In this book Ian Mortimer reveals a country in which life expectancy is in the early thirties, people still starve to death and Catholics are persecuted for their faith. Yet it produces some of the finest writing in the English language, some of the most magnificent architecture, and sees Elizabeth's subjects settle in America and circumnavigate the globe. Welcome to a country that is, in all its contradictions, the very crucible of the modern world.

Half of the population is under the age of 21, and most people will die before age 30. Most of the population is immature and inexperienced. People marry at age 14. Many commanders in the Army are still in their teens. Imagine a nation being run by a bunch of hormonal teenage boys! This is history at its most exciting, physical, visceral - the past not as something to be studied but as lived experience. This is Ian Mortimer at the height of his time-travelling prowess.I wouldn't want to live in medieval England - the chances of dying of something now preventable or curable was immense. Life expectancy was not good, that is even if you managed to avoid getting the plague which was rife. A review written by Kathryn Hughes for The Guardian praised the book's different approach and abundance of trivia, adding that "It is Monty Python and the Holy Grail with footnotes and, my goodness, it is fun... The result of this careful blend of scholarship and fancy is a jaunty journey through the 14th century, one that wriggles with the stuff of everyday life... [A] deft summary of life in the high medieval period." [6] The Washington Post's short review by Aaron Leitko vaunted the book as "Fodor's-style framework" and a travel book that gets into "heart of a different time zone". [7]

People hardly ever went anywhere. They didn't get time off, they mostly had neither horses nor money and a journey to the nearest city for market day. These towns and cities were tiny, smelly with no sewage but everyone putting out their night soil and emptying their piss pots into the street below. He also writes in other genres: his fourth novel 'The Outcasts of Time' won the 2018 Winston Graham Prize for historical fiction. His earlier trilogy of novels set in the 1560s were published under his middle names, James Forrester. In 2017 he wrote 'Why Running Matters' - a memoir of running in the year he turned fifty. But what would it really be like to live in Restoration Britain? Where would you stay and what would you eat? What would you wear and where would you do your shopping? The third volume in the series of Ian Mortimer's bestselling Time Traveller's Guides answers the crucial questions that a prospective traveller to seventeenth-century Britain would ask. There is some excellent information here, entertainingly presented. I do wish some parts had been expanded, though. Sumptuary laws are touched on, the origins and some detail given – but I think if a time traveller had to rely purely on this book as regards to what he is and is not allowed to wear he might end up in trouble: color, for example, was dictated as well as material. A great many of the dictates were moot, as crimson velvet or any material dyed purple was too expensive for most, but on the off chance a time traveller missed this and transgressed he could be subject to fine. Mortimer, Ian (6 April 2017). The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain: Life in the Age of Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton and The Great Fire of London. Random House. ISBN 9781448191970.The book is confined to the 14th century in England, with passing references to the Continent. Mortimer goes into details about food, clothing, building materials, the layout of houses, but also covers things like laws, customs, travel, entertainment. It is ground-breaking in historical literature in that it is written entirely in the present tense. [3] Illustrations [ edit ] So, as long as you can get enough to eat, and can avoid all the various lethal infections, the dangers of childbirth, lead poisoning, and the extreme violence, you should live a long time.” ————— Mortimer, Ian (29 February 2012). The time traveller's guide to medieval England: a handbook for visitors to the fourteenth century. Bodley Head. p.318. ISBN 978-1448103782. There weren't many books. Musical instruments were expensive. But beer was cheap and that led quite often to sex, people's most enjoyable occupation. For much of this time period it was mandatory to go to Church, it was a crime not to. So Saturday nights were on the booze and fornication and Sunday was repentance in case of hellfire, which most people it seemed firmly believed in . I have long found this period of history the most fascinating to read about. What compels my interest is not the fierce battles or matters of court, but more the running of the day-to-day life of the common people, during this time.

