
Mortimer takes the famous quote from L. P. Hartley’s The Go-Between ‘The past is a foreign
country – they do things differently there’ quite literally as he leads the
reader through the fourteenth century in the form of a travel guide. His
argument for this style in the introduction is convincing but the execution
leaves something to be desired. When he gets into his flow it is entertaining
and informative but in large parts he slips into a more traditional form of
historical narrative. Within this it can feel awkward and sometimes confusing
as to which period he’s referring to when he suddenly jumps back to addressing
the reader like a visitor. Nonetheless, if you’re after an overview of life in
the 1300s you could do worse than picking up this book.
He discusses the strict hierarchical nature of society in England at
the time with even the clothes worn being determined by social status. To be at
the bottom of the class system meant being under the control of your lord your
entire life. It was not just work and earnings they controlled but for villeins
even who they married was decided by their lord with punishments being imposed
if they did not gain permission or went against the lord’s wishes. Men’s status
was decided by their work, for women it was their marital status, and even at
the top they remained subservient to men. In an age far more violent than the
one we inhabit women were in very real danger of assault and in the case of an
abusive marriage they had no means of escape. It is clear throughout that the
lot of women was hard but Mortimer does point out some advantages to their
lower status. For example, in the case of a criminal couple the man would be
hanged for his crimes whereas the woman could be excused by claiming she was
merely acting under her husband’s will. It is also interesting to note that as
the century progressed men’s clothing became more sexually revealing whereas
women’s fashion remained with loose fitting garments.
Climate change being firmly on the modern agenda it was interesting
to gain an insight into the disastrous consequences of it six
hundred years ago. Temperatures dropped by one degree leading to crop failures,
some of which never recovered, abandonment of villages as the land became
unworkable, and eventually the Great Famine due to heavy rainfall.
Mortimer discusses the often scant sources available to medieval
historians and gives the reader a glimpse into how historic knowledge is pieced
together. He succeeds in showing how different life was but also makes the
people living through it feel much more relatable and not all that different
after all.
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