A history of the details that Chaucer left out!

This wonderful book takes all of Chaucer's main characters lives as its main thread and then delves that little further into their daily interactions, decisions and thoughts. Picard places each of Chaucer's ubiqitous characters in the broader context of Medieval England and the Medieval world in general. This allows you to understand their motives, choices and get to grips with the nuances of their characteristics that little bit better... and with a real sense of their histories being brought to life. To add to this, Picard also sets their actions against their contemporaries so we see another side to them which perhaps Chaucer chose not to inform us about as it was too obvious or he decided wasn't worth telling. This adds yet another dimension to the book that makes you want to read Chaucer's work again. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys European Medieval History in general.

If you like a narrative history about the minutia of everyday life you'll love this book; indeed, it is a history which brings its subjects to life through the exploration of 'the normal daily goings-on' that all Medieval people experienced.

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14 people found this helpful

History can be enjoyable

A surprise in every paragraph, bringing history to life. This book taked you on a voyage through medieval times bringing the characters to life.

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2 people found this helpful

Sound Bite

Audible listener:Narrator ,Emma Hussey brings colour and a real feeling of our rich language to life.

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Balanced

The narration is very nice. Well enunciated and paced. The Subject matter is well researched and presented. it offers simply the facts of the time. There are a few moment when it becomes something of a list. in fact a whole chapter is reserved for recipes but the author does mention this can be skipped. The concept of looking at the realities, as far as can be known, behind the characters of Chaucer's works is a commendable approach. The book is both entertaining and informative without delving into historical projection of modern values.

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Loved it

It's a bit of a plodder, but fascinating to listen to.
Good stuff, give it a go

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Pilgrims brought to life

Liz Picard has done an excellent job of bringing Chauser's pilgrims to life in the context of their time and ours.

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interestim story

unfortunatelly, the narrator reads a book more in the style of a bed-time story. it was challenging not to fall asleep while listening.

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Interesting but marred

The text... an interesting idea and fairly well researched, but the personal and contemporary references were rather indulgent and quite frankly irrelevant and annoying. They seemed petty given the breadth, longevity and gravity of the work to which they tried to relate the modern world (a time without substance and depth by comparison).

As with many things “mediaeval” the period covered is a few hundred years, but so much changes in that time and things apparent in one period do not necessarily apply 150 years later, so broad generalisations ensue which is vexing.

Reading - I am afraid it was breathless and ill prepared. The reader really should have a handle on how to pronounce some of those more unusual mediaeval terms. Pity.

All in all not terrible, but one of those generalised books about the Middle Ages that has some useful detail but treats an age of man as an homogenous period. Glad it was one of my free monthly credits as I’d have been rather unimpressed if I’d paid for it.

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4 people found this helpful

Okay, but repeats itself!

Any additional comments?

This book was okay, but there were several historical incidents that got used to illustrate multiple points about the period. I might expect this if the book was about a specific event that there were only a limited number of sources for, but for a broad social history it seemed like the author was recycling old material. I also found the long list of medieval recipes in the middle tedious. the author does say if it's not your interest you should skip it, but I imagine that relatively few readers are going to be so interested as to trawl through a long list of recipes. This seemed to serve the authors interest rather than the general readership. But perhaps I'm wrong. I've read better social histories about the era like A Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England.

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4 people found this helpful