Nigel Saul's A-Z of life in the Middle Ages is essential reading for anyone interested in the turbulent years between the arrival of William the Conqueror and the accession of Henry Tudor in 1485. Here in one volume is a mine of information on all the major aspects of medieval society and culture, giving a comprehensive picture of a world at once alien and familiar, whose way of life has long vanished, but whose visible remains survive all around us. Nigel Saul provides a wealth of examples to show how the great institutions of the age--the Church, the Crown, and the law--affected the lives of the English at all levels. Further entries catalogue the cultural legacy of the period, from castles and cathedrals to manuscripts, brasses, and stained glass.

'The book is a superb introduction to England between the battles of Hastings and Bosworth Field.'

Charts the history of Britain from the coming of the Romans to modern Britain in the 21st century.

My object has been to keep social rather than political facts in view, and throughout to supply by illustration from contemporary accounts some of the characteristic detail which is apt to be crowded out in political histories. The story of social evolution may fairly be called the national story. The political story brings to view the procession of great events, the social story the procession of dead ancestors who acted, howsoever humbly, their part in shaping those events. In political history we see the trophies borne along in the triumphal cars, and in social history the groups of ordinary men, women, and children who fill the carriages or stream along on foot. There is not one way, but rather there are many ways of telling a nation's story: the growth of governmental institutions, fluctuations in territorial expansion, the spread of commerce, changes in foreign relations, the history of methods of thought, all make urgent claim to consideration. But not the least truthful measure of progress lies in those superficial indications of civilisation which are set aside as the province of social history. In the medieval Englishman's domesticity there is an epitome of the life of the nation: English private life has its unity, its episodes and catastrophes, which reflect the shifting lights and shadows of the national story. The private history of kings and princes, nobility, clergy and commons, has become now, with the progress of historical study, a theme more easy of treatment than it was a while ago. Changes in the social relations of the classes of men can now be traced, changes that have had their part in shaping the story of a nation, no less than the evolution of the agencies of government, the historic series of victories and defeats, gains and losses of territory, the happy or the luckless political chance, the fateful power of the point of time.

A comprehensive introduction to medieval England surveying the years from the departure of the Roman legions to the Battle of Bosworth.

The cultural life of England over the long period from the Norman Conquest to the Reformation was rich and varied, in ways that scholars are only now beginning to understand in detail. This Companion introduces a wide range of materials that constitute the culture, or cultures, of medieval England, across fields including political and legal history, archaeology, social history, art history, religion and the history of education. Above all it looks at the literature of medieval England in Latin, French and English, plus post-medieval perspectives on the 'Middle Ages'. In a linked series of essays experts in these areas show the complex relationships between them, building up a broad account of rich patterns of life and literature in this period. The essays are supplemented by a chronology and guide to further reading, helping students build on the unique access this volume provides to what can seem a very foreign culture.