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Notes -
I think a big part of it for me was also the writing style but in addition to that I had two main other problems. There is a huge amount of sex and sexual assault, while which I'm sure happened plenty in the Middle Ages, reflects our modern culture's obsession with sex more than it reflects the lived reality of the characters. This also an issue in the The Cathedral of the Sea, which uses the quasi-mythical practice of the first night to show us how evil European nobility was.
Then the stonemason also has a very modern attitude towards his work on the Cathedral. Not a whole lot of doing it for the glory of God, which probably the main motivation for the average peasant. He seemed to have a very careerist attitude towards the whole thing (like building cathedrals was his passion) which I found odd.
Then there's also the unhistorical widespread literacy, lack of cultural conflict between England and Wales, and the lack of language barriers between the nobility and peasants (remember this was set less than 100 years after the Norman conquest of England)/
I think it might reflect somewhat on the author as well. One of the reasons I stopped reading his books was all the weird sex-related stuff. I'm a bit prudish though.
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