very nice, vividly impressionistic, deeply atmospheric and compelling but also accurate and wellresearched sketch of how life was in England around the year,
Inspired by the Julius Work Calendar, the narrative is cast in the form of a calendar: it describes the social and cultural environment and the everyday life and habits that many conventional history books tend to bypass, reflecting the rhythms of life during this fascinating period.
Thoroughly enjoyable, insightful, entertaining and accessible, this provides a very engaging insight into life as it was lived then, A little gem of a book while reading it you can almost hear the sound of church bells, and detect the sharp smell of woodsmoke on a late autumn afternoon.
The Yearis a tasty nibblet of late AngloSaxon history that you can polish off in an afternoon, Lacey's prose is light but still satisfying without being the slightest bit dry, Here is a sampler of some of the interesting tidbits I culled: July was the hungriest month of the year, since by then all last year's grain was eaten and this year's had yet to mature.
AngloSaxon society was in some ways wonderfully simple, revolving around minuscule villages, spread out all over the countryside, Fewer than two million people enjoyed plenty of elbow room and free run of the the forests, The greater economy, though, was surprisingly complex: coins remained legal tender for only three years, at which point an enterprising thegn had to return them to the mint and have them recoined.
The minter kept a tenth of the deposit for his trouble, and forwarded part of that tithe to the king: a simple but efficient system for collecting income tax.
The authors organize their social history around the course of a year, but within each chapter they tend to hop around quite a bit, Some of these jumps are a little jarring, Still, the variety and triviality of the information combined to keep me turning pages, If you take your history as you would an afternoon's visit to a museum meandering from exhibit to exhibit, skimming the cards in the cases, squinting at the mannequins made up in period dress, and then heading to the cafe for a slab of chocolate torte Lacey and Danziger's is for you.
What a great book filled with tidbits of information about living in England at the year, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The layout of this book was fantastic, Lacey used the Julian calendar's twelve months to divide life into twelve chapters, It was highly readable and would appeal to the scholar as well as casual reader, One of my favorite parts of the book was his discussion on the
break of the first millennium inAD, There was a great medieval version of the YK hysteria that really hit the spot,.What a delightfully informative little book! I don't know how they crammed so much information into justpages reminds me of Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and this one doesn't have recipes.
And why not, I ask Hmmph,
The authors take something called the Julius Work Calendar, a medieval reminder of work and faith with wonderful illustrations at the bottom of each month's page reproduced at the beginning of each chapter of the book and explained in the following text, to illustrate life in AngloSaxon England.
Did you know July was called "the hunger gap" back then, because it was right where the stores of last year's harvest ran out but before the new crop was ready to reap Did you know that if you fondled a woman's breast uninvited it'd cost you a fine of five shillings Did you know there were no surnames in the yearThey never left home, you were going to have the same name as your dad and your mom, so you didn't need them.
Did you know Benedictine monks, by oath silent most of their lives, worked out a sign language with oversigns "One gets the impression," write the authors, "that mealtimes in a Benedictine refectory were rather like a gathering of baseball coaches.
. . "
The prose throughout is able and vivid, and you can see the twinkle in the writers' eyes, as in excerpts from a First Millennial caps are mine medical book called Bard's Leechbook I want my own copy which conveniently lists maladies starting with the head and working down.
Midbody we find a cure for male impotence, or
, . . the Viagra of the yearthe yellowflowered herb agrimony, Boiled in milk, agrimony was guaranteed to excite the man who as "insufficiently virile" and if boiled in Welsh ale, it was described as having exactly the contrary effect.
although later they say
Several of the Leechbook recipes would have done credit to the witches in Macbeth,
The authors don't idealize the AngloSaxons in the year, but they respect them and their resilience and capability, and they have a knack for making the narrative sound like it's all happening next door and all we have to do is stick our heads out the window to be eyewitnesses.
About the easiest way into medieval studies I've ever stumbled across, I love nothing better than reading about the daily life of eras past, with a real peek into what folks did with themselves, This one gives glimpses but doesn't dig very deep, In linking each chapter with a month from a work calendar, it tackles twelve different aspects of daily living, each of which could easily be expounded upon to become its own book.
It was nicely written and wellresearched, but reads much like a primer and I wish I had gotten something more indepth, Pull back the curtains and take a peek at life in AngloSaxon England by reading sitelinkThe Year: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium by Robert Lacey and Danny Danzinger.
This is a delightful trip back in time, By piecing together interviews with an impressive number of scholars in the field and conducting extensive research as evidenced by their notes and bibliography, the authors provide a unique perspective on what life must have been like at the turn of the first millennium.
