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Life in a Medieval Village
In this latest addition to their series on life in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies have combined the recent discoveries of archaeology with information from contemporary documents to create a lively and convincing portrait of rural people at work and at play 700 years ago. Focusing on the village of Elton, the English East Midlands, the authors show medieval peasa
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Paperback, 272 pages
Published
January 30th 1991
by Harper Perennial
(first published December 20th 1989)
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-30)
Out of the three books in the Life in a... series by Gies, Life in a Medieval Village seems the most informed, as well as having been written with the most heart and love.
All 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, ...City and ...Castle were published in the late 60s and early 70s respectively. They suffer in comp ...more
All 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, ...City and ...Castle were published in the late 60s and early 70s respectively. They suffer in comp ...more
This is more of a survey-level work than anything particularly in-depth, but that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Like most people who haven't spent a lot of time studying the period, my knowledge of medieval life is tainted with all kinds of bits picked up from popular culture. For me, it's the mishmash of modern and medieval from tabletop RPGs and video games that comes to mind, with taverns by the village green, suspiciously-clean peasants wandering around, and not enough attent
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Considerable detail about medieval village life. Surprisingly complex social organization and political life. Heartening to see that many aspects of daily living have remained constant over the centuries despite all the apparent turmoil visible in various realms of social life.
If anything, reading this has confirmed to me that the modem problem is one of scale. The world is simply too big and too connected for human beings to navigate without psychological disruption. We live disconnected from ...more
If anything, reading this has confirmed to me that the modem problem is one of scale. The world is simply too big and too connected for human beings to navigate without psychological disruption. We live disconnected from ...more
Solid and detailed book. It's remarkable how much we know about life in ~1250 England and how foreign so much of it seems. The writing is a bit dry, and the illustrations in the illustrated edition I read were not terribly good. But it's a solid and readable history / anthropology.
This is the third book in the Gies' series on medieval life and I have to admit that while I really enjoyed aspects of it (learning the differences between a seneschal, reeve and bailiff, reading about the squabbles and offences that erupted between villagers and which make 'Neighbours', 'Eastenders','Bold and the Beautiful' etc. as well as 'Criminal Minds' seem tame and unimaginative! Also, the details on childbirth and the role of the parish was fascinating), but overall felt that compared to
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Have you ever read the Bible? Not just the interesting parts, but really tried to read the whooollee thing? Then some of the more boring parts of this book will seem very familiar to you. Detailed accounts of laws, and who begot who, and what the fines were for very specific amounts of land.
Life in a Medieval Village can be a trying read at times, but the little nuggets of interesting information help carry the reader through. I would have preferred a more narrative history than this format, whi ...more
Life in a Medieval Village can be a trying read at times, but the little nuggets of interesting information help carry the reader through. I would have preferred a more narrative history than this format, whi ...more
I love this book. Bought it for research years ago and came in handy for The Knight and the Damsel in Distress and will be useful again later, I'm sure!
Jul 02, 2017
Fides
rated it
did not like it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
unable-to-finish,
european-history
The first half of the book reads like yet another writer with a moderate anti-Catholic bias trying to rewrite history to fit their postmodern standards, then you get to the chapter on the clergy and you realize that it is more of a deep-seated loathing underlying this book. At one point they pass off conjecture as fact from a supposed canonical "authority," and if you check the footnote, it's an obscure and extremely dated source. I would never have been allowed to get away with this level of pr
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If you don't mind slogging through some of the drier passages that read like a business ledger, you'll find what you're looking for, which is a glimpse into a society whose notions of justice, hard work, commitment to community, and passion for ale were survival mechanisms that might be refreshing to see revived in the present day. Without the subservience to an exploitive lord, of course.
This book did bring a number of pieces of medieval life together for me.
I read this to help me construct Prydain, especially the villages that Wynne and Bliss live in.
