Books on every day life in the medieval world

What are some good books on medieval every day life?

I've read Life In A Medieval Village by Gies and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm thinking of getting some of his other books. I just wonder that they're fairly old so if the information is outdated.

Pryor's book on the archaeology of medieval Britain was quite interesting.

The other one I've read was 1215 and while I thought it interesting, I had a few problems with the book.

The "Everyday Life Series" (http://www.librarything.com/series/Everyday+Life+Series) has a couple of works devoted to the middle ages.

Well, I had Life in a Medieval Village as assigned reading in a Medieval History course not too long ago (early 2000s), so the information must still be somewhat valuable. Besides, the Geis' books are great! They're so fun to read.

There's also Daily Life in the Middle Ages by Paul B. Newman.

While I haven't read it yet, I have heard great things about The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium by Robert Lacey.

I think I actually have that one, fleela, though I haven't read it yet. Thanks for the reminder. I have enjoyed parts of the first volume of the series (though I cringed at some of the claims the book made. They just didn't go with anything my textbooks or teaches have said).

I'm thinking of buying the other books by Gies. I just wasn't sure of things like reliability, though I now know that readability is certainly high.

>6 ElenaGwynne:
I have the first History of Private life, but it's still in my TBR pile. I'll keep your observations in mind when I finally get around to reading it

2seven: is that part of a Time-Life series? I have some with titles that start that way.

Yes, the Gies books are excellent for beginners; they're easy to read and don't make things up. I have a couple really great ones that go into a lot of detail, but they're in German.
One that hasn't been mentioned yet is Daily life in medieval Europe by Jeffrey L. Forgeng. Also Rowling's Everyday life in medieval times, Newman's Growing up in the Middle Ages, which is excellent, Burke's Life in the castle in medieval England, Power's Medieval People, and the Time-Life What life was like in the age of chivalry : medieval Europe, AD 800-1500 .

If you're interested in what life was like for the merchant class, the one I'm currently in the middle of, Peter Spufford's Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe is excellent.

I opened a second window so I could lift them from my own library 8-)

I'm still cataloging everything into my library so I don't have that resource yet. Thanks for the suggestions. I foresee my bookstore bill growing like a weed thanks to this group LOL.

erilarlo, I'll let fleela answer that question for you as she is the one that recommended it to me.

A lot of the books suggested here are aimed towards a more general audience, and will really only give you some very basic information - for instance, the Gies books are excellent, but they only scratch the surface. If you want some more in-depth books with more detailed research, here are some suggestions:

* The Ties that Bound by Barbara Hanawalt. Hanawalt is an excellent medieval scholar, and her writing is very accessible. This is a marvelous book about what life was like for peasants in the late Middle Ages. It is an incredibly vivid book.

* Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History, also by Barbara Hanawalt, is also amazing.

* The Princely Court by Malcolm Vale - if you're more interested in the nobility, this does an excellent job of portraying their daily life.

* A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock by Judith Bennett - Bennett and Hanawalt often disagree with each other, so it's interesting reading their books together. In this book, Bennett basically writes a biography of a woman from a medieval village in the 14th century.

* Medieval People by Eileen Power - this is a very old book, and outdated in many ways, but it was one of the first attempts to understand the daily life of medieval people.

* A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman - this is written for a general, not a scholarly audience. It is, in my opinion, one of the best books ever written about the Middle Ages in terms of being comprehensive, informative, and accessible.

* Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520 by Christopher Dyer - Can get a little tedious, but gives lots of fascinating detail.

* The Merchant of Prato by Iris Origo - This is a biography of an Italian merchant, based on the hundreds of thousands of letters he wrote. Excellent read!

That ought to keep you busy for a while. :)

>8 erilarlo:
It's a stand alone book as far as I know, published in England by Little Brown and Company.

The Voices of Morebath is based on the parish record of a single parish (and a single pastor) from before the Reformation through Elizabeth's time. More detail than you may want to know, but fascinating for details of village life.

