Everyday Life in Medieval England

by Christopher Dyer

Everyday Life in Medieval England captures the day-to-day experience of people in the middle ages - the houses and settlements in which they lived, the food they ate, their getting and spending - and their social relationships. The picture that emerges is of great variety, of constant change, of movement and of enterprise. Many people were downtrodden and miserably poor, but they struggled against their circumstances, resisting oppressive authorities, to build their own way of life and to improve their material conditions. The ordinary men and women of the middle ages appear throughout. Everyday life in Medieval England is an outstanding contribution to both national and local history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Medieval History, British Literature

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Christopher Charles Dyer CBE FBA (born 1944) is Leverhulme Emeritus Professor of Regional and Local History and director of the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

Dyer is well known as the historian of everyday life, a recurring theme in his publications. Dyer looks at the economic and social history of medieval life, with an emphasis on the English Midlands from the Saxon period through to the 16th century. He was invited to deliver the Ford Lectures in the University of Oxford in a lecture series entitled 'An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle Ages'.

Reviews

[Andrew McAuley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review. It is a collection of 15 essays and not an overall narrative of life in medieval england. The essays focus on very specific subjects, some of which are very mundane, such as changes to medieval fish diets. I skipped the chapter on 11th century houses because it was by far the least value to me.

This is probably the driest book I have ever read. It is a struggle and took me a long time to read because honestly it's not enjoyable. There were a couple of sections of interest but many which were of little interest. That said, there was valuable information for the medieval nerd in each essay and the research that has gone into it is clearly immense.

I would recommend the book to read for pleasure: it is kind of a torture. However, for research purposes - particularly for the 1381 revolt, there is an absolute wealth of background information.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this book as it was boring me to death and at one point I put the book down for a whole week because the writing was that bad I was losing the will to live.I read an extra 70 pages after I was getting bored thinking it would get better but it never did.I felt like this was more of an essay than a book and reading it felt like a chore.It took me a month just to get to 61% it was that bad and then I just gave up completely.

[Ally · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content was good but the writing a bit sloppy

[Kainka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Well researched and engaging.

[George Foord · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched but not engaging. Great for acedamic research, not so much for a pleasant read

[Lady of the Lake · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is exactly what I thought it would be and great for what I wanted it for, research. It is not a fascinating read on medieval life but the facts are there and laid out in a form that is dry yet informative. I am continuing my learning on all aspects of this time and this book gave me much of what I wanted. I would give it a four for information but a three for the way it read, as a text.