A notable historian of the Middle Ages
By Jonathan H. Jones
In writing a review of the new biography of King Henry V by Dan Jones, why not also reflect on the career and contributions of this author.
Dan Jones is 43 and a popular historian with a gift for writing exciting, narrative history backed by meticulous research. Of Welsh parentage but raised in England, he took a First-Class Honours degree in History at Pembroke College, Cambridge and then embarked on a successful career as one of the foremost medieval historians of our time.
Starting his career with Summer of Blood: The Peasants Revolt 1381 (2009), his second book The Plantagenets :The Kings Who Made England attracted a lot of attention and made the New York Times best seller list in 2012.
Books on the Wars of the Roses and the Knights Templar cemented his reputation, and in 2021 he wrote “Powers and Thrones”: A New History of the Middle Ages, which I would recommend as a stimulating starter book for anyone new to the Middle Ages.
He has also branched out into historical fiction with the Essex Dogs, a tale of the 1346 invasion of Europe centred on a group of fictional longbowmen. Moreover, his twelve-part series “Secrets of Great British Castles” has been a success on Netflix and many examples of his television work can be found on YouTube.
The book that I reviewed for Medieval World: Culture & Conflict is his 2024 work on the warrior king Henry V of England. Henry was a man of action. In his short life, his courage, leadership abilities, and broad intelligence, as well as his severity and ruthlessness, are dramatically explored by Jones in the context of the brutal, treacherous and war-torn events of his reign.
I have sometimes found the use of the historical present irritating, but in his introduction, Jones explains how he uses it in this book:
“How then do we animate Henry V? How can we bring ourselves as close as possible to the man while remaining responsible historians……My response to those questions is through narrative style, by writing the story of his life in the present tense …. Henry rides. He fights. He prays. He plans. He rules…He is next to us as he does it all. We are living on the cusp of the next crisis. We are jolted out of our comfortable place in the distant future, and must wrestle with the world in real time, with him “
It works in his life of Henry V and I am convinced by the method - at least for this book and this writer.
Some historians these days come with tattoos and jeans, and Dan Jones is a writer for this time. But he is a fine historian with a bright career before him. I commend him to the enthusiast for the medieval world.