THIS BOOK CONCENTRATES PRINCIPALLY ON FOURTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND, which is, historically speaking, post the medieval age. One suspects – and the many references to sources throughout the book attest – that Mortimer made this choice of the time frame because of the range of sources available in the fourteenth century. This point aside, the book is a fascinating description of life in English villages and towns. It is written almost like a novel in the way Mortimer guides the reader through various scenes – market, street, dress, food, the churches, clergy, ordinary people. To cite an example of this style:
It is the cathedral which you will see first. As you journey along the road you come to a break in the trees and there it is, massive and magnificent, cresting the hilltop in the morning sun. Despite the wooden scaffolding at its west end, the long 80ft high, pointed lead roof, with its flying buttresses and colossal towers, it is simply the wonder of the region. It is hundreds of times bigger than every other building around it, and dwarfs the stone wall which surrounds the city. The hundreds of houses appear tiny, all at chaotic angles, and of different shades and hues . . .
When you draw closer to the city walls you will see the great gate house . . .
And then you notice the smell. Four hundred yards from the city gate, the muddy road you are following crosses a brook. As you look along the banks you see piles of refuse, broken crockery, animal bones, entrails, human faeces and rotting meat strewn in and around the bushes . . .
Mortimer has divided the main chapters into numerous sub-headings. For instance, in the chapter on People, there are sub-sections under The Three Estates: Those Who Fight (King, Dukes, Earls and Barons and Knights); Those Who Pray (The Clergy); Those Who Work (Yeoman, Villeins consisting of different kinds of the peasantry), and then a separate sub-heading titled Those Outside The Three Estates, in which women are included.
There are interesting details about the population of the major English towns and the taxes paid by the citizens of these towns. Mortimer also gives vivid descriptions of the clothes and food.
In terms of the social hierarchy and set-up, there’s a particularly harrowing story of how the younger brother of the Earl of Arundel and his men ride up to a convent in the autumn of 1379. Sir John Arundel and his men are on their way to Brittany, but the winds and unsettled seas make their voyage impossible. Sir Arundel asks the prioress of the convent for shelter. Despite her misgivings, the prioress is forced to invite Sir Arundel and his men into the convent in accordance with the hospitality decorum of the time. The men are holed up in the convent for some time and, in order to relieve the monotony of their enforced delay, the soldiers start to drink and flirt with the nuns. When the latter refuse the advances of the armed and drunk men, the soldiers go on a spree of rape and pillage and strip the convent of its valuables. The nuns are then forced onto the ship as the men set sail again. When a storm breaks out, to lighten the load of the ship Arundel orders the women to be thrown overboard into the turbulent waters.
Mortimer points out, ‘This story is an extreme one, and it would be wrong to suggest it is a typical crime’. However, he concedes that the event was thought to be significant enough for the chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, to record it.
In 292 pages the narrative does begin to flag a little and a friend who also read the book, commented, ‘There is a lot of the same thing for much of the book’.
However, Mortimer has succeeded in bringing out the story in history and this is no mean achievement.
– Golden Langur