The organization of the book takes its cue from the Julius Work Calendar, the earliest surviving document of its sort, dated approximatelyCE, Divided into twelve months with a page for each month, this perpetual calendar chronicles the holy days and saints' days to be celebrated during the month and offers a glimpse into the daily lives of AngloSaxons in the year.
Each month is adorned with a delightful illustration depicting the activity associated with that month, whether it be ploughing, harvesting, sheepshearing, or performing a myriad of other activities.
Written in a style that is engaging and accessible, the book is full of fascinating little tidbits of information and curious facts about the lives, habits, clothing, homes, and activities of AngloSaxons.
The details allow us to peek into the lives of AngloSaxon villagersfrom the texture of their coarse, woolen clothing, to the fleas infesting their beds, to the stench of open sewers, to the backbreaking labor as they worked the land.
Life at the turn of the first millennium certainly had its challenges, People were totally dependent on nature and dated their lives by years when weather and land failed to cooperate, July, known as 'the hungry gap,' was the hardest month on the poor since spring crops had not yet matured and grain bins were probably empty.
In spite of these challenges, however, life in Anglo Saxon England had a charm all its own, Imagine living according to the rhythms of nature, Imagine stepping outside your home and not being accosted by sounds of machines in the air or on the ground, or cell phones buzzing for attention, Imagine the only sounds you hear are the rustling of leaves, the twitter of birds, the grunts and snorts of nearby animals, the chatter of a brook.
Imagine living in a village with such a small population that you know everyone and everyone knows youwho you are and where you came from the names of your parents, grandparents, and siblings which animals belong to you and which belong to your neighbor.
Imagine the strong sense of community that develops in such an environment, Imagine living in a place where surnames had not yet been invented because everyone really and truly does know your name,
Life in Anglo Saxon England certainly had its challenges, But thanks to the digestible and entertaining format of this wellresearched historical glimpse of England, we recognize it also had its charms,
Highly recommended. One of two books I remember reading in honor of the millennium the other was Stephen Jay Gould's Questioning the Millennium, So one look back and one look forward, The look back was fascinating, Although I know more about the history of the British isles than any place outside the US it remains impenetrable to me,
I enjoyed it quite a bit, of course, I'm the sort of person who walks out of any historical film discussing how well they did in recreating the period.
for England the answer is almost always "not enough sheep, "
Library copy A very quick read, definitely not scholarly work, popular history I would call it, I liked the authors choice of format for this book, Like an almanac, each chapter is dedicated to a month of the calendar year and describes the traditional activities and the fest days celebrated in that month, interspersed by references to historical figures and famous events.
The topics range from curious facts, kings and saints, practical medicine, common beliefs mix of religion, paganism and superstition, typical diet, food cultivation and preparation, role of women and attitudes towards them, popular games and poems a couple of bawdy ones and, of course, the rich gamut of society monks, peasant, merchants, lords, etc.
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The author often jumps to and fro across centuries which may be confusing, Overall, an entertaining book that gives a fulldegree view of the rustic life one would find in England around the yearAD,.stars
The sign of the cross was the antiseptic of the year, The person who dropped his food on the floor knew that he was taking some sort of risk when he picked it up and put it in his mouth, but he trusted in his faith.
Lege Feliciter, as the Venerable Bede once put it: May you read happily!
In the yearthe world was one of mystery and magicians, monks, warriors and wandering merchants people who feared an apocalypse and people who had no idea what year it was or what lay beyond the nearest valley.
It was a world of dark forests and Viking adventures in which fear was real and death a constant companion, People felt they walked handinhand with God, and envisaged him so literally that even Christians were sometimes buried with supplies for the journey to the new life in heaven.
Narrated through the progression of the seasons, this book presents a recreation of English life at the end of the first millennium AD, An interesting and wellwritten journey back in time, Wellresearched and organized based on the Julius Work Calendar, a time capsule of drawings that gives us hints about what life was like for ordinary folks more than,years ago.
"What C. S. Lewis called the 'snobbery of chronology' encourages us to presume that just because we happen to have lived after our ancestors and can read books which give us some account of what happened to them, we must also know better than them.
We certainly have more facts at our disposal, We have more wealth, both personal and national, better technology, and infinitely more skillful ways of preserving and extending our lives, But whether we today display more wisdom or common humanity is an open question, and as we look back to discover how people coped with the daily difficulties of existence a thousand years ago, we might also consider whether, in all our sophistication, we could meet the challenges of their world with the same fortitude, good humour and philosophy.
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