Life In A Medieval Village (1991) - Plot & Excerpts
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 comparison to the later volume, where the information bubbles forth and the writing flows freely. Is this a case of time offering more scientific evidence or the authors' own evolving education? Perhaps both. It should be noted that this book focuses on one village and, it being English, much of the historical influence and the details garnered are inevitably skewed thusly. (If memory serves, ...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... 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.All 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. 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. By the end you feel somewhat attached to the people of Elton. I nearly called them "long suffering people." But that notion of the Medieval peasant's impossibly difficult life must be put to rest. Certainly 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. The authors give a well-balanced account that probably gets a little closer to the truth than what we've been led to believe.Yes, all this information could be garnered online...and perhaps you can trust what you happen upon. For novelists or even students doing school reports, this is a solidly-factual, gem of a resource. If you're a fantasy or historical fiction fan interested in this era, Life in a Medieval Village may be the most enjoyable textbook-styled book you'll ever read.
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 is used to illustrate the more theoretical points that this does put forward, however this is not always the case. Nothing is left in the abstract, and the claims made in this work are always made with substance. Very much a work of social history, in the way that it attempts to empathise with every sector of the community, however it does not do this to the point where it becomes anachronistic. It makes sure we do not start seeing the people of the Medieval era as a different type of human, however it does not compel us to also see them as we would see a friend. It allows us to gauge their likely experiences, but we don't attempt to step into their shoes and feel what they feel.An implication of this is that we rarely hear the story of the outsider and those that subverted the usual order of the village. We are presented with the story of the typical village. This is completely in line with the aims of the book, and therefore this is fair enough, but we are not presented with any notes that acknowledge that the Medieval community was not completely homogeneous, and this is needed even if your intention is to present typical village life.However, as I have said, the aims of this book are to present the typical structure, attitudes, behaviours, customs and workings of a village, and that it does. Whilst it is prone to simplification, this is merely an introductory work and this is not a cardinal sin for such a book. It is well rounded, balanced and for the most part very readable, and a reliable foothold in the topic of Medieval village life.
What do You think about Life In A Medieval Village (1991)?
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 little more lively after the first 60 pages or so and the authors were back on form with thier informative and engaging historical narrative. The chapters on Law and Order in the village, and 'The Parish' were particularly good, and the latter I especially enjoyed, and also liked the way that it made the subject seem far less complicated. The only other objection that I had was that some of the attitides and interpretations of the authors did seem a little outdated (or else I simply did not agree with some of them), but since the book was first published in the 1970s this is probably to be expected.
—anna
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 evidence rather than conjecture. It offers brief but tantalizing snapshots (through court & economic records of the manor, and those of Ramsey Abby, both of which contained Elton Village) of the people who lived here. It's well worth the read.
—Andrew
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.--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 local lord's court business took place, presided over by his steward, often with 12 sworn men (jurati) in attendance.--Obviously, at the time I was researching a story that starts off with a young man (a boy, really) wrongly imprisoned, and my research consisted of how to write a portion of his trial scene where I planned for him to be sentenced to death. Of course, this is one of those unfinished stories that I hope to someday return to (don't anyone hold their breath).So, these are more personal notes than an actual review of LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE, but suffice to say it's a valuable reference book in my collection. If you don't own it and you write (or plan to write) historical, medieval, or fantasy material, it's a worthy addition to your library.--4 out of 5 stars
—J.M.
