Time Travel through Medieval England: A Curious Guidebook
How to Survive in Medieval England By Toni Mount
Imprint: Pen & Sword History
Pages: 176
Illustrations: Integrated black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9781526754417
Published: 25th June 2021*The ARC was provided by NetGalley and the Pen and Sword History Books in exchange for an honest review.*
After a long time, I read such a wonderful book about medieval history. Toni Mount presents an enjoyable treat and a guidebook for time-travellers to England during the Medieval period (roughly spanning the 13th-15th centuries). What to wear? Where to eat? Where to stay the night? What currency should you carry? What jobs can you procure? What to do if you fall ill or get robbed on the countryside roads? Where to mend your shoes? Questions like these and much more are explored in this volume.
What makes this book different from the other historical guidebooks is the collection of interviews with historical celebrities and cooks and businesswomen, medieval recipes for a feast, herbal medicines, and a huge repository of etymological facts. For example, when the plague arrived in 1348 and thereby decimating the population across Europe, feudalism took a hit. The “villeins”, people who had more freedom than the serfs, started leaving their lords’ homes after the great pestilence arrived in search of more lucrative tenancies and higher wages. Since they were breaking the law, the word villeins became “villains”, meaning criminals. The author does not overburden the reader with a deluge of dry facts. The book reads more like a personal conversation with a medieval guide taking you on a tour than plain non-fiction. It also has some clever and timeless insights on more serious topics like religion, law and order, death and mortality, class dynamics, and warfare. My favourite bits were food and cooking, medicine, fashion, architecture, and livelihoods.
Fun facts: A baxter is a female baker and a tapster is a female ale-seller. Turns out medieval England had many opportunities for women to work in various business establishments. So it wasn’t all dark ages full of plague and grime and oppression.
It’s a shame I haven’t read other books by Toni Mount and I shall rectify that soon now I have enjoyed the present one. Her website has a wonderful quote which reflects her work and enthusiasm about bringing history alive for readers and students alike.
“Pleasure should mingle with study so that the student may think learning an amusement, rather than a toil”
- Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530)