The Voices of Morebath is based on the parish record of a single parish in England (and a single pastor) from before the Reformation through Elizabeth's time. More detail than you may want to know, but fascinating for details of village life.

The Voices of Morebath is based on the parish record of a single parish in England (and a single pastor) from before the Reformation through Elizabeth's time. More than you may want to know, but fascinating for details of village life.

The Voices of Morebath is a good one. VERY detailed.

The Voices of Morebath is indeed one of those books which by concentrating on "details" succeeds in illuminating the whole. I remember as a schoolboy in the 1950s being under the impression that in Henrician times the Roman church was the "enemy of the people" (I doubt my teachers ever said that but certainly the line seemed to be that the country was ripe for change). This book shows the extent to which the church was the social life of the village and part of the lives of every member of the community. It helps to show what the Reformation meant to ordinary uneducated people as distinct from the "intelligentsia" who had adsorbed the new learning. As Maggiros says it sometimes overwhelms with detail but I certainly had a new understanding after reading it.
Another book which again is limited in compass is The Black Death: An Intimate History by John Hatcher. This concentrates on the village of Walsham in East Anglia (England). Large amounts are fictional for lack of hard evidence. And the time span covered is quite short. But it does give an insight ito the role of the church and its ministers and also the manor.

I'd echo Voices of Morebath (not technically medieval, but close enough that nothing had really changed for ordinary folk) and also add Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages by the previously mentioned Christopher Dyer.

If you're not specifically thinking of English history, then Montaillou is absolutely fascinating (and widely available in English).

I just bought A Distant Mirror. Thanks for the rec.

I'm in graduate school for medieval history, and I know a several people who became medieval historians because they read A Distant Mirror. Some scholars poo-poo it - it does have some inaccuracies in it, but mostly scholars get jealous when someone writes a book that sells well. But even most scholars can't deny that it is a delightfully readable and informative book, and a great starting point for further research. Enjoy!!

The books that got me really interested in medieval studies (it ended up being my minor) were as far as I can remember, Katherine Kurtz's Adept series along with The Temple and the Stone and The Temple and the Crown. Combine that with a really good teacher or two...

That's certainly a good recommendation for A Distant Miror.

I'm afraid I found the Brothers Gies to be dreadful. Their book on medieval women was claptrap and so I never read anything else of theirs --which is perhaps a little narrow minded of me. But their interpretations of the facts were pretty simplistic and not at all trustworthy.

Does anyone read HS Bennet and Duby anymore? My own reading was early medieval and Goffart and Thompson and Gregory of Tours was as close as I ever got to books about daily life.

If you're looking for some primary works, The Paston Letters are invaluable, if perhaps just a bit later. There's also A Medieval Home Companion: Housekeeping in the Fourteenth Century translated and edited by Tania Bayard -- a how-to-keep-house manual written by an elderly citizen of Paris for his new 15 year-old wife. And of course, The Book of Margery Kempe -- if you don't mind her visions and bouts of weeping.

I'm a big fan of Gies & Gies as broad, general introductions though they are Anglo-centric.

A couple of other works that surprised me in what they were actually about:

Del Sweeney's Agriculture in the Middle Ages is much more about daily living at the village/peasant level than purely about ag.

Jacques LeGoff's Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages is, again, more about daily life than about the evolution of people developing a sense of place. Both of the above are series of articles and, as with all such works, some articles are better than others.

Another book I highly recommend is Bridget Henisch's The Medieval Calendar Year. She covers what the pictorial calendar representations of various months of the year (The "Labors of the Months") indicate about life in small villages. I found it fascinating.

Some other less general works include David Herlihy's work on Tuscany, Neckam's account of his travels and Dhuoda's Handboook for William.

There's also Barba Hanawalt's The Ties that Bound. It's a bit depressing sometimes - she used Coronor's Rolls to evaluate aspects of medieval life. But it is informative. And even though often factually inaccurate, Ladurie's Montaillou gives a very good "feel" for life in Southern France in the early 14th century.

