middle ages

[verong]

what was England like in the middle ages? did people feel the same way about things? Did they have silly ways of passing the time like we do, or were they all too busy surviving, did they invest a lot of emotion into relationships or did the mortality rate make them more emotionally resilient etc., etc., ?

[TommyC]

I'm just reading Michael Crichton's latest novel, "Timeline", about English knights in mediaeval France during the Hundred Years' War. I've always loved Crichton's written (and film) work anyway, but this one excels his previous best, because it's so obviously been heavily researched - as evidenced by the extended Bibliography at the back. It's a great read, offers an intriguing picture of a world where life as we know it was all but valueless in the ongoing carnage, and attempts to answer most of your social and cultural questions toom, as well as many others, so I would recommend you to check it out..!!

[verong]

thanks TommyC will look out for it.

[dirtdevil]

William Manchester's 'A World Lit Only by Fire, the Medieval Mind and the Renaissance". Awesome book, just what you are looking for - highly recommended, and not long like most of his stuff.

[humming bird]

Read shakespeare!!..also read "A Distant Mirror" by Barbara Tauchmann. Feelings are relative to experience but some are perpetual "With this I charge you until thine own self be true" and .."neither borrower nor lender be" for example Polonius to his son. "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones" mark Anthony, Julius Caesar..and so forth. The middle ages and the dark ages are dark only because the church stifled and destroyed culture and history. Cheers