Sex, Corn, and six friends named Pierre

Critique of Ladurie’s Montaillou

Montaillou is a wonderfully detailed history, taking the reader inside the often dramatic lives of the residents of this tiny 14^th century village in the Pyrenees. In many ways it reads like a novel, albeit a novel in which the author was weirdly restricted to using about a half-dozen names, so that almost all the characters are named Pierre, Guillaume, Bernard, Jean, Raymond, or Arnaud, or the feminine versions of these names. Still, the stories are compelling (once you figure out who the author is talking about), and the details provided by this micro view of history would not be possible at a broader level.

Having mentioned the microanalysis Ladurie applied to this study, it is important to acknowledge that he did not allow himself to be entirely constrained by the microhistorical approach. At several points in the book the author ventures beyond the Montaillou microcosm to explore the external forces at play, as when discussing the idea that the “communal spirit, far from being a survival from pre-history, must have developed in upper Ariège between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries…” (pg. 106), and when offering a comparison of the Occitan and Mediterranean notions of fate (pgs. 132 & 288). Much as a more conventional history might include minute details to clarify some aspect of a broader story, a microhistory can “zoom out” to provide large-scale context for particular actions or events.

Montaillou illustrates some of the benefits of the microhistory approach, but it is not without its shortcomings. Like all authors, Ladurie is a man of his times, and when he was writing in the 1960s and 70s he was necessarily shaped by his environment. Conclusions he reached then might not be reached by someone writing this story in the 21^st century, and it is likely that an historian writing today might key into different topics for deeper exploration. For example, Ladurie writes about Arnaud de Verniolles, a boy between 10 and 12 years old, who was sexually abused at a boarding school (pg. 145). “[T]he harm was done,” Ladurie writes. “A latent tendency was awakened, and Arnaud de Verniolles was doomed to become a homosexual.” Not only would a modern author be lambasted for concluding that sexual abuse would “doom” a child to become a homosexual, but this story might well serve as a segue to zoom out, as described above, for a discussion about how common such an occurrence would be in 14^th century Europe.

Another concern with Montaillou has to do with translation. The primary sources Ladurie consulted for the book were originally spoken in Occitan, recorded in Latin, developed into a history in French, and then (in the version we read) translated again into English. Readers must keep this in mind, and recognize that this chain of translations can produce errors. For example, Montaillou includes dozens of references corn, cornfields, reaping corn, etc., but corn as we know it (maize, or maïs in French) is indigenous to the Americas and was not introduced to Europe until the Columbian Exchange of the 16^th century, so could not have existed in Montaillou in 1308. It is likely that the crop in question was actually wheat or some other grain, which, along with corn, can be generically translated as blé in French. This is obviously a minor and somewhat nitpicky point in terms of the larger story of Montaillou, but it highlights the fact that such errors occur, and if it could happen with corn, what else may have been translated incorrectly?

Overall, Montaillou is an excellent introduction to the concept of microhistory. It is well written, intimate, and provides a view of life in medieval Europe that would not be possible in a conventional historical survey. Most of all, it made me look forward to the other microhistories we will read in this course.