I have started reading MONTAILLOU, the Promised Land of Error (1978) by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and translated by Barbara Bray. It is the story of the people of the village of Montaillou, in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France. It is also the story of the suppression of the Albigensian Heresy in the early fourteenth century. These heretics were called Cathars and were mostly illiterate peasants and crafters in a village of only 250 people. The Bishop who lead the local Inquisition later became Pope Benedict XII. Anyway, the author reviews the Social and Religious life and customs of the inhabitants to try to understand why they would risk execution, by burning alive, to follow a heretical creed at that time. I am finding it to be well written and translated, and distinctly interesting. This is a good look into the beliefs and feelings of the common people at that time.

The Cathars were not JUST the 250 people in that village; it was considerably more widespread a movement than that, and included people well above peasant level.

Speaking about the Cathars in general: yes, and certainly in their earlier stages. Speaking about Montaillou, I think it's a fair description.

Another book dealing with the Cathars is Massacre at Montségur by Zoé Oldenbourg. It has a broader coverage but having read Montaillou quite a long time since (and enjoyed it) I found this filled in quite a lot of the "cracks"

Thanks for all of the recommendations. I've gone and added them (and others) to my wishlist so I can keep track of them.

Elena, I'd also suggest -- if it hasn't been mentioned -- Daily Life in the Middle Ages by Paul B. Newman.

Steven
http://steventill.com

I don't know if it has been sugested but Street Life in Medieval England by G. T. Salusbury provides some interesting insight. If you can find it. Published by Pen in Hand Publishing Co. in 1939 2nd edition 1948

Although a tad late to be considered strictly "medieval" (what do such distinctions mean, anyway, when discussing folk beliefs?), I recall The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller as an excellent work.

Revelations of the Medieval World, a volume in the series "A History of Private Life" was good too. Also, Sin and Fear (which has its flaws) and The Hour of Our Death give some interesting insights into the darker psyche of the age.

The Year 1000 seems like it would fit the bill of the original post. I recently listened to it and it was very informative of all aspects of everyday life in Medieval England.

I loved Down the Common: A Year in the Life of a Medieval Woman by Ann Baer

"Life in a Medieval Village" was one of the first books I read in researching my historical novel "Rashi's Daughters: Book I - JOHEVED." I was thrilled that, like my books, it takes place in Troyes, France. I have read all of Gies' other books, and I don't think any of them are out of date. And they're so readable.

#35 I think you mean Life In A Medieval City. The village one is focused on a British village.

Most of their books are available, I agree, what I have read is very readable.

This thread is dangerous!

Just ordered The Ties That Bound and Growing Up In Medieval London by Barbara Hanawalt, and also Making a Living in the Middle Ages today.

Thanks everyone, and I'm going to keep the others in mind for another day.

Also slightly too late for medieval, but fascinating and quite readable is A Fool and His Money by Ann Wroe.

>24 cemanuel:: cemanuel, what sorts of factual errors do you see in Ladurie's Montaillou? Are they thematic errors, i.e. in some way undercut the main themes of the book? Or are they incidental, errors of detail that don't undercut the book as a whole?

He munged some records. I have another post somewhere on this site that cites the article where this was brought up.

Basically he apparently took some Inquisitorial records from other places and applied them to Montaillou so he could paint a fuller picture than he could have otherwise.

In answer to your question, I'd say the second choice. It's still an excellent book and I think very likely provides a pretty fair "feel" for how life went on there. I just usually try to give people a heads-up about the records in case they might want to quote specifics somewhere (somewhere more rigorous than an internet discussion board).

I appreciate the additional context.

I have a long-standing issue with anthropological research that looks like his, namely that many of these folks talk to 10 or 20 or 50 people, and then extrapolate to "French life" or "Chinese culture" or the like. An anthropologist friend acknowledges this criticism, but always just says, genially, 'that's how we do our work.'

On the other hand, I do admire Ladurie's resourcefulness in mining the insight available from these inquisitorial records. And also his intensive dig into the land tax records for the other book, The Peasants of Languedoc.

