Status Updates From The Middle Ages: Everyday L...

"The priest was called upon to provide blessings for salt, butter, and cheese, to bless eggs at Easter and seeds at planting time, to bless a child before its first haircut, and to bless a boy before his first shave." HA! Imagine if that practice was still around today.

"Various non-Catholic sects existed in the West...they had to survive more or less underground. The most widespread of these sects were the Cathars, who believed that God and the Devil were two equal powers in eternal conflict." Sounds like a Christian version of Zoroastrianism. I can see why the Catholic Church didn't like it with the Devil being equal to God, when God is supposed to be the Supreme Being.

The author uses "barbarian" as a descriptor of those people outside of known established borders. And here I thought that description has been dropped by this point.

One page in and already I had to check: this was published in 1991 with this particular version published in 2013. There are a lot more pictures and paintings than previous versions, and they are in color! Also I'm glad that the author wrote in the introduction that this book will be focused on Northern and Western Europe sans Spain and Italy because of the cultural and institutional differences they had.

Cats played a noble and important role in the common medieval household. Medieval housewives would agree that the prevention of infestation from mices within the houses and granaries provided a profound impact to the overall health and food supply of local manors.