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    The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
    The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
    The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
    Audiobook17 hours

    The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England

    Written by Ian Mortimer

    Narrated by Mike Grady

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    An entertaining, accessible guide to Elizabethan England—the latest in the Time Traveler’s Guide series

    Acclaimed historian Ian Mortimer shows readers that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. Using diaries, letters, books, and other writings of the day, Mortimer offers a masterful portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, re-creating the sights, sounds, and customs of
    the sixteenth century from the perspective of both peasants and royals. Through this lens, we can begin to understand Queen Elizabeth’s subjects not only as a people profoundly shaped by the time in which they lived, but also as the people who shaped the world we know and the people we are today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 27, 2013
    ISBN9781470366278
    The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
    Author

    Ian Mortimer

    Ian Mortimer is the author of the bestselling Time Traveller's Guide series. He is an experienced lecturer and public speaker and regularly appears at literary festivals around the country. He is also writes for the media.

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    Reviews for The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England

    4/5

    202 ratings43 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This book is both fun and educational. I think this is a good place to start if you want to acquire a knowledge of the 14th Century. The book is well-written, informative and covers the subject well.The only subject seemingly not covered is war. There is no real mention of how war was waged in that time period. There was some description of armor and longbows but no description of armies or hierarchies of command or logistics. There was no explanation of ransom or how it worked. The book only mentioned that Chaucer was not ransomed.The book, I believe, is worth your time if you have an average or less knowledge of the time. I can recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England does exactly what it says on the tin. Written in a light hearted and informative way, it gives facts in a really interesting style, looking at how we in the 21st century would find life in the 14th, and dispelling some myths along the way.With chapters on money, clothing, law, justice, buildings etc, a nice overview is created on what life is actually like, written as if we were visiting another country as opposed to going back in time. It also provides information for the whole of society, ranging from the King right down to the lowliest beggar, so the picture painted is truly complete.I really enjoyed this, and I'm not someone who gets on very well with non-fiction books. This was written in such an interesting and fun way that I didn't feel that I was 'learning' or getting bogged down in facts.Admittedly my attention wavered slightly at times, but only when reading about parts of society that I have absolutely no interest in, then or now. It also put points across in a way I had never thought of them before, as the author challenges us to look at life as the 14th century person did, as opposed to tainting it with 21st century ideals and expectations.An interesting and enjoyable look at the 14th century, written in a unique style.
    • 4/5
      Comes with the requisite villainising social commentary, that would be excluded if the subject bore roots on any other continent, but the rest of the book is well-executed.
    • 4/5
      A book that would be a late 20th century/Early 21st century persons guide to what it would be like to vist the 14th century. Well mostly if you're male. There's scant information about the lives of women in this period and this really doesn't offer much of what's available. The guide is a tad biased towards a male traveller but in order to travel around during this period you would probably be better off male than female.This is a pretty much no-holds barred look at what lives were like during this period and would be a good resource for anyone writing in this period.And now, dammit, There was a Lover and his Lass is looping in my brain. I know not quite period but close.
    • 5/5
      Quirky and informative fun. The book drops you off in 14th century England and grants you an insider's view into the denizens of that era. It's more than just a dry listing of events, places and names. It grants insight into the people trying to survive and more importantly to live despite being mired in floods, ignorance, violence and pestilence. The author's touch isn't heavy with gloom and doom nor is it judgmental or apologetic. Instead he adopts a fresh matter of fact approach with a wry and amusing voice that makes it easy to follow his lead. The end result is you gain insight into that slice of human history that's germane to your view of the world today..after all - the past is prologue.
    • 4/5
      The premise here is to imagine oneself as a time traveler to the 14th century England, as if this is a Fodor's guide. Ever wonder how they "wiped themselves" in medieval England? It covers just about everything you could possibly want to know so that you can get the lay of land, customs and what and what not to do. I enjoyed it, though it could be a bit dry at times. Narration was fine on audio. A lot of eye openings facts I didn't know about!
