Book Review:
_The Annals of Jan Dlugosz_ [Annles seu cronicae incliti regni Poloniae]. An
english abridgement by Maurice Michael, with a commentary by Paul Smith.
(Chichester, UK: IM Publications, 1997). ISBN: 1-901019-00-4.

Canon Jan Dlugosz, protege of the famous Zbigniew Olesnicki, Bishop of Cracow,
and tutor to the children of King Casimir Jagiellonczyk, was a well known
historian, politician, and scholar of the fifteenth century. His _Annales_,
though sometimes criticized as as derivative of the work of the Anonymous Gaul
and Vincent Kadlubek, is one of the classic medieval works of Polish
history.

The good news is that this abridgement makes the highlights of
Dlugosz's history available to the English reader. The bad news is that not
only is this work an abridgement, but it is also a double translation; that
is, Michael did not translate directly from the Latin source, but worked from
a Polish translation by Julia Mrukowna. While both circumstances lessen the
volume's value somewhat, Michael's abridgement is aimed at retaining all the
interesting tidbits useful to Central European history buffs, as he claims to
have retained "all details of morals, customs, ritual, habits, details of
climate, husbandry, war, prejudices and superstitions." The pre-965 material,
which Dlugosz treated as mythical, has been omitted, so the annals cover 965
to 1480.


Other Polish historians mention that Dlugosz collected every rag tail of
gossip he could find, and he certainly was not an unbiased source. His
accounts of the Hungarians, Germans, and Ruthenians are extremely harsh, as
befits a man living in the dawn of nationalism. Especially as abridged,
Dlugosz has a lively, almost frenetic style, full of humor and told primarily
in the present tense. He synthesized the historical information known to him,
with legends and possibly (according to later historians) fiction to create
an engaging narrative. While the bulk of Dlugosz's history covers time
nearest his own, including detailed and not always complementary descriptions
of fifteenth century politics and of the campaigns against the Teutonic
knights, his depictions of early Polish history even abridged, give more
details of the tangled and war-ridden politics of early medieval Central
Europe than most English-language histories provide. Both historian and
biographer, Dlugosz  never loses his audience in the thickets of confusion
over who is who (at any given time there seem to have been at least three
Ladislauses running amuck). While not an entirely reliable source, Dlugosz is
an excellent writer and a major historian.

In addition to the text, a number of medieval maps are reproduced in the
front pages, though one sometimes needs a modern map to decipher them. A
large number of illustrations, taken from manuscripts and texts of the
medieval period, are reproduced in black and white-- though occasionaly they
illustrate points not described in the text. There is also a list of Saint's
days, useful in interpreting Dlugoz's dating. The Commentary on Dlugosz's work
and the excellent index add usefulness to this volume.