Life in a Medieval Village [Paperback]

Frances Gies (Author), Joseph Gies (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0060920467 | ISBN-13: 978-0060920463 | Publication Date: January 30, 1991

A lively, detailed picture of village life in the Middle Ages by the authors of Life in a Medieval City and Life in a Medieval Castle. "A good general introduction to the history of this period."--Los Angeles Times

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

According to the authors of Life in a Medieval City , the vast majority of medieval Europeans lived in villages--"permanent communities organized for agricultural production." This earnest but dry distillation of period documents and archeological records focuses on Elton, an extant village located 70 miles north of London. The Gieses examine the dynamics of Elton's open-field type of agriculture; the division of the villagers into free and unfree, rich and poor; and the relationship between peasants and their ecclesiastical lord. Also discussed are the peasants' simple dress; meager diet; primitive housing; quarrels and lawsuits; sexual mores; rites of marriage, death and inheritance; and penchant for ale. Coroners' rolls reveal that parents frequently neglected infants; court accounts demonstrate that witnesses of crimes were obligated to come to the rescue of the victim. While valuable to history students, the barrage of facts presented here won't come alive for lay readers. Illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC, History Book Club and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Using the English village of Elton, the Gies vividly detail the everyday lives of people during the Middle Ages. The development and difficult-to-define concept of the village is traced, and examples of daily occurrences in the village hierarchy, the inhabitants, marriage and family, work, and in the judicial system are given. The decline of the village as a major social system concludes the study. The book will be a challenge for most high-school students. Many aspects of village life are discussed; because of the brevity of the text, most concepts are not fully developed. Middle Age terminology is used extensively, and often it is not defined until after the term has been introduced. Reproductions and illustrations give glimpses of medieval life, but do not relate directly to the text. However, records of fines, sales transactions, marriages, etc. are quoted to emphasize a point, providing primary-source information, and the book is a good example of history as a living, changing form, for it outlines some new interpretations of life during this period. --Stuart A. MacCaffray, Jr., Lake Braddock Secondary School, Burke, VA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (January 30, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060920467
• ISBN-13: 978-0060920463
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid introduction, October 30, 2003

By 

Diane Schirf - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Life in a Medieval Village (Paperback)

Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies. Recommended.

Life in a Medieval Village is one of a series, including Life in a Medieval City and Life in a Medieval Castle, written by Frances and Joseph Gies. This series rarely touches upon the great people and events romanticized by Hollywood and numerous fiction writers (and perhaps even a few historians), but focuses on the basics of everyday life for the average person or even the average lord or cleric. The Gies use a number of primary and secondary sources, the latter of which reveal how the historian's view of the medieval village has changed in the 20th and 21st centuries and how flexible historians must be in interpreting the evidence.

Researched and written for the layperson, Life in a Medieval Village is more accurately about life in an English medieval village, with most of the detail coming from the records of Aethelintone/Aethelington/Adelintune/Aylington (Elton) in Huntingdon, one of Ramsey Abbey's manors. The Gies provide a history of the village concept and its definition; its role in the manorial system (contrasted to the seigneurial system); a description of its people, physical structure, buildings, administration and administrators, judicial system, family and spiritual life, and work; and the background behind its decline.

The world of Elton and similar villages is not found in movies or novels. Social and economic statuses are not always clear cut, economic upward mobility is possible primarily through acquisition of land, and even the distinction between "free" and "unfree" is not distinct. Life revolves around the manor and the villeins' and cotters' obligations to the mostly absent lord and the manor, which come in the form of work, rents, fees, taxes, and fines. The administrative structure of the manor is somewhat like that of a modern corporation, with the lord as CEO of multiple manors (and primary consumer of goods) who "wanted the certainty of rents and dues from his tenants, the efficient operation of his demesne, and good prices for wool and grain." His steward, or seneschal, serves as senior executive, while the bailiff, reeve, beadle, woodward, and others are the manor's day-to-day managers and supervisors.

As the villagers acquire surnames (from where they live, what they do, the offices they hold, and personal characteristics), patterns emerge from the records. Some families become dominant economically and politically (e.g., holding many offices such as reeve or juror many times); others decline; while yet others show a propensity for violence and petty crimes. Such infractions are punished primarily with fines rather than corporal punishment; the stocks and hanging are resorted to only in the most egregious cases. The judicial system is often compassionate (or at least practical); many fines for minor trespasses are lowered or forgiven by the court because "she is poor." When laws are broken, a jury hears the case, but the entire village decides.

The Gies also provide an excellent overview of the passing of the medieval village, which began with a sustained famine and the Black Death. The labor-intensive manorial system simply could not survive the depletion of workers, the increase in expenses, the onerous taxes brought on by wars, and, perhaps more importantly, the sense of change and discontent that began to pervade the villein class.

The challenge for the Gies as authors is to take the minimal material available (ranging from books about estate management written for lords and stewards to court and ecclesiastical records) and to bring the village to life from these records. What emerges are people who live in fragile houses; are rarely well fed from a nutritional perspective and whose food supply is always in doubt; work hard and are not above trying to wheedle out of work; who drink and fight and are sometimes brutal; fornicate (primarily a woman's crime but not a particularly reviled one); vandalize; commit petty crimes against the lord and their neighbors; and in short live lives of struggle every day without the expectation or vision of change in the future.

The Gies focus on Elton, with supplemental material from other English villages, so the reader who is interested in village life on the continent will need to explore other works to flesh out the picture. Because the mostly illiterate villagers themselves left few personal records, it is up to the thoughtful reader to discern the village's character and personality and to conceive of what day-to-day life must have been, based on the little that is known-to put oneself into the worn shoes of the working villein and to imagine his or her thoughts, feelings, and aspirations. Life in a Medieval Village is a good beginning.

Diane L. Schirf, 30 October 2003.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well sourced, but doesn't read well., May 16, 2003

By 

Marc Comtois (Rhode Island, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life in a Medieval Village (Paperback)

Renowned scholars of medieval history, the Gies credentials are impeccable. However, in this book, they seem to relish in providing piece after piece of redundant references, notes, and other bits of trivia to tirelessly pound the reader into submission as they seem determined to impress with their knowledge and research capabilities. If nothing else, the work provides the reader with a comprehensive bilbliography and reference list of places to go if they are that interested in life in a medieval village. The result of this style is a dry work that ofter reads like paragraph after paragraph of a census roll or register. It's dry, it's well researched, but it's dry. Oh, did I say that already?

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Flavor of Life in the Middle Ages, August 23, 2002

By 

Jeffrey R. Elver "jeff82" (Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Life in a Medieval Village (Paperback)

The Gies have made a career out of filling a niche in the medieval history market. Life in a Medieval Village gives a very detailed view of everyday medieval life to the casual reader. As a result, they walk a fine line. Some casual readers may find the text to be dry, and to lend too much detail to seemingly trivial matters, while specialist historians may find the work too general and superficial (not scholarly).

I find their work to be engaging, and to provide a fairly good picture of the subject matter. In terms of medieval studies, it's useful to provide a general knowledge base prior to more detailed analysis.

I recommend this book as well as their other works.