While the book has a great well of information and it's easy to understand the progress that came during the evolution of Village life in both technological and cultural settings along the centuries from the first migration to the medieval age, the reading can be very dry and boring in several sections.
Instead of making a good narrative or giving life to the life of peasants, lords, and merchants, it's more like a compendium of statistics and somewhat amusing facts presented in spread sheets fo ...more
Instead of making a good narrative or giving life to the life of peasants, lords, and merchants, it's more like a compendium of statistics and somewhat amusing facts presented in spread sheets fo ...more
Definitely a book to read if you have not read anything else on the topic of Medieval villages before, and are looking for an introduction. Whilst this book doesn't go into masses of detail, it can be argued that it wouldn't need to, and to do so would be to throw off the good sense of balance that this book does possess.
Essentially, this work divides Medieval village life into portions and uses analyses them both in theory and in context. Often the example given is the village of Elton, which ...more
Essentially, this work divides Medieval village life into portions and uses analyses them both in theory and in context. Often the example given is the village of Elton, which ...more
I really enjoyed this book, although I feel a little like some of the portrait of the medieval village as a place full of Jerry-Springer-esque drama is because there are more records of what happened when things went wrong than when they ran smoothly. I also really enjoyed hearing about medieval village drama, because I don't watch reality shows and so books about history are generally where I get my dose of Real Live Drama!
I did really like that the author chose an example village and focused m ...more
I did really like that the author chose an example village and focused m ...more
LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE is one of the core books by Frances and Joseph Gies that I find I refer to time and again for my own writing; though I've only read perhaps 70 percent of this book, to be perfectly honest. I just noticed I've bookmarked pages 20 and 172.
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Page 20: Talks about traces left by Romanization in Britain, specifically agriculture via field systems and farmsteads gathered in collective groupings.
Page 172: Regarding village justice, namely the bi-annual hallmotes, where the loc ...more
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Page 20: Talks about traces left by Romanization in Britain, specifically agriculture via field systems and farmsteads gathered in collective groupings.
Page 172: Regarding village justice, namely the bi-annual hallmotes, where the loc ...more
Although I am getting to like these authors more, I confess I did not like this book as much as their other book 'Life in a Medieval Castle' which I read last year.
The main reason was that the first part of the book seemed to me very dull, tedious and rather slow. As a history student I shoud be more used to dry academic writing, but this was not a textbook and I found the dry recounting of facts and figures rather off putting in work of popular history.
Thankfully though, the book becomes a li ...more
The main reason was that the first part of the book seemed to me very dull, tedious and rather slow. As a history student I shoud be more used to dry academic writing, but this was not a textbook and I found the dry recounting of facts and figures rather off putting in work of popular history.
Thankfully though, the book becomes a li ...more
Though the first couple chapters are a bit dry, bogged down with listings of facts and figures, the rest of the book is a highly informative and very readable treatment of life in the medieval open-village system of the High Middle Ages (the 12th - 14th centuries), focusing on the village of Aethelington, or Elton as it is modernly known, as a case in point. The Gieses, Frances and Joseph, describe well the establishment of the lord and his manor, differentiating the manorial system from feudali
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Feb 14, 2017
Beth Yeary
added it
An interesting, educational read that I got from the local library sale. It points out the vast differences between life now and life in the middle ages.
A book chock-full of information. However, I found it difficult to get over the poor grammar, punctuation and misuse of words: 'two-story building' instead of'two-storey' building, for example. Some sentences were totally incomprehensible and I found myself re-reading them three or four times to try and ascertain the sense. Then, suddenly, it was as if the proof-reader woke up and the final part of the book read extremely well. I also bizarrely found it intensely irritating that a book about an
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This book was recommended to me by Amy Ryan.
The principle of the book is to illuminate elements of everyday life, as expressed through some ephemeral legal records that have been unearthed in the town of Elton, England.
Fascinating tidbits of information include the fact that villagers were taxed to consume their own grain as bread, but were free to consume or even sell their product as beer. The first pubs were just people's homes.