The books have started to arrive. Last week it was Growing Up In Medieval London and today it was Christopher Dyer's Making A Living In The Middle Ages.

Thanks again for the recommendations everyone.

Happy reading. Let us know later which ones you found the most interesting, enlightening, etc.

A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age by William Manchester

>34 AnnaElliott:

Down the Common:A Year in the Life of a Medieval Woman was one of the most memorable books I've read. I still think of the main character often.

The title alone would warn off anyone with any actual knowledge of Medieval Europe. A World Lit Only by Fire?????

#46) C'mon! Don't you know that in A Distant Mirror you can see How the Irish Saved Civilization in A World Lit Only By Fire?

Well, at least in A Distant Mirror the problem is mostly one of reflecting a single source too much. It was one of the first medieval history books for me, too, back before I started grad school and major immersion. As long as one does NOT have an eidetic memory, it's a decent intro, the errors of which will be washed away by serious study. Note: I have NOT reread it; I wouldn't enjoy it much nowadays 8-) The mere titles of the other two create mild nausea in my overeducated self.

Have not read it myself, so can't speak to its quality or usefulness, but a title I've seen recently looks intriguing (albeit with a focus on Sweden, which may not be what the OP desires):

The Medieval Household -- Daily Life in Castles and Farmsteads: Scandinavian Examples in Their European Context
by Eva Svensson; with the contribution of Emma Bentz
Brepols (publisher)

>45 auntmarge64: Thanks for the recommendation; the book sounded interesting, so I ordered it.

>46 erilarlo: I thought A world Lit Only By Fire was both interesting and informative (although medieval was not my area) -- an excellent book. What did you find to be deficient with it?

Oh, now THAT looks intriguing! It could possibly tie in with my rather excessive saga reading 8-)

This is a great book. I wish I had not passed it on. I hope you get to enjoy it soon.

If you polled Medieval Historians, A World Lit Only by Fire just might be ranked as the single worst book published about the Middle Ages in the last 20 years.

I haven't read it - just reviews of it. My time's too valuable to waste reading garbage. Unfortunately we have a situation where a historian who is very well respected in 20th century/WWII history for some reason decided to write a book about the Middle Ages - then decided not to bother researching it. Some of the stories I've heard about it are astonishing - is it true he believed the Pied Piper was a (mostly true) story about a pedophile?

This is the review given in the January, 1995 issue of Speculum, the Medieval Academy of America's Journal. The review is given by Jeremy Adams of Southern Methodist University. Hopefully the formatting's OK - I just realized I could save PDF's of JSTOR citations.

"This is an infuriating book. The present reviewer hoped that it would simply fade away, as its intellectual qualities (too strong a word) deserved. Unfortunately, it has not: one keeps meeting well-intentioned, perfectly intelligent people (including some colleagues in other disciplines-especially the sciences) who have just read this book and want to discuss why anyone would ever become a medievalist.

Manchester has his following, not entirely without reason. His Death of a President and The Arms of Krupp remain respectable examples of the variety of grand-narrative history in defense of which he gave some persuasive lectures in the early 1970s. The sophisticated high-journalist and the expert amateur historian always run the risk of enraging narrow specialists of the period or area they have chosen to explore on paper. The Distant Mirror of so accomplished a narrative historian as Barbara Tuchman exemplifies that peril (al- though it is worth recalling Charles T. Wood's remark in his timely Speculum review that the failure of Tuchman's narrative structure was more distressing than her mishandling of any number of factual issues; see Speculum 54 1979, 430-35).

The worst blunders occur when the daring amateurs venture into a culture for which they feel essential antipathy (as Tuchman openly, indeed proudly, declared for fourteenth- century Europe). Manchester makes it clear in the early pages of this Portrait that he had never thought much about the Middle Ages (p. xv et alibi), only began serious reading while juggling a biography of Winston Churchill with some project involving Magellan, and was promptly horrified at what he discovered. Fascination must have turned to loathing pretty quickly. At the end of his prefatory note (pp. xiii-xvii), Manchester in- structs the reader that "Christianity survived despite medieval Christians, not because of them. Fail to grasp that, and you will never understand their millennium" (p. xvii).

