Status Updates From Life in a Medieval City

Ch 9 church life. Not much novel info here for me. Other than an interesting excerpt of a medieval sermon about an honest merchant, and that people sometimes brought their own stools or other seats to church. Pretty basic Medieval catholicism.

Medieval economics section

Up to this point in time, 1250 france, war horses have been bred to be massive, they would be unrecognizable to Julius Caesar.

Most people traveled on foot, some rode donkeys. Horses were for nobles and rich burghers

Ch 6, small business. Tradesmen and craftsmen lived where they worked and their wives and male relatives could help them. Goldsmiths could pound gold tens of thousands of times to get it into super thin gold leaf which was then used by monks carefully in their manuscripts which they spent long times working on. Puts a new value on vivid medieval manuscripts.

Finished Ch 4 & 5, childbirth, childhood activities, weddings, funerals.

Ch 3 about medieval city women. Funny how domineering wives and henpecked husbands were a common trope back then.

Finished Ch 1 about different districts and goings on of Tours France 1250. Very vivid descriptions

How historical nations and cities developed and worked can be more interesting than the histories of individuals

Really surprised that approx 1200s france had 22 million people, about 1/3 of all western europe which was ~60 million, and england ha 4 million. Cities did not have more than 50-100,000 so people might have been very spread out across villages.

Prologue excellent so far. Explaining the rise of medieval cities themselves in the context of the fall of the western roman empire.