    • 2/5
      I quit reading this on page 80. I picked it up because it looked interesting -- a book on everyday life in the fourteenth century. I really don't like the writing style, though. It makes what should be a fun subject into a very boring text. I'm sad. this had such potential...
    • 3/5
      not as lively of text as I was led to believe, save for reference some day
    • 5/5
      I don't usually review books that have been reviewed well, meaning I agree with the reviews and ratings, but I want to mention 2 tiny facts that are of great interest to me and anyone who shares my obsessions. On page 117 Mortimer says "knitting had not been invented" I am delighted that he does not have the Wive of Bath happily knitting socks, thats better that the Canadian Museum of Man that has the Vikings leaving knitting needles in Newfoundland around 1000 AD but knitting had been invented, around 800AD somewhere in the Middle East, the skill had not spread to England.
    • 5/5
      An outstanding introduction to life in Medieval England. The 14th century comes to life in all aspects. Following the common guidebook structure, the author presents the landscape, the people, the medieval character, basic essentials, what to wear, traveling, where to stay, what to eat and drink, health and hygiene, the law and what to do. Only the last section is a bit short. A real travel guide would not have missed to illustrate the buildings with floor plans and pictures. Some remarks about near-abroad attractions in Wales, Scotland and Aquitaine would also have been welcome for the enterprising traveler.Overall, it is an eminently readable book that offers the interested reader an excellent first look at English medieval life. If I had to advise someone about good starter books about the 14th century, this would be my first pick, followed by Tuchman's A Distant Mirror. The public seems to agree as the book's cover has inspired a whole range of books that want to surf on that wave.
    • 4/5
      Mortimer succeeds in bringing 14th century England to life. He does it using well researched secondary sources and there are plenty of footnotes to back up his research. It is quite different from the usual social history and for me with my current interest in the period it provided insights. Some of these might appear obvious but only after Mortimer had pointed them out. The final chapter "Envoi" is a well argued approach to the authors approach to history in this book and one that I subscribe to. I have just finished John Gardners: Life and times of Chaucer, which has a more conventional approach but does have more detail Although much of what Mortimer says can be gleaned from the Gardner book, the difference in approach brings out different points and so for me both books were well worth reading.Would I like to visit 14th century England after reading this book - definitely not. Being able to make this sort of decision is surely what all good travel books are about.
    • 5/5
      Although I’m a great fan of fictional time-travel stories (Connie Willis is my favorite author in that genre), this is not a book I would have read had it not been a selection by a non-fiction readers’ group of which I’m a member. What fun it was … and I’m glad I didn’t miss it.I didn’t need to read any book to know I wouldn’t have relished living in the Middle Ages. Talk about a tough life! The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England gives it to readers chapter and verse. From clothing (dictated by one’s class) to the legal climate (grim for civil liberties), food (surprisingly varied) to health and hygiene (ugh!), Ian Mortimer shows what life was like in the 1300s. Although a few people are named, for the most part The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England has no characters. (While I was reading this book, I kept on thinking how an historian eight centuries from now would write such a book about the US in our current century. What a job that would be.)The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England would make a wonderful supplementary text for a European History class. I have to hand it to Ian Mortimer – he tells such a wonderful story without really having people and events to hang his tale on. The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England was incredibly interesting.
    • 5/5
      A thoroughly enjoyable social history of a time somewhat familiar and yet fascinatingly alien.
    • 4/5
      An absolute riot to read , as one reviewer said ' the best book on medieval England since canterbury tales.'. I will actually miss reading this book now that I have completed the journey
    • 5/5
      What a little gem this book was! Full of information about the 14th Century and what you would expect if you went time travelling! It gives information on buildings, food, clothes, the law and the dreaded Plague that was rife in these times.It is told in an easy to read, lighthearted style and gives you just a taste of what it would have been like to live then. I would really like to find out more now!
    • 5/5
      Simply brilliant. Brings the 14th Century alive in every sense of the word. If you want to know what the details of day to day life are like then read this book. I'll be using it as a source book for a long time I'm sure and I think I might even have a go at historical fiction now I've got this to draw on.
