Life in the Middle Ages

by W. Mark Ormrod

Each book in this series deals with a topic in a History Study Unit at Key Stage 3 of the National Curriculum. The text fills in the background to the period and gives an account of the course of events. Information is also conveyed by means of maps and diagrams. The reader is invited to analyze original source material, such as documents, illustrations and statistics, and thereby to develop appropriate skills. Focusing on the way in which people lived in Europe between 1000AD and 1500AD, this book begins by discussing the three main groups in medieval society - the peasantry, the nobility and the Church. It describes life in a feudal village, a manor house, a castle and a monastery, examines town life and trade, and explains some of the changes which took place as a result of such factors as the Black Death, increasing contact with non-European cultures and the development of nation states and vernacular languages. The authors end by considering the legacy of the Middle Ages and how it affects the way we live today.

48 pages, Hardcover

Published December 31, 1991

About the author

A specialist in the political structures and ideas of later medieval England, William Mark Ormrod, DPhil (Oxon), FSA, FRHistS, was a Professor in the Department of History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of York. He was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, served on a number of AHRC committees, was a Trustee of the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust, a Councillor of the Pipe Roll Society, and a former Councillor of the Royal Historical Society.

Chair of the British Academy English Episcopal Acta Project and a member of the Comitato Scientifico of the Datini Institute, Prato, Mark was a former general editor of York Medieval Press, a member of the editorial board of the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal and a co-editor of Fourteenth-Century England.