It is superbly researched, entertainingly written and full of information and cool tidbits for any history fan. It will help to dispel some of the common myths about the 14th century life. If you would like a great overview of life in this time, you can not go wrong with this book. It does a great job of setting down the way life was during this time and it will give a reader that is unfamiliar with this time a great insight into this period.Discover the era of William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I through the sharp, informative and hilarious eyes of Ian Mortimer. The Guide also lets you know how to take care of yourself or others in matters of illness or surgery (even the plague or leprosy), how to handle various legal issues such as malicious arrest or even execution. (A WARNING...this next sentence might be disgusting:) You are also given the particulars of your own disembowelment, and how a skilled executioner will most likely enable you to witness your own entrails on fire before you die. Approximately ninety different themes from medieval life are shown in the book, so there is no point in listing them. Some are described in more detail, some less detailed, but even for the latter the level of detail remains high. Sometimes there are comparisons with the present state of a topic, which provides a good contrast, and also brings a little humor. Mortimer] sets out to re-enchant the 14th Century, taking us by the hand through a landscape furnished with jousting knights, revolting peasants and beautiful ladies in wimples. It is Monty Python and the Holy Grail with footnotes, and, my goodness it is fun... The result of this careful blend of scholarship and fancy is a jaunty journey through the 14th Century, one that wriggles with the stuff of everyday life Guardian

In other words, Mortimer succeeds in maintaining a kind of tension between the familiar and the, for us, novel and unusual, and the upshot of it is that rather than travelling through time as a pursed-lipped colonizer might travel a land whose denizens he considers lagging behind the standards of civilization, we will more often than not look at those people from many centuries ago as our fellowmen, in suffering as well as in joy (although they probably had more of the former), in love as well as in hate. As Mortimer himself puts it: It is generally said that medieval men are in their prime in their twenties, mature in their thirties, and growing old in their forties. This means that men have to take on responsibility at a relatively young age. In some towns citizens as young as twelve can serve on juries. Leaders in their twenties are trusted and considered deserving of respect.”The book also included interesting separate plots, for example, the story of a cruel gang or a retelling of the literary works of this era. You have come face to face with the contrasts of a medieval city. It is so proud, so grand, and in places so beautiful; and yet it displays all the disgusting features of a bloated glutton. The city as a body is a caricature of the human body: smelly, dirty, commanding, rich and indulgent. As you hurry across the wooden bridge over Shitbrook, and hasten towards the gates, the contrasts become even more vivid. A group of boys with dirty faces and tousled hair run towards you, and crowd around, shouting, 'Sir, do you want a room? A bed for the night? Where are you from?', struggling between them to take the reins of your horse, and maybe pretending that they know your brother, or are from the same region as you. Their clothes are filthy, and their feet even filthier, being bound into leather shoes which have suffered the stones and mud of the streets for more years than their owners. Welcome to a place of pride, wealth, authority, crime, justice, high art, stench and beggary. W.H. Auden once suggested that to understand your own country, you need to have lived in at least two others. One can say something similar for periods of time. To understand your own century, you need to have come to terms with at least two others." I like it. If nothing else, one wonderful thing about looking at another time period in this sort of format is as in the introduction, the oft-repeated, but necessarily so, axiom that people never change. There are some shifts in perception and tolerance – bear- and bull-baiting are no longer remotely acceptable in much of the world, and the education of children no longer relies heavily on the rod, and it's no longer considered a hilarious lark to set a trap to string someone up by the ankle … but it's taken centuries to shift such things out of the norm into the abnormal, and the behaviors or the desires toward them do still linger. One point carried through this book is that, fundamentally, a medieval man or woman is not so very different from someone you'd meet on the street right now. (Particularly if "right now" you're walking down a path at a Renaissance Faire, but that's a whole 'nother post.) The plot is clear and voluminous. In non-fiction literature, the plot is usually built around the coverage of a topic, and in this book, the author describes in a logical and consistent way about all aspects of life in medieval England.