    • 5/5
      My favorite quotes from this book:"Luxurious bathing, especially when it involves members of the opposite sex, has undertones of licentiousness.""By the time you get to the third course, you will have realized that the religious prohibition against eating meat is seen as no obstacle to culinary excess....""As you travel around medieval England you will come across a sport described by some contemporaries as 'abominable...more common, undignified and worthless than any other game, rarely ending but with some loss, accident or disadvantage to the players themselves.' This is football.""Literature is a means to delight the mind and embolden the spirit."
    • 4/5
      I learned a lot of details of life in fourteenth century England that I had not known. Mortimer vividly describes every aspect of life from ale-making to waste disposal. It was all fascinating, making a distant time and place quite concretely visible to me.
    • 4/5
      A book of everyday history of the 14th century. What was it like to live there? Not just the kings, queen, nobles that we usually get but the ordinary person. Well done to the author for bringing the 14th century to life and giving us an idea of what it must have been like to live there. Readable, enjoyable and informative.
    • 5/5
      A well written and deeply entertaing guide to medieval England.
    • 4/5
      If you're planning a trip back in time to 14th century England, this is the book you need to read before getting into the time machine. In 11 chapters, Ian Mortimer describes the landscape, the people, the medieval character, basic essentials, what to wear, traveling, where to stay, what to eat and drink, health and hygiene, the law, and what to do. I read a chapter a day until I had finished the book. I'm not sure I would have finished the book if I hadn't done that. There isn't a narrative thread to pull the reader from chapter to chapter. I'm glad I stuck to my plan because the last three chapters were the most interesting to me.The book's organization suits it for use as a reference book. For instance, readers researching medieval dress might want to read just the “what to wear” chapter. The color illustrations have been well selected to complement the text. The 8-page bibliography is more substantial than is often found in works aimed at a general audience. My only disappointment is that, while religion is present in several of the chapters, it didn't get its own chapter.
    • 5/5
      This is a unique piece of non-fiction and claims to be 'A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century' and that's exactly what it is. With chapters on: the people, what to wear, what to eat and drink, health and hygiene, where to stay, what to do and more it's a comprehensive guide to the times. The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England was illuminating, fascinating, shocking and at times even funny.I'd like to share with you the medicinal remedy for quinsy, which is an abscess in the throat developed after untreated tonsillitis: Take a fat cat, flay it well, and draw out the guts. Take the grease of a hedgehog, the fat of a bear, resins, fenugreek, sage, honeysuckle gum and virgin wax, and crumble this and stuff the cat with it. Then roast the cat and gather the dripping, and anoint the sufferer with it.Such a shocking remedy, it's hard to believe how they thought this could possible heal the patient. It was interesting to learn that the milling process to create flour often left small pieces of the mill stone behind which would be baked into the loaves of bread. These small pieces of gravel and stone dust naturally took their toll on the teeth of the people consuming the bread.I didn't realise that the clothing people were permitted to wear was strictly regulated according to their annual income and land holding. For example: Yeomen and their families weren't able to wear jewels, gold, silver, embroidery, enamelware or silk; no fur except lamb, rabbit, cat or fox; and women were not permitted to wear a silk veil.It was also quite interesting to read about how the simple button would come to transform the clothes of this era enabling a movement away from the tunic that had to be placed over one's head to what we now know as a jacket or coat.An extremely entertaining and informative read, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about what life was like 600 years ago.
    • 3/5
      All I'd add to the reviews already written is the beautiful ending of the book focusing on C14 writers. I'd have liked more insight into the soldier's and his family's lot and what happened to women when their men were killed in war. But that's quite specific...
    • 4/5
      Brought to life in almost painstaking detail, I now am completely prepared if I ever find myself plopped into the middle of 1500s England. I have to agree with others about the sheer lack of acknowledgement of the many roles women had. We weren't just prostitutes and ale brewer's wives. Very enjoyable narration and I did learn alot.
    • 5/5
