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Walmsley7 t1_iz9t1oj wrote

Any good recommendations on non-fiction books covering daily life in the late Middle Ages?

My SO asked for a non-fiction book dealing with the topic after being disappointed that another book she read really only dealt with war and the nobility. She would be interested in the nitty gritty details and logistics. For example, she expressed a lot of interest in a throw away line about how complicated the hierarchies of serfdom and different sub-groups actually were, and was disappointed it was basically treated in just a sentence. I realize it’s a long period of time, so something focusing on life after 1000 AD would be best.

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nola_throwaway53826 t1_iz9wr1e wrote

You can try A Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer. It basically only covers 14th century England and does not go into life on the continent. But it does go into village life, customs, laws, travel, urban life, and does not just focus on the nobility. For instance, it goes into how much things cost, how much an urban laborer could expect to make, and so on.

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Rocketgirl8097 t1_izaz4hg wrote

It's designed for writers looking to create an authentic setting for a novel. But you might want to check out The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages. There are several books in this series, including Regency and Victorian England, and Renaissance England.

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Walmsley7 t1_izb2307 wrote

Well I’m a writer so that might be for me then lol

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DonkeyDonRulz t1_izoszqr wrote

Barbara Tuchman's "a distant mirror" looked at the in-betweeners, the middle class guys of the 1300s.

She has a long intro where she said she wanted to cover more mundane life of peasants, but there was a dearth of source material written, since that population was largely illiterate.

I imagine it'd be like if someone in the year 3000 wanted to know what kind of airplanes the average peasant had in 2022. Or what kind of selfie camera junior high kids had in the 1970s. The technology just hadn't l worked it's way that far into society yet. Same with writing in the pre-guttenberg era. And the people who could afford a scribe, well, they prolly weren't writing about the farrier and the farmer, or the butcher and the baker. She also made a point that very little was written about women, either.

Anyway, good luck in your search

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