Getting medieval.(Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe)(Book review)

Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe, by Thomas Cahill (Nan A. Talese, 368 pp., $32.50)

LET me say right off that I had nothing against Thomas Cahill before reading Mysteries of the Middle Ages. I knew him only as the author of a bestselling middlebrow history book, How the Irish Saved Civilization. As an occasional consumer of bestselling middlebrow history books (though not that particular one), I have never sniffed at contributions to the genre. If Cahill discovered that making a learned appeal to ethnic pride sells copies, well, then, bully for him.

Upon reading his latest, however, I cannot believe that this self-important windbag ever managed to find an audience, much less make a killing as a popular author. Perhaps Cahill so despises his readers that he enjoys subjecting them to hundreds of pages of unrelenting fatuousness--at least that would give his writing a Mephistophelean interest. I fear, however, that Cahill is all too sincere. If so, not only should you not buy this book, but you should warn everyone you know against doing so, lest the Cahill publishing juggernaut proceed any further. The sheer awfulness of this book beggars description.

First, the pages are littered with banalities offered as the profoundest wisdom. "Sex has never been absent from any age." "No one, whether Bush or bin Laden, has the right to blow up innocent civilians." Gee, thanks! I had been under the impression that sex was discovered in 1965 and that indiscriminate murder was, generally speaking, harmless fun: like roller skating. How fortunate we are, to have Cahill among us to debunk these popular myths.

Next come the atrocious anachronisms--beginning with the subtitle: "The rise of feminism ..." I suppose one could forgive a writer for his book's subtitle--editors write them to appeal to buyers rather than readers of books. But Cahill seems honestly to believe that in every episode of history is a lesson not only about today, but even about how we should vote. "It is an axiom of history--which it would reward contemporary politicians to consider--that few human endeavors prove as pointless as projects of religiously inspired military idealism unaccompanied by worldly understanding, strategic thoughtfulness, and common sense." If only voters knew of Bernard of Clairvaux, they would never have elected George W. Bush. "[Constantine] even made the detested cross his royal symbol--as unusual a thing to do as would be, say, a governor of Texas electing to wear a tiny electric chair or a poison-filled hypodermic needle on a chain around his neck."

Next, Cahill appropriates all the great men and women of the Middle Ages--and there were many--for his own petulant purposes. Cahill on St. Francis: "'May the Lord give you peace' was the best greeting one could give to all one met. It compromised no one's dignity and embraced every good; it was a blessing to be bestowed indiscriminately. May the Lord give you peace, George and Jacques. May the Lord give you peace, Osama and Saddam. May the Lord give you peace, my annoying aunt. May the Lord give you peace, my unbearable neighbor. May the Lord give you peace, my loathsome enemy." Yup, that's the great Saint Francis, one part Kerry voter, one part Mr. Rogers.

Then we come to Cahill's actual historical judgments. I have nothing against opinionated historians--Paul Johnson comes to mind--but it helps when they at least give an impression that they are informed. When our author speaks ex Cahill, so to speak, however, he comes up with such Unassailable Truths as "Gregory was the greatest and most humane pope in history (at least till the appearance of John XXIII in 1958)" and Bernard of Clairvaux was a "sham saint." The evidence? Not much really, just that Cahill believes it, and therefore it must be true.