The Autumn of the Middle Ages

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The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or The Waning of the Middle Ages, (published in 1919 as Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen and translated into English in 1924) is the best-known work by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga. In it, he presents the idea that the exaggerated formality and romanticism of late medieval court society was a defense mechanism against the constantly increasing violence and brutality of general society. He saw the period as one of pessimism and nostalgia for the past, rather than of rebirth and optimism.

Huizinga's work has later come under criticism, especially for relying too heavily on evidence from the rather exceptional case of the Burgundian court. A new English translation of the book has been published in 1996 because of perceived deficiencies in the original translation.

[edit] Editions

The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of Forms of Life, Thought, and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Dawn of the Renaissance, transl. by Fritz Hopman, London, 1924 (many reprints).
The Autumn of the Middle Ages, transl. by Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch, Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1996.

[edit] Literature

William J. Bouwsma, The Waning of the Middle Ages, in Daedalus 103 (1974), 1: 35-43.
Edward Peters and Walter P. Simons, The New Huizinga and the Old Middle Ages, in Speculum 74 (1999): 587-62.