Faith and nation parted company in these years. By and large, however, it cannot be said that the forgotten, the mute, and the inglorious elements in British history get much of a look from Schama, the occasional bravura passages notwithstanding. Material is excavated out of spheres far removed from war and the conduct of public affairs. The images of charnel houses and ossuaries deliberately suggest Auschwitz or the reign of Pol Pot, while the manorial rolls vividly indicate the seismic economic shifts that accompanied the crisis. In general, though, material culture gets short shrift here.
Archaeology is underused.
Chaucer looks in once, and Spenser appears only in his views on Irish colonization. More importantly, Schama is very good, visually and verbally, on grand architecture, a subject to which he brings both authority and passion. The massiveness of Kenilworth suggests the baronial power of Simon de Montfort, and the Abbey of Pontigny is an emblem of Thomas Becket's hard-edged implacability. Yet it is significant that Schama generally makes architectural points in order to illuminate personalities. Glamorous people dominate the series, especially from the Angevin age.