3 Review(s)

Galbert of Bruges' ""The Murder, Betrayal and Assassination of the Glorious Charles, Count of Flanders"" is one of the most widely read books of the Middle Ages. It recounts the assassination of Charles, Count of Flanders, and the events leading up to and following the murder. Galbert was a resident of Bruges and had served in the count's administration for at least thirteen years by the time of the assassination in 1127. He was well-acquainted with Charles and many of the other actors in this drama, an eyewitness to many of the events he relates, and exceptionally well positioned to gather information about others. Galbert's chronicle takes the form of a journal, the only one that exists from northwestern Europe in the twelfth century. Edited by two of the world's most prominent specialists on Galbert today, Jeff Rider and Alan V. Murray, this book brings together essays by established scholars who have been largely responsible for the radical changes in the understanding of Galbert and his work that have occurred over the last thirty years and essays by younger scholars. The essays are written by British, Belgian, Dutch, German, Canadian, and American scholars of literature and history, and are divided into four sections - Galbert of Bruges at Work, Galbert of Bruges and the Development of Institutions, Galbert of Bruges and the Politics of Gender, and The Meanings of History. The book includes an extensive bibliography of editions, translations, and studies of Galbert's chronicle, and of works devoted to the reign of Charles the Good and the Flemish Crisis of 1127-28, to the government and institutions of Flanders in the age of Galbert, and to the topography and history of medieval Bruges.