Fair enough; we are all entitled to what Burke did not mind calling our prejudices. But when this mind-set unfolds itself through some of the most gratuitous errors of fact and eccentricities of judgment this reviewer has read (or heard) in quite some time, one must protest. Manchester finds medieval European culture determined by "an almost impenetrable mindlessness" (p. 3). He asserts (does not even estimate) that homicides were twice as common as deaths by accident (p. 6)-in all regions of medieval Europe across that millennium, one must suppose-and lets us know that "in summertime peasants went about naked" (p. 22), once more, presumably, from Scotland to Sicily.

Once again, one is entitled to certain general assessments; at least Manchester does not see cannibalism as a constant feature of that remarkably unvaried, unevolving mil- lennium. But the professionally trained medievalist must be expected to react. One can well imagine James Givens suggesting some refinements concerning homicide, the dis- ciples of R. W. Southern bridling at Manchester's medievals' total lack of a "sense of self" (p. 21), collaborators of Ferand Braudel raising an eyebrow at the extreme rarity of meat in the peasant diet as late as 1500 (p. 54). Historians of the migration period may find it annoying to read that the Magyars arrived (apparently) in the fifth century (p. 5). Any European historian is bound to find anachronistic Manchester's constant reference to the medieval papacy as "the Vatican" (p. 19 and passim). Page 16 is one of many that the mean-spirited of several specialties will find delicious. Surely all, profes- sionals or amateurs, who find the medieval millennium a worthy object of study or of curiosity will be somewhat taken aback to learn that medieval "generations went by in a timeless blur ... (during which) very little happened" (p. 23). (Or might some Annalistes find appealing a longue duree so untainted by evenements?)

The fair-minded reader of this review will note that most of the references so far are to the first sixth of Manchester's book. The first of this book's three chapters is the shortest (pp. 1-28) as well as the most directly concerned with "The Medieval Mind." Chapter 2, "The Shattering" (pp. 29-220), is a lively, at times almost equally startling, recasting of Will and Ariel Durant's Reformation (let our colleagues in that field rendre compte). Chapter 3, "One Man Alone" (pp. 221-92), is about Magellan, and apparently the point of this book: the preceding millennium serves as his context. Not surprisingly, Voltaire figures in the final pages."

Thank you for offering a bit of explication for our reactions to praise of this piece of drivel!

53: I'm pretty sure the only praise he received was for the memoirs of his time in the Pacific theater Goodbye, Darkness. The Arms of Krupp and the Churchill biographies are infamous for being crap. Supposedly "Krupp" was based on one weekend's research in the archives pretty impressive considering the book is 992 pages!

Yeah - I wonder if it's fair use to include that review as part of the book's "common knowledge" or description? Probably not. I could rant but I won't.

Actually I did (rant) and deleted it.

> 56 Actually, I added a snippet from that review to the published reviews section a few days ago when this came up again. Surely we can find a few more to add to that section.

> 57 I just saw that - nice job! We could also make fun if it here - I haven't read it so all I can give are 2nd-hand comments I've come across.

Death of a President & Goodbye Darkness had a human touch which I didn't find in the other books of Manchester's that I started but didn't finish. Jim Bishop's The Day Kennedy was shot was drivel compared to Manchester's work. It's easy to understand why Jackie Kennedy chose Manchester over Bishop.

OK - I may have to live in Shame.

Was at Half-Priced Books yesterday and a Pb copy of Manchester was priced at 3 bucks. I bought it. Some day I'll read it and write my own review.

I get so many questions about it that I may as well.

Tuchman's A Distant Mirror was there too but it was hardcover and listed for 12 so I left it alone. Plus it's a lot thicker.

