As aids to our understanding, Mortimer also provides charts, a fair amount of artwork (in color), and lists,..lots of lists. One list is all about "Ordinances"... a list of offences of the time and what their penalties were, including items like "No man shall play tennis...within the guild hall" or "No butcher may work in the city as a cook." Additional lists cover such items as "Household Inventories" of actual people, "Clothing Regulations," and "The Social Hierarchy." Every single pregnancy is thus like a game of Russian roulette, played with a fifty-barrel gun. A dozen children is like firing that fifty-barrel gun a dozen times. Twenty-two percent of women will not survive that number of pregnancies. Often it is not the birth itself which is fatal but the blood loss afterwards. As for the babies, a much greater proportion do not survive the ordeal. The exact rate is unknown but more than 10 percent are stillborn. Of those who do survive the birth, and live long enough to be baptized, one in six will be dead before their first birthday.” I liked the vast majority of the topics covered, such as the excellent story about criminals, the hierarchy of law enforcement and the structure of the judiciary. While the traditional image of knights in armour is accurate and widely accepted, the equally representative image of knights wearing corsets and suspender belts is perhaps less well known.”

I love history, even the dry facts, a lot of the time. While the writing style in this book was actually quite nice, the content could be a drag. I found it harder to go through than a schoolbook.We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? Obviously, A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England was a title calculated to gain my attention. The premise: a different take on presenting an overview of a period of time, using the format of a travel guide – something of a Fodor's England 1320 that might be found in the TARDIS. Exploring the experience of all the senses, this should be a gem of a resource to the writer of historical fiction or fantasy. The average medieval person is much shorter than the average person today, although nobility were about the same height as today. This disparity in height is due to genetic selection as well as differences in diet. The extra height gives a nobleman a considerable advantage in a fight.

Successfully communicating the extraordinary energy of this vibrant, cathedral-building time Alistair Mabbott, Sunday Herald One qualm was the constant references to Chaucer and “The Canterbury Tales”. Although Mortimer used a medium amount of sources for the book; Chaucer is readily quoted and referred to. If Chaucer was a brand and this book was a TV show, it would scream, “product placement”. Also, the chapter regarding laws and court systems was confusing, but admittedly, I’m not even interested in those topics in modern times so perhaps it just wasn’t my cup of tea, personally. Medieval boys are expected to work from the age of seven and can be hanged for theft at the same age. They can marry at the age of fourteen and are liable to serve in an army from the age of fifteen.” If you are a fashionista, Mortimer has that covered. Who would have thought that the 14th century was also a time of fashion revolution, especially for men? “In medieval society, what you wear denotes what you are.” Not only are you supposed to dress according to your social station, you were expected to be punished if you dared to dress above it. And as buttons are invented, a fashion revolution ensues. But no knitted items — that art, sadly, was yet unknown. Discover an original, entertaining and illuminating guide to a completely different world: England in the Middle Ages.A review written by Kathryn Hughes for The Guardian praised the book's different approach and abundance of trivia, adding that "It is Monty Python and the Holy Grail with footnotes and, my goodness, it is fun... The result of this careful blend of scholarship and fancy is a jaunty journey through the 14th century, one that wriggles with the stuff of everyday life... [A] deft summary of life in the high medieval period." [6] The Washington Post's short review by Aaron Leitko vaunted the book as "Fodor's-style framework" and a travel book that gets into "heart of a different time zone". [7] The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”.It’s easy to think of history as a boring litany of dates and kings and battles, endless murky politics and government systems, and who conquered whom. But that’s only one side of history, and the one that, while mattering in the long run, probably made little difference to people who actually lived it. Only the best non-fiction can be informative and highly entertaining at the same time, and Ian Mortimer walks that line with great skill in “The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England”! I really love his approach, to look at lived history rather than simply at lists of dates, names of kings or important battles. Those things are certainly important, but without a better understanding of the day to day reality in which humans, who were not that different from us, might have lived, they are rather dry and easy to forget. Mortimer wants his readers to get a much more concrete sense of what life was like in 14th century England by discussing

