Looking for west european middle ages life

fabrice4

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Jul 18, 2020
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Looking for west european middleage life, in particular knight apprenticeship and any other facets of society from church to paysants etc to better understand beyond dry history books

beyond Follet, Cornwell

many thanks
 
Cadfeal series of books Ellis Peters.

Detective Abbey life in the 1100-1200s with some info on peasant life etc.
 
CJ Sansom's lawyer Shardlake series is excellent. As well as being gripping detective novels, they capture perfectly the flavour of Tudor England.

Although the attitudes of the main character are distinctly modern, everything else appears to be realistic.
 
Are you looking for historical fiction reading recommendations, or historical non-fiction?

Both, anything giving a realistic "hisoricity", then if Gengis reaches Rome and burns London ... who cares

My interest is the life, society etc

Monty Python and the Holy Grail tells you all you'll ever need to know


LOL

This is Enlightenment historic revisionist point of view

I like the hermit telling the knights "the effort" and they running away scared LOL
 
Both, anything giving a realistic "hisoricity", then if Gengis reaches Rome and burns London ... who cares

My interest is the life, society etc

I did wonder, in which case some non-fiction resources:

For popular books on mediaeval daily life, try these for starters:

Mediaeval Lives - Terry Jones
The Time Traveller's Guide to Mediaeval England - Ian Mortimer

YouTube could be a good place to visit, especially here for knights:
 
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:)

I did wonder, in which case some non-fiction resources:

For popular books on mediaeval daily life, try these for starters:

Mediaeval Lives - Terry Jones
The Time Traveller's Guide to Mediaeval England - Ian Mortimer

YouTube could be a good place to visit, especially here for knights:


the same as in?
Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Screenplay

by

Graham Chapman &; John Cleese &; Terry Gilliam &; Eric Idle &; Michael Palin &; Terry Jones

Monty Python and the Holy Grail tells you all you'll ever need to know


WOW

I didn't know that Terry Jones was an historian, but in that movie everybody is being depicted as brutish morons , while they were very smart and resourceful
 
Re: Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

As my school history teacher said: "The depiction of the peasants in the mud at the beginning of the film is a far more accurate depiction of their quality of life than any Hollywood movie or romantic novel."
 
Both, anything giving a realistic "hisoricity", then if Gengis reaches Rome and burns London ... who cares

My interest is the life, society etc




LOL

This is Enlightenment historic revisionist point of view
No it isn’t. It is a very silly film, and you can expect answers regarding said film to be silly too ( though my history teacher was making a fair point.)
 
Ronald Welch writes a good series and the first three are in your period of interest. Knight Crusader is available in paperback. The others are either second hand (some very expensive) or in re-released hardback direct from Foxed Books - cheaper than some of the second hand hardbacks.
and

Knight Crusader is particularly charming and informative - it's the only book I've read about the crusaders campaign and the kingdom of Outremer.
The series covers all major western conflicts up to world war 1 -with a focus on the UK - mostly following the members of the same family down the ages.
 
Ronald Welch writes a good series and the first three are in your period of interest. Knight Crusader is available in paperback. The others are either second hand (some very expensive) or in re-released hardback direct from Foxed Books - cheaper than some of the second hand hardbacks.
and

Knight Crusader is particularly charming and informative - it's the only book I've read about the crusaders campaign and the kingdom of Outremer.
The series covers all major western conflicts up to world war 1 -with a focus on the UK - mostly following the members of the same family down the ages.

There is a name from the past. I read For the King, Captain of Dragoons, and Captain of Foot when I was a wee lad. Hell you have just brought on a massive dose of nostalgia for me. I am going to be caught up in misty thoughts for the rest of the night.
 
Yes, I read them from the school library and it took me a while to find exactly who the author was all these years later - and then I started buying them and reading through and was delighted to find Slightly Foxed Books re-prints. I don't normally buy new hard backs, but these were actually cheaper than second hand copies. Still at the £20 level, but a lot of the titles are going for more than that second hand. Still have a few to get, but done the ones I remembered the best.
 
Do they still hold up? From my memory it was For the King and Captain of Foot that I found exceptional in that they fired my imagination. Also the fact that I was not used to the element of tragedy or the fatal heroics of the characters. I think the main character in Captain of Foot dies at the end.

I have just checked the link you put up. I think O am going to go for the full set of the Carey Family. Pricey but I should be able to persuade my better half to get them a s Christmas present for me and you never know my now 9 year old son may find them enjoyable.
 
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I found they hold up very well. Yes, he doesn't follow the same formula for book after book like so many series do. The main character in the Indian Mutiny one is a long way from a decent, well set up young chap.
For The King's main character is the opposite of a gung-ho into battle, hooraay everything is black and white sort of person.
Knight Crusader himself is a rather modest charming person.
Just occasionally there is something I look at and think that if he were writing today he probably wouldn't have said that - it was mostly in Mohawk Valley, set in pre-Independence America and there are one or two references to Native American characters that weren't in any way horrible, as Welch doesn't do that, it was just something in the phrasing that made me wonder if a Native American might find it offensive. The same for a couple of black characters. I have seen a review where someone didn't like the way he portrayed a few puritan characters who make a relatively brief appearance but not anything objecting to his non-white characters.

Knight Crusader was still paperback price the last time I looked, so you might want to try that before committing to the whole series. Though then again, you can just read the sample courtesy of Amazon and that might be all you need to confirm you still like them.
 
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