Oh, there are much worse books than A Distant Mirror; it's just rather limited. From what I've heard of Manchester, it's full of outright falsehood.

What do the present company think of "1066: The Year of the Conquest"? I realize its an afternoon's light read, not a serious work; I'm ignorant enough to have to ask if its accurate. I'm already aware (having read it) of its bias. Much appreciation in advance for your time.

Who wrote the 1066 book?

As for Manchester, I've read so many scathing comments on it by people whose opinions I respect, that I have NO interest in opening it.

Tuchman's Distant Mirror, on the other hand, while too reliant on a single source, is not too misleading for a beginner to read.

1066: The Year of the Conquest - David Howarth (Wikipedia)

Pretty much as erilano.

Manchester : even the title puts me off. They didn't have sunshine for a thousand years? But it's mostly because people I value assured me it's rubbish. Life's too short to give it a try.

Tuchman isn't great, but okay. And she did raise a lot of enthusiasm for which I'm grateful.

Matt - I bought it for 3 bucks in a used bookstore. I figure I'll read it on a plane sometime - I can't get serious reading done there anyway. Then I'll write a review. Or several. I just hope nobody I know sees me reading it.

The title's always struck me as funny though - The world was only lit by fire (at night anyway) from whenever man discovered it until the incandescent bulb (unless arc light counts). Did Manchester think the Romans had nuclear fusion? Did Francis Drake outmaneuver the Spanish armada because he used glow-sticks? Flying herds of fireflies?

66

Perhaps he was simply going for a sense of romance. He might just as easily have called it A World With No Flush Toilets.

Yes, or "A World without Space Travel"" - although Von Dänicken might have objected. Seriously though. To me his title signals both a lack of respect for his topic and the fact that he doesn't think things through. Both are indications I probably wouldn't like the book.

(Am curious what cemanuel will think though).

#68 - I'm afraid, based on reviews, etc., that I already know what I'll think. But I'll take one for the team - I comment enough on it that I probably should actually read it, much as I'm not looking forward to the experience.

Though there is a thought - maybe in the book Manchester thinks the Romans were technologically advanced. After all, Ridley Scott had to come up with their use of Napalm in Gladiator from somewhere.

Curt, I never knew you were a masochist! 8-)

Don't do it unless someone offers to pay!

My review's up - amazingly I laughed more than anything while reading up. This book is just plain goofy.

http://medievalhistorygeek.blogspot.com/2010/04/review-world-lit-only-by-fire.ht...

71
Bravo for a thoughtful and entertaining review of this ill-conceived little book. I'll buy just about any book I come across relating to medieval history, but I can't count the times I've picked up Manchester, read a page or two, and thrown it down in disgust. It's a shame that this may be the only book many folks will ever read on the Middle Ages.

Back to the original question, I enjoyed The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer.

I come a bit late to this discussion, but I second the recommendation for Forgeng's Daily Life in Medieval Europe, as well as other books in Greenwood Press's Daily Life Series. Jeffrey L. Forgeng / Jeffrey L. Singman (same author, different names) has written several other books in the series, including Daily Life in Chaucer's England. Another title in the series that may be of interest is Kirsten Wolf's Daily Life of the Vikings. The Viking era is my period of interest, and I recommend the book highly.

# 72 - Read it like it's the novelization of a Monty Python script, Then it becomes funny. I didn't find it hard to read because the whoppers just kept on coming - by the time he got to year-round naked peasants and widespread cannibalism I couldn't wait to see what he'd come up with next.

There is a place for the book. I could see a beginning class on historiography using it as an example of how NOT to use sources and the value of critical textual analysis.

You assign a few pages to each class member (or even pairs), ask them to research where Manchester got his information then discuss how appropriate his use was. Using The Canterbury Tales as a historical "this is what happened" source rather than as an example of medieval literature and satire is just wrong. Same with fabliaux.

Problem is, this would raise book sales and that would be wrong.

I just bought The Middle Ages by Morris Bishop. I haven't read it yet so can't provide any comments.