I like the “Baedeker’s guide to the past” conceit, and appreciate how lightly used it is here. Mortimer always seems to know exactly when to leave it aside and let the book be just a description of medieval life in the present tense rather than a guide for the modern visitor. But when he does lean on the conceit it tends to work, even when it’s focused on disabusing would-be travellers of their idealistic fantasies about their destination (not normally the business of most Lonely Planet guides to Paris or Barcelona, which are generally happy to sustain rather than dispel such myths). Mortimer, Ian (29 February 2012). The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. Random House. ISBN 9781448103782. So, as long as you can get enough to eat, and can avoid all the various lethal infections, the dangers of childbirth, lead poisoning, and the extreme violence, you should live a long time.” ————— How did people greet each other...? What is their sense of humor like? How far away from home do individuals travel?" His hope is that such knowledge will make us not only understand the past better, but find out "what it's like to be human" in this era.

Table of Contents

The book is confined to the 14th century in England, with passing references to the Continent. Mortimer goes into details about food, clothing, building materials, the layout of houses, but also covers things like laws, customs, travel, entertainment. It is ground-breaking in historical literature in that it is written entirely in the present tense. [3] Illustrations [ edit ] There are almost no conifer or evergreen trees in the middle ages so the winter skyline is particularly bleak.

After my second reading of this book in less than a year, I wish I had access to Dr Who’s Tardis because, with Mortimer’s well-thumbed book under my arm, I would head straight for Exeter, where the book opens, prepared for the ordure of the aptly named, Shitbrook, the breath-taking sight of the cathedral, avert my eyes from the remains of criminals clinging to the gallows, and be careful not to stare at the bright and strange clothes the people are wearing, while tripping along the cobbles, one hand firmly on my money so a cut-purse does not take it. The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England is not your typical look at a historical period. This radical new approach shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. All facets of everyday life in this fascinating period are revealed, from the horrors of the plague and war to the ridiculous excesses of roasted larks and medieval haute couture. Dr Ian Mortimer is a historian and novelist, best known for his Time Traveller's Guides series. He has BA, MA, PhD and DLitt degrees from the University of Exeter and UCL. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was awarded the Alexander Prize by the Royal Historical Society in 2004. Home is the small Dartmoor town of Moretonhampstead, which he occasioanlly introduces in his books. His most recet book, 'Medieval Horizons' looks at how life changed between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. It is available in the UK and will appear in Germany and Greece before long. Ebook and audiobook ediitons will also appear in the USA next year. An excellent history book. It really shines light on the lifestyles and times of the 14th Century. Borken down into 11 sections, they are as follows: Traditionally, history has been accused of focusing too much on royalty and nobles. That's all in here, but there's plenty all the way down to the lowest villein, with lots of enjoyable little details (like women not using side saddles, as we might imagine). The detail is both the book's delight and its failing. We like to get intimate little details, but Mortimer feels it necessary for each of the areas he looks at (from what to wear through to eating and drinking) to detail what what would apply for each of the levels of the hierarchy - something that after a while gets occasionally tedious. I think it might have been better had he followed a real guide book more in being prepared to just focus in on some areas (perhaps varying from topic to topic), rather than trying to be comprehensive. (My favourite old guidebook, England on 10 Dollars a Day, for example is decidedly selective on where it covers.)People rarely bathed or did laundry but they did try to rinse their hands with water before eating. Mortimer, Ian (1 March 2012). The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England. Random House. ISBN 9781409029564. Mortimer] sets out to re-enchant the 14th Century, taking us by the hand through a landscape furnished with jousting knights, revolting peasants and beautiful ladies in wimples. It is Monty Python and the Holy Grail with footnotes, and, my goodness it is fun... The result of this careful blend of scholarship and fancy is a jaunty journey through the 14th Century, one that wriggles with the stuff of everyday life Guardian In 1300 the nobility speak French, not English! If you can't speak French, you can't command any respect. Only the lowly poor lowly peasants speak English. Nobody authorizes literature written in English. Not until 1350 when King Edward the III, who spoke English, expressed pride in the English language, did aristocrats begin to speak English as well as French.