The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century IAN MORTIMER Touchstone A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com Copyright © 2008 by Ian Mortimer Originally published in Great Britain in 2008 by the Bodley Head, a division of Random House UK All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 First Touchstone hardcover edition January 2010 TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or, business@simonandschuster.com The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com Manufactured in the United States of America 10 The Library of Congress has cataloged the Bodley Head edition as follows: Mortimer, Ian The time traveller’s guide to medieval England : a handbook for visitors to the fourteenth century / Ian Mortimer p cm Includes bibliographical references and index England—Social conditions—1066-1485 England—Social life and customs—1066-1485 Great Britain—History—1066-1687 I Title HN385 M67 2008 942.03—dc22 2008278423 ISBN 978-1-4391-1289-2 ISBN 978-1-4391-4914-0 (ebook) For my wife, Sophie, without whom this book would not have been written and whom I would not have met had it not been for this book Acknowledgments I would like to thank my editors Will Sulkin and Jörg Hensgen, and all their colleagues at Random House who have helped to bring this idea to fruition, and my agent, Jim Gill, for sound advice I am very grateful also to Kathryn Warner for giving me feedback on the first draft, and to those who accommodated me on various research trips, namely Zak Reddan and Mary Fawcett, Jay Hammond, Judy Mortimer, and Robert and Julie Mortimer I would also like to record my gratitude for the helpful suggestions which Peter McAdie and Anne Wegner made during the course of editing this book By far my greatest debt is to my wife, Sophie We first met in order to discuss this book in January 1995 I am deeply grateful to her not only for encouraging me to write it but also for subsequently marrying me We now have three children: Alexander, Elizabeth, and Oliver I am grateful to them too for teaching me things about life in all ages which one simply cannot learn from a book Moretonhampstead, Devon March 9, 2008 Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Welcome to Medieval England The Landscape The People The Medieval Character Basic Essentials What to Wear Traveling Where to Stay What to Eat and Drink Health and Hygiene 10 The Law 11 What to Do Envoi Notes Full Titles of Works Mentioned in the Notes Index The past is a foreign country— they things differently there L P Hartley, The Go-Between INTRODUCTION Welcome to Medieval England What does the word “medieval” conjure up in your mind? Knights and castles? Monks and abbeys? Huge tracts of forest in which outlaws live in defiance of the law? Such images may be popular but they say little about what life was like for the majority Imagine you could travel in time; what would you find if you went back to the fourteenth century? Imagine yourself in a dusty London street on a summer morning A servant opens an upstairs shutter and starts beating a blanket A dog guarding a traveler’s packhorses starts barking Nearby traders call out from their market stalls while two women stand chatting, one shielding her eyes from the sun, the other with a basket in her arms The wooden beams of houses project out over the street Painted signs above the doors show what is on sale in the shops beneath Suddenly a thief grabs a merchant’s purse near the traders’ stalls, and the merchant runs after him, shouting Everyone turns to watch And you, in the middle of all this, where are you going to stay tonight? What are you wearing? What are you going to eat? As soon as you start to think of the past happening (as opposed to it having happened), a new way of conceiving history becomes possible The very idea of traveling to the Middle Ages allows us to consider the past in greater breadth—to discover more about the problems which the English have had to face, the delights they found in life, and what they themselves were like As with a historical biography, a travel book about a past age allows us to see its inhabitants in a sympathetic way: not as a series of graphs showing fluctuations in grain yields or household income but as an investigation into the sensations of being alive in a different time You can start to gain an inkling as to why people did this or that, and even why they believed things which we find simply incredible You can gain this insight because you know that these people are human, like you, and that some of these reactions are simply natural The idea of traveling to the Middle Ages allows you to understand these people not only in terms of evidence but also in terms of their humanity, their hopes and fears, the drama of their lives Although writers have traditionally been forced to resort to historical fiction to this, there is no reason why a nonfiction writer should not present his material in just as direct and as sympathetic a manner It does not make the facts themselves less true to put them in the present tense rather than the past In some senses this idea is not new For many decades architectural historians have been recreating images of castles and monasteries as they appeared in their heyday Museum curators similarly have reconstructed old houses and their interiors, filling them with the furniture of a past age Groups of individuals have formed reenactment societies, attempting to discover what it was like to live in a different time through the bold, practical experiment of donning period clothing and cooking with a cauldron on an open fire, or trying to wield a replica sword while wearing heavy armor Collectively they remind us that history is much more than an educational process Understanding the past is a matter of experience as well as knowledge, a striving to make spiritual, emotional, poetic, dramatic, and inspirational connections with our forebears It is about our personal reactions to the challenges of living in previous centuries and earlier cultures, and our understanding of what makes one century different from another The nearest historians have come to considering the past at first hand is the genre of “what if?” or “virtual history.” This is where historians consider what would have happened if things had turned out differently For example, what if Hitler had invaded Britain in 1940? What if the Spanish Armada Early-fourteenth-century cogs have stem posts and stern posts with rudders Typically they have single masts and one large sail Ships like this are the mainstay of the merchant fl eet, as well as the basis of the navy in wartime Late-fourteenth-century cogs incorporate elements of the designs of hulks and Genoese carracks, and are larger—up to 120 feet long in a few cases Not every royal dinner is a feast Here the king is dining with his closest advisers Note the baldaquin above him, the aumbry with his silver vessels, and his minstrels This scene depicts a dais during a royal feast The king is fl anked by his advisers Servants kneel before him when presenting dishes To his right is the “reward,” the table for the principal offi cers Behind him stands the marshal, with his staff of offi ce Hanging people is often a production-line process Several clergymen are on hand, each gallows supports up to a dozen people, and crowds look on, often including the kin of the condemned It is a slow, ignominious death Medieval men see beheading as preferable to hanging Royal family members are often granted beheading as a favor Here the executioner, having performed his duty, has been struck with a fi t The village stocks serve as both a form of lockup for serious offenders and a humiliating punishment for less serious crimes Presumably this married woman and the monk fall into the latter category Your physician might not actually examine you Instead he will diagnose your condition from an inspection of your urine and the constellations of the stars Physicians administering medicine with a spoon This scene is comparable with modern life What is on that spoon, however, is almost certainly not Plague-stricken clergymen being blessed by a priest Men and women in religious communities such as abbeys are especially vulnerable to infectious diseases After plague, leprosy is the most feared disease: “the living death,” as it is known This leper carries a bell to warn people of his presence John of Arderne, the great surgeon, performing a fi stula operation Surgeons should be able to make their patients laugh, he says Not easy, in this situation Acrobats and dancers often accompany minstrels around the country Here a woman performs to the accompaniment of pipes and a fi fe and drum The carol of love Caroling is group song and dance, not just to with Christmas People join hands and dance in a circle, singing the chorus Bearbaiting is just one of many cruel sports that people enjoy Here the bear has grabbed one dog but another has bitten its ear ... The Time Traveler? ??s Guide to Medieval England A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century IAN MORTIMER Touchstone A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc... States of America 10 The Library of Congress has cataloged the Bodley Head edition as follows: Mortimer, Ian The time traveller’s guide to medieval England : a handbook for visitors to the fourteenth... century / Ian Mortimer p cm Includes bibliographical references and index England? ??Social conditions? ?106 6-1485 England? ??Social life and customs? ?106 6-1485 Great Britain—History? ?106 6-1687 I Title