Review: Berns grosse Zeit (in English)

[Christian Folini]

Hi there,

The book i am trying to write a short review about is
monumental one in every aspect. It is in German, but
try to do it in English, so you English-speaking ones
know at least what you are missing. :)

The book is:
Ellen J. Beer, Norberto Gramaccini, Charlotte Gutscher-Schmid et al. (Ed.):
Berns grosse Zeit. Das 15. Jahrhundert neu entdeckt, Bern 1999
ISBN: 3-906721-28-0.
(In English: Berne's great age. The 15th century discovered anew)

Over 40 Authors describe on nearly 700 pages in a format larger
than A4 and probably 5kg the century in which Berne rose to be the
largest republic north of the Alps. This is done via an 
overhelming number of mostly very short (2-6 pages) articles
on many different topics. The book comes with literally near to
a thousand pictures (I did not count them however). This
all for ~80DM.

But is this book any good?
Of course the book tries to be more than just a history of
Berne in the 15th century. It is supposed to be try for
a total history (a history of all aspects) with the example
Berne. Compared to other cities and countries, but always
from Berne's viewpoint. So you will learn a lot about 15th century
but most about Berne.

To give you a clue what total history can mean I will list
the titles of the large chapters and a few of the subchapters
or articles:
The town as room for a living
  i.e. The city's map. A mirror of the society
       Fountain tubes. A new technology
       The city's fortification. Between funcionality and representation
The city's population
  i.e. Illness and Death. In the mirror of the plague-graveyard at the
             Kloesterlistutz
       Migration
       Household items in late medieval Berne
Trade and Trades
  i.e. The topography of professions
       The purchasing power of the money
       The making of lead-tin-marks and pilgrim's badges in medieval Berne
The political daily life - Administration and Territory
  i.e. Official and inofficial Reislauf (phew, that is a tough one.
           it means the Swiss style merceneries)
       The Burgundian wars and its effects to Berne
       The city and its countryside. Conflict and participation as problems
           of the Bernish territory-state (not sure wether you understand
           this coarse translation)
Art in the service of the curch
  i.e. Religious endowments and its motivations
       Bernish oven-ceramic
       The hospitals
Redunancy of the worldly view
  i.e. Painter's and book illustrator's workshops 
       Music in 15th century Berne
       The transit of the medieval "hores" to the modern hours

The authors come from many different disciplines. I have met
some of them and i can say is that they are the best, Berne can offer.
(Especially Urs Martin Zahnd, Susi Ulrich-Bochsler and Armand
Baeriswyl)

I read some of the articles and they are written in a quite scientific
way, but address a wider range of the public. Thus they come with
endnotes rather than footnotes.

Among the best I have seen in the book is the article on purchase power
in the 2nd half of the fifteenth century. I enjoyed it very much
and if i find the time i will post a feature about it to the
list.

If you do speak german and want to have an insight in many 
different aspects of the history of a late medieval capital or 
just the leading eidgenoessish actor in the burgundian wars, then 
this book is for you.

christian folini

'Two plus two equals five for sufficiently large values of two.'
mailto:christian.folini-at-unifr.ch      http://www.tikon.ch/folini
Institute  for  Medieval Studies  at the University of  Fribourg

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