Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England

by Liza Picard

Overview

The Middle Ages re-created through the cast of pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.

Among the surviving records of fourteenth-century England, Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry is the most vivid. Chaucer wrote about everyday people outside the walls of the English court—men and women who spent days at the pedal of a loom, or maintaining the ledgers of an estate, or on the high seas. In Chaucer’s People, Liza Picard transforms The Canterbury Tales into a masterful guide for a gloriously detailed tour of medieval England, from the mills and farms of a manor house to the lending houses and Inns of Court in London.

In Chaucer’s People we meet again the motley crew of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury. Drawing on a range of historical records such as the Magna Carta, The Book of Margery Kempe, and Cookery in English, Picard puts Chaucer’s characters into historical context and mines them for insights into what people ate, wore, read, and thought in the Middle Ages. What can the Miller, “big…of brawn and eke of bones” tell us about farming in fourteenth-century England? What do we learn of medieval diets and cooking methods from the Cook? With boundless curiosity and wit, Picard re-creates the religious, political, and financial institutions and customs that gave order to these lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324002307
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Liza Picard is the author of a series of books on the history of London: Elizabeth’s London, Restoration London, Dr. Johnson’s London, and Victorian London. She graduated with a law degree from the London School of Economics and was called to the bar by Gray’s Inn. She lives in London.

Table of Contents

Maps xiii

Introduction xix

Country Life

I 3

The Wife of Bath

Her appearance

The wool trade

Matrimony

Pilgrimages

Jerusalem

Rome

Compostela

Cologne

Sinai

The pilgrimage ways

Paperwork

Vicarious pilgrimages

II 23

The Ploughman

His appearance

Agricultural methods

The Great Pestilence

The poll tax

The rebellion of 1381

III 39

The Miller

His appearance

The mechanism of a mill

The peasant and the miller

The profits of a mill

The weather

IV 47

The Reeve

Medieval land tenure

Estate accounts

The villein

V 53

The Franklin

Hospitality

His status

Justice of the peace

Knight of the shire

Sheriff

City Life

VI 61

'Mine Host'

Travel in England

Southwark

The stews

The wine trade

Alehouses

VII 71

The Merchant

The financial world

The wool trade

Chaucer's job

The Staple

Financing the wool trade

The foreign money market

The Hanseatic League

The Great Companies

Apprentices

Journeymen

VIII 90

The Five Guildsmen: the Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver, the Dyer and the Tapicer

Fraternities

Aldermen

IX 100

The Cook

Kitchens

Equipment

Recipes

Drink

Bread

Feasts

Food colourants

Spices

Ingredients

The poor

X 123

The Doctor of Physic

Astronomy

The humours

Fourteenth-century diagnostics

Apothecaries

Surgery

Mental illness

The monasteries

Common diseases

The royal touch

The Great Pestilence

Women's medicine

XI 146

The Sergeant of the Law

The Sergeant's practice

The courts

Court procedure

Land law the common law

Magna Carta

Other statutes canon law

Pardons

XII 167

The Summoner

His job

His appearance

His morals

XIII 170

The Manciple

The Inns of Court

Legal education

The Manciple's job

Food-shopping

His accounts

The Religious Life

XIV 183

The Monk

The monastic orders

His worldly prospects

XV 189

The Prioress

Her character

Table manners

Life in a nunnery

XVI 196

The Friar

The four orders

The Franciscans

Brother Bozon

The Dominicans

The Austin Friars and the Carmelites

Chaucer's Friar

XVII 204

The Pardoner

His appearance

Pardons

Relics

Chaucer's Pardoner

XVIII 209

The Clerk of Oxenford

Oxford University

The Dominicans

The life of an undergraduate

The books he read

The Great Translation movement

Parchment and vellum

Book production

Writing as a profession

Chaucer's Cleric

Coda: the Canon and his Yeoman

XIX 226

The Poor Parson

The ideal

Chantries

Wycliffe

The holy oil

Pictures and legends

The Armed Services

XX 237

The Knight

Chivalry

The medieval army

Hastiludes

Tournaments

Jousts

Armour

Le Liure de Seyntz Medicines

Conditions in the field

Heraldry

The Knight's campaigns

A just war?

XXI 255

The Squire

His campaigns

His rank

His appearance

Clothes

The fur trade

Footwear and garters

Underwear

Music

Other accomplishments

Romantic love

XXII 269

The Yeoman

As a retainer

Bows and arrows

Archery

The French War

Crécy

Poitiers

Compulsory training

The forest law

St Christopher

A medieval joke

XXIII 280

The Shipman

Medieval shipping

Naval warfare

Navigational skills

The world picture

Marco Polo

Mandeville's Travels

Epilogue 298

Appendix A Grosmont, Gaunt and Bolingbroke 306

Appendix B 'The Cutty Wren' 308

Appendix C One penny would buy eight red herrings or four larks… 310

Notes 315

Index 327

Editorial Reviews

01/31/2019

Writing in the same detailed yet readable style as her Elizabeth’s London, Picard uses Chaucer’s descriptions of common occupations delve into the smells, grit, and rituals of medieval life in the burgeoning city of London. Four themed sections (“Country Life,” “City Life,” “The Religious Life,” and “The Armed Services”) provide a framework for multiple related chapters filled with mesmerizing historical details, including why new wine was considered better than aged, and even recipes for the intrepid modern reader (such as one for an almond milk–onion soup). Nameless innkeepers, prostitutes, and merchants populate the pages, and famous figures such as Edward the Black Prince and St. Francis of Assisi also appear in segues to chapters about military hierarchy and the four primary religious orders. Picard neatly connects all this to the broader context, so history buffs can pick up any chapter and feel like they are visiting old friends. She also includes biographical tidbits about Chaucer’s work in the wool trade, his possible residence as a law student at the Inner Temple Inn, and the likelihood that his son Thomas served as the model for the Squire in The Canterbury Tales. Picard’s distinctive approach of pairing historical context and literature provides an unvarnished look into the ordinary people immortalized in Chaucer’s art. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"This fast-paced, entertaining overview will appeal to students and fans of medieval history."

Booklist

"Liza Picard…weaves an infinity of small details into an arresting tapestry of life in 14th-century England. Her technique—pursued with the verve and spirit for which she is already justly admired—is to celebrate Chaucer’s pilgrim portraits by resituating them within an enlarged field of medieval practices and assumptions…[A]n enthusiast enacting her respect for Chaucer’s enduring and indelible accomplishment."

Spectator

"Chaucer's People is a holiday in the complex, joyful, indelicate medieval world—an approachable, engaging and highly recommended account of an England which is long gone, but whose spirit lingers."

John Higgs

"If you were to reread The Canterbury Tales, you’d get so much more from it with this at your side."

Times