Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
The Middle Ages re-created through the cast of pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.
Among the surviving records of fourteenth-century England, Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry is the most vivid. Chaucer wrote about everyday people outside the walls of the English court—men and women who spent days at the pedal of a loom, or maintaining the ledgers of an estate, or on the high seas. In Chaucer’s People, Liza Picard transforms The Canterbury Tales into a masterful guide for a gloriously detailed tour of medieval England, from the mills and farms of a manor house to the lending houses and Inns of Court in London.
In Chaucer’s People we meet again the motley crew of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury. Drawing on a range of historical records such as the Magna Carta, The Book of Margery Kempe, and Cookery in English, Picard puts Chaucer’s characters into historical context and mines them for insights into what people ate, wore, read, and thought in the Middle Ages. What can the Miller, “big…of brawn and eke of bones” tell us about farming in fourteenth-century England? What do we learn of medieval diets and cooking methods from the Cook? With boundless curiosity and wit, Picard re-creates the religious, political, and financial institutions and customs that gave order to these lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Writing in the same detailed yet readable style as her Elizabeth's London, Picard uses Chaucer's descriptions of common occupations delve into the smells, grit, and rituals of medieval life in the burgeoning city of London. Four themed sections ("Country Life," "City Life," "The Religious Life," and "The Armed Services") provide a framework for multiple related chapters filled with mesmerizing historical details, including why new wine was considered better than aged, and even recipes for the intrepid modern reader (such as one for an almond milk onion soup). Nameless innkeepers, prostitutes, and merchants populate the pages, and famous figures such as Edward the Black Prince and St. Francis of Assisi also appear in segues to chapters about military hierarchy and the four primary religious orders. Picard neatly connects all this to the broader context, so history buffs can pick up any chapter and feel like they are visiting old friends. She also includes biographical tidbits about Chaucer's work in the wool trade, his possible residence as a law student at the Inner Temple Inn, and the likelihood that his son Thomas served as the model for the Squire in The Canterbury Tales. Picard's distinctive approach of pairing historical context and literature provides an unvarnished look into the ordinary people immortalized in Chaucer's art.
