The authors give a well-balanced account that probably gets a little closer to the truth than what we've been led to believe. I nearly called them "long suffering people." But that notion of the Medieval peasant's impossibly difficult life must be put to rest.Ĭertainly they busted their rumps more than we do today from a physical standpoint, but if it were ungodly impossible and lords so tyrannically unjust as often portrayed in fiction, would any of them have lasted through it all? No, there were respites such as holidays aplenty.
By the end you feel somewhat attached to the people of Elton.
Those last five items are why we know so much about the people of this time and place, for records were kept and have survived to show who did what to whom when and how much it cost them, $$$ being the all important bottom line. The village that the Anglo-Saxons called Aethelintone (or Aethelington, or Adelintune), known in the thirteenth century, with further spelling variations, as Aylington, and today as Elton, was one of the thousands of peasant communities scattered over the face of Europe and the British Isles in the high Middle Ages, sheltering more than 90 percent of the total population, the ancestors of most Europeans and North Americans alive today.Īll year round from morning to night, the absolute minutia of the peasant's daily life is delved into: work, play, prayer, crime, punishment, marriage, death and taxes. City focuses on a city in France, so there is some slight variation in the series.) Here is a little taste of the book from just about right off top. It should be noted that the focus is mainly on the English village, so much of the historical influence and the details garnered are inevitably skewed thusly. Is this a case of time offering more scientific evidence or the authors' own evolving education? All I know for certain is that I really like this book!
They suffer in comparison to the later volume, where the information bubbles forth and the writing flows freely. Castle were published in the late 60s and early 70s respectively. series by Gies, Life in a Medieval Village seems the most informed, as well as having been written with the most heart and love.Īll three are collaborations between Frances and Joseph Gies, who wrote numerous books together as well as on their own about the Middle Ages period.Village came out in the 90s, while the other two in this particular series.
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