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569 reviews for:
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
Ian Mortimer
4.02 AVERAGE
569 reviews for:
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
Ian Mortimer
4.02 AVERAGE
This book is the first in this series of Time Traveler's guides. I read this one third, and I will say the others outshine the Medieval guide. In this book I felt less connected to the century, or perhaps it is because I have heard most of it before in the other versions of this book. I still strongly recommend this series. It does all depend on what era in history you find the most fascinating. I do recommend the Regency area to be your next pick up if you are reading this review.
I liked the way this book was set up, as a travel guide rather than a history. I love medieval history & have made my way through quite a lot of scholarly books - tho my main interest is the 15th, rather than 14th century - but this just sounded like fun & I always like to find an opportunity to learn things in new ways, tho I feel my knowledge of medieval life is fairly good. Sure enough, there was plenty of new information for me here! Cleanliness was more important and achievable than you might think. Manners were also very important. The median age was 21 - which means half the population was age 21 or under. Though few people received formal schooling, in the towns about 20% of men were literate, and in the countryside about 5%. Members of the clergy could read/write, as could wealthy merchants - but also physicians, lawyers, scriveners, surgeons, and schoolmasters, and about 20% of tradesmen. You could buy an amazing variety of food, spices and goods at the market if you lived in a town.
If you have any interest in the period - including if you're a reader of medieval-based fantasy lit - or if you're a fan of travel writing & you're looking for something a little different - I highly recommend this book. Interesting, informative and fun.
If you have any interest in the period - including if you're a reader of medieval-based fantasy lit - or if you're a fan of travel writing & you're looking for something a little different - I highly recommend this book. Interesting, informative and fun.
This is a really fun and great idea. Basically the point is that since you're traveling back to the medieval ages, you need to know all the things that you won't get in a normal history book, like what underwear you wear or how you get from London to Canterbury in an age that doesn't have trustworthy maps or roads with signs. Although a couple of chapters dragged, a surprising amount of the ones I thought would be boring (Law, for example) ended up being really interesting. I would love if the publisher made this a series: The Time Traveler's Guide to Renaissance Italy, Napoleonic France, Ancient Persia, etc, each written by a different expert in that era. I would devour them.
This was an extremely helpful manual for guiding me around medieval England.
I'm perplexed by the number of reviews that include the word 'fun'. I really thought this book would be right up my alley, but man was it dry and tedious.
This is the perfect book to keep at hand for short reading sessions. A well written piece of non-fiction is the most valuable thing to me these days, as you can set it down and pick it up without losing the thread, while always being eager to pick it back up next time. This could have been a very dry subject but Mortimer brings it alive with some of the best prose I've read in a non-fiction work.
4 and a half stars, rounded up.
Only the best non-fiction can be informative and highly entertaining at the same time, and Ian Mortimer walks that line with great skill in “The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England”! I really love his approach, to look at lived history rather than simply at lists of dates, names of kings or important battles. Those things are certainly important, but without a better understanding of the day to day reality in which humans, who were not that different from us, might have lived, they are rather dry and easy to forget. Mortimer wants his readers to get a much more concrete sense of what life was like in 14th century England by discussing
Mortimer is careful to debunk a lot of myths about the Middle Ages, especially with regards to literacy and sexuality, but make no mistake: this was still a rather gross period of time to be alive (by our standards, anyway), even when you were lucky enough to stay clean! I enjoy Medieval historical fiction (Maurice Druon’s “The Accursed Kings” series is an old favorite, and so is “Pillars of the World”), so I find the subject fascinating, and knowing more details about what life was like at the time some of my favorite stories are set certainly helps me appreciate them more and appreciate the struggles of characters I love to read about on a different level.
Mortimer explores many aspects of medieval life that is often not looked at in great detail in fiction, from clothes, to food, to legislation and hobbies. I knew a few things, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn more, especially on the concept of communal justice, which I had not heard about before.
If I have one complain about this book is that I would have wanted it to be even longer and more detailed! Luckily for me, he wrote many more, that I intend to get my hands on quickly!
Only the best non-fiction can be informative and highly entertaining at the same time, and Ian Mortimer walks that line with great skill in “The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England”! I really love his approach, to look at lived history rather than simply at lists of dates, names of kings or important battles. Those things are certainly important, but without a better understanding of the day to day reality in which humans, who were not that different from us, might have lived, they are rather dry and easy to forget. Mortimer wants his readers to get a much more concrete sense of what life was like in 14th century England by discussing
Mortimer is careful to debunk a lot of myths about the Middle Ages, especially with regards to literacy and sexuality, but make no mistake: this was still a rather gross period of time to be alive (by our standards, anyway), even when you were lucky enough to stay clean! I enjoy Medieval historical fiction (Maurice Druon’s “The Accursed Kings” series is an old favorite, and so is “Pillars of the World”), so I find the subject fascinating, and knowing more details about what life was like at the time some of my favorite stories are set certainly helps me appreciate them more and appreciate the struggles of characters I love to read about on a different level.
Mortimer explores many aspects of medieval life that is often not looked at in great detail in fiction, from clothes, to food, to legislation and hobbies. I knew a few things, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn more, especially on the concept of communal justice, which I had not heard about before.
If I have one complain about this book is that I would have wanted it to be even longer and more detailed! Luckily for me, he wrote many more, that I intend to get my hands on quickly!
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
What a great way to read history! I love history but I don’t want to read only about wars and kings. I want to read about people and how they lived, and this book really does that.
By the way, if you read on Kindle, and it feels like it’s taking forever to get through, note that with all the footnotes, the main chapters of the book are only 60% of the book.
By the way, if you read on Kindle, and it feels like it’s taking forever to get through, note that with all the footnotes, the main chapters of the book are only 60% of the book.
EXTREMELY useful for historical or fantasy role-playing gamers and writers. Also, a lot of fun to read!