Toni Mount - How to Survive in Medieval England

HOW TO SURVIVE IN

MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

For Elliot Samuel Mount

The youngest member of the family

And so the most likely to have the chance to become a time-traveller

TONI MOUNT

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Toni Mount,

ISBN 978 1 52675 441 7

eISBN 978 1 52675 442 4

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52675 443 1

The right of Toni Mount to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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It may happen in my grandchildrens lifetimes, or those of their grandchildren, that mankind will learn the secrets of time-travel and Doctor Whos TARDIS becomes a reality. I have no idea what twenty-second century technology will be like. Perhaps books such as this wont exist and readers will simply choose a title, connect to it in some way, through the ether, and the entire text will be implanted into their minds for future reference. Personally, I prefer turning pages.

However mysterious our future may be, at least we know something about our past. This book is intended as a handy guide to the dos and donts for visitors to Medieval England: do be polite, dont drink the water, do wear rabbit fur, dont expect to eat with a fork, etc. How do you find your way around without GPS, Sat Nav or even signposts? Where can you get a decent meal; what will be served and how will it taste? What should you do if you meet royalty? If youre not well, who should you see about it? Where can you stay? What should you wear for a night on the town? How do you contact a friend or relative without social media or skype and no wi-fi to look up information? (For looking stuff up, Im afraid this book is all that will be available.) And most importantly, how do you get money to spend when there are no credit/ debit cards or cash points, or even banks?

You wont have any relatives: they havent been born yet, but you will definitely have living ancestors, if you can identify them.

Youll find the answers to these questions and many more here, produced in a user-friendly format you can take with you on your travels back to the Middle Ages (unless you downloaded it on Kindle, in which case, its only of use for as long as the battery remains charged).

Setting the Scene

Labourers working in fields.

Medieval England is an agricultural land. Depending upon the date of your visit, the scenery may be rather different. Back in 1066, when William the Conqueror defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold II, at the battle of Hastings, he found England a prosperous country the main reason he was so keen to become its king dotted with few towns but many villages and hamlets, each with its own three-field system, growing crops in rotation. This means the arable land is divided into three fields: one growing wheat, barley, oats or rye, depending on the soil type and local climate; one sown with peas and beans, which restore nutrients to the soil; and the third left fallow, to be grazed by livestock to add their manure to the earth. Each year the use of the field rotates, keeping them all fertile, and they are divided into strips, owned by each villager in such a way that everyone has a share of the best land and the poorest. Most houses come with a garden plot, where the household grows onions, cabbages, leeks and herbs. Every village has its common land, where the locals graze their animals, and often an orchard with apple, pear, plum and cherry trees. Here the beehives, or skeps, are kept, to ensure the bees pollinate the blossom to give a good harvest of fruit and to produce honey; the poor mans only sweetener. The village probably has areas of woodland as well, which supply timber for building, kindling for the fire, free nuts and berries in the autumn and pannage for pigs.