartmoor.
'His book favourably reassesses Edward's career and his impact on English history, and refutes the calumnies of Victorian historians, who were apt to decry him as a tax-hungry warmonger and focus on the humiliations of his last years'
Alison Weir, Daily Mail
'This is a story which - for its boldness of interpretation, success of evoking the vanished medieval world, and sheer narrative elan - deserves to be widely read' John Adamson, Sunday Times
'The pace, commitment, and gusto of his writing . . . give his narrative real momentum. He has a talent for summoning up the scenes of Edward's military triumphs with immediacy and verve, and he relishes the king's role not only as a diplomat and strategist, but also as an intelligent patron of the arts, architecture and technological innovation' Helen Castor, Sunday Telegraph
'Mortimer argues that [Edward III] was a great man and a great king. It is hard to disagree' Jane Stevenson, Scotland on Sunday
'Mortimer . . . writes with enthusiasm and real knowledge ... He can write an excellent narrative account of a battle' Richard Barber, Literary Review
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This book deliberately employs the ambiguous use of the term Gascony to describe the English-ruled territory in the south-west of France, in keeping with most books on the fourteenth century.
The duchy of Aquitaine — as inherited from Eleanor of Aquitaine - was far more extensive than Gascony but there were times when English authority was squeezed and the two were practically synonymous. It would be convenient to use just the one word to describe the duchy and its extensions, and there is one - Guienne - but it is very rarely used, even by scholars, and would look very odd in a biography. So, in order to avoid the awkward adjective Aquitainian' and the even more awkward 'Guiennese', two terms have been used: Aquitaine for the tide of the duchy and (later) principality, and 'Gascony' and 'Gascon' when referring to the region generally.Most English surnames which include 'de' in the original source have been simplified, with the silent loss of the 'de'. Where it remained traditionally incorporated in the surname (e. g. de la Pole, de la Beche, de la Ware) these have been retained. 'De' has generally been retained in French names (e. g. de Harcourt, de Montfort, de Blois). With Italian names, 'de' has normally been retained (e. g. del Caretto, de Controne, de Sarzana) but where it is customary not to keep it (e. g. Fieschi, Forzetti) it has been dropped.