      In addition, the patient should take a medicinal bath. For this the physician's assistant should 'take blind puppies, remove the viscera and cut off the extremities, then boil them in water, and bathe the patient in this water four hours after he has eaten.'This is history told as if you were planning a trip to the fourteenth century and needed to learn what to wear and how to behave in order to blend in. It really brings the period to life, and shows the reader how the people of that time understood their world, rather than filter through modern eyes. A few historical events are mentioned in passing, but this is mainly a social history, although of course the Great Plague (which was not known as the Black Death until the nineteenth century) is covered since that had such a huge effect on people's lives, and led to the end of the feudal system. One thing I really like about this book, is that every section discusses the effects on people of different social class, as well as the differences between life in a town and in the country. I found the chapter about clothing very interesting, and the colour plates helped a lot in showing how different classes dressed, and the difference between clothing at the beginning and end of the century. The invention of the button allowed clothing to be fitted rather than just hanging straight from the shoulders, and men's clothing changed more during the course of the fourteenth century than during any century before or since. What you were allowed to wear, in terms of cloth, fur and jewels was dictated by both your social status and your wealth, with restrictions in place for all except the royal family and the families of lords worth over £1000 per year. There are also laws restricting what you can eat, with the eating of meat forbidden on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, also creatures such as puffins and beavers counted as fish due to their aquatic lifestyle. The descriptions of typical fish dishes sounded interesting, so a fish-lover like me would be quite happy with three meat-free days per week, as long as I was able to afford fish. Although most of England is less than forty miles from the sea, and lords and abbots had well-stocked fish ponds on their estates, the dietary rules pushed up the price of fresh fish so the poor would probably be limited to dried fish.Apart from the Great Plague and invention of buttons, it was also the century when the upper classes switched from speaking French to speaking English, and mechanical clocks came into use, leading the length of the hour to become standardised. Before then, hours had been shorter in the winter than in the summer as the short winter day was split into the same number of hours as the much longer summer day. Now that both systems in use, it became necessary to specify if you were using 'hour of the clock' rather than the old sun-based system in which the hour depended on the angle of the sun in the sky.As a woman your best bet is to be widowed after you have learnt enough to be able to carry on your husband's craft or trade, as widows and elderly spinsters whose parents are dead have far more independence than any married woman, with Chaucer's Wife of Bath being a good example. Life in general was hard, the legal system harsh and the descriptions of some very peculiar medical procedures (treatments for tuberculosis involved sucking milk directly from a woman's breast or a goat's udder, as well as the medicinal bath described above) make it clear that it was not a good idea to fall into the hands of a physician, although you might have better change of survival if you required the help of a surgeon, but there were good tings too. The people of the fourteenth century liked to laugh, they loved music and dancing, watching plays and reading (or being read too). The fourteenth century was a hard time to be alive, and although you might like to visit it as a time-traveller you probably wouldn't like to stay there permanently, but it was a time of great change so it is an incredibly interesting time to read about. And having read it , I want to read the fourteenth century classics "The Canterbury Tales" and "Piers Plowman", and re-read "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight".
    • 2/5
      As a history book, this is an interesting format and it's reasonably engaging, though by the end I was starting to get worn down by the sheer level of detail. But what bothered me was that apparently, if you want to time travel, you'd better be male: there's some lip service paid to actually discussing women's role in society, with some references to the kind of work women did (mostly: make ale, I gather), and quite a lot of reference to the kind of clothes women wore, and how likely women were to be assaulted and raped, but. We hear about monks and not about nuns, about merchants and not about their wives, about farmers and not their daughters.

      And don't give me the excuse about that not being interesting to read about: nor is intricate detail about what a monk can eat on which days, for most people.

      In summary: to time travel, apparently you have to be male. And only men are interesting. Slightly disappointed I paid for this book right now.
    • 5/5
      Excellent approach at a history book. Keeps the pace fast, and keeps interest with wit and humor.
    • 3/5
      Approaches history by asking what it was like to BE in the middle ages. What would be important to you? What would you fear? What would your life be like? The "time traveler's guide" conceit can get a bit corny, but the strategy is sound. An accessible and entertaining book that helps put primary source documents (and more academic histories) in context.
    • 5/5
      Wonderfully descriptively time travel back to Exeter. I enjoyed it so much.
    • 4/5
      This is a cross between a travel guide and a history book. You get all the historical information about the 14th century, but in a more accessible manner. Great idea.