Pieces of information about crime, taxation, family law and nutri ...more
The principle of the book is to illuminate elements of everyday life, as expressed through some ephemeral legal records that have been unearthed in the town of Elton, England.
Fascinating tidbits of information include the fact that villagers were taxed to consume their own grain as bread, but were free to consume or even sell their product as beer. The first pubs were just people's homes.
Pieces of information about crime, taxation, family law and nutri ...more
The book got buried so I only recently got back to it. This is a good, solid, social history of Medieval English village life, drawing from records of Elton Village in Cambridgshire. The book focuses on what life must have been like for ordinary people, free or villein, in the 13th & 14th centuries, the height of Medieval manorial system. Although I was hoping for more intimate pictures of daily work and family life, the book is true to the historical imperative in basing its portraits on ev
...more
Comprehensive, but sometimes boring. The book goes into interesting facts, and then goes crazy providing endless examples of the fact in question. It gets tedious, but the book as a whole is still incredibly interesting. The sections are well organized, and introduced and wrapped up cleanly and beautifully. The facts and figures are interesting, but as I said, the examples are endless, and sometimes the information gets really boring and textbook like. Finally, the end touches upon our human sid
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The common image of the life of the medieval peasant is a miserable one, a substance-level life of slavery to a lord and endless toil. The image of the peasant is one of a brutish, ignorant dolt. Frances Gies's book certainly won't make you jealous of the medieval peasant, but it will give you a much more nuanced view of their life. His work shows that the life of the medieval commoner was far more complex (with terms like "Free" and "Unfree" being rather elastic) and that the peasants themselve
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I bought this because I was scouting the possibility of writing a crime series based in the 1300s. The authors are historians who discuss life in the context of Elton, a village in England. It's a detailed discussion covering agriculture, religion, family life, justice and public life from the early 1300s to the late 1500s. The writing is fluid, exciting and informative. I loved it. If you like history, check this out. Incidentally, this book convinced me that my book idea will need a lot more t
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I got Life in a Medieval Village on loan from the library, but after reading it, I'm still going to buy a copy of my own for reference. The details in it are extremely helpful to have around for my own writing.
It follows one specific village in England, Elton, rather than talking about a general village. Records are reported in the book, although not in too great of a detail (thankfully, it would have been too heavy if it was). I particular like the sections about the lord, the villagers and wh ...more
It follows one specific village in England, Elton, rather than talking about a general village. Records are reported in the book, although not in too great of a detail (thankfully, it would have been too heavy if it was). I particular like the sections about the lord, the villagers and wh ...more
A good work. I read the 'Life in a Medieval Castle' first and found it quite useful for my own worldbuilding process. This book didn't add too much, although it did add some. Most likely it was just redundant to the other, using much of the same verbiage. Obviously, there was a lot of overlap. Still, a good book and I'd recommend it to someone looking at this bit of historical nonfiction.
I found the book to be quite interesting. It took place on a village, Elton, during the Middle Ages. It described all the aspects of the village and what happened at the particular village. The most interesting part was how they described the courts and cases. It was odd that there was no severe punishment usually. There was usually a fine for the person.
Very interesting and detailed read of the day-to-day life of the average peasant in the 14th-Century. While life was certainly no picnic it wasn't as difficult as Hollywood and others would have you believe. It also included much more "liberty" than one would be led to believe possible in the days of Feudalism. Life was far more "normal" than one might think.
Jonathan and Kathy Rawle loaned this to us years ago and it’s high time to return it. An amazingly detailed portrait of daily life in 14C England. Most appalling: Churches were considered “profit centers” - a man could own “the living” of one or more parishes, with their tithes and fines, and could contract out the actual parish work.
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Frances and and her husband Joseph Gies were historians and writers who collaborated on a number of books about the Middle Ages as well as wrote individual works.
More about Frances Gies...
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