When I lived in Oxford during the spring of 2018, I visited Oxford Castle and Prison before going home. While in the gift shop, I decided to buy a few souvenirs to remember my visit. Besides a bottle of mint mead (delicious!) I also bought a few books. (My go-to souvenirs are books and mugs.) One such book was Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives. I flipped through it at the time, but never actually read it all the way through. Well, that was until I picked it up again on December 14, 2020. I finished reading Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives a few days ago and I really regret not reading it all the way through sooner! It’s based on Terry Jones’ 2004 BBC documentary series (which admittedly, I have not seen yet). Each episode of the documentary is based on a different medieval profession and the book follows suit.
The topics of the eight chapters are as follows: Peasant, Minstrel, Outlaw, Monk, Philosopher, Knight, Damsel, and King. Each chapter describes some misconceptions about the topic on hand before deconstructing it to show why it’s not quite true. For example, in the peasant chapter, Jones describes our modern idea of a medieval peasant (dirty, illiterate, rude, etc.) then goes on to gives historical evidence for why that’s not quite true. After explaining the truth, Jones also gives examples of why these misconceptions came to be, offering even more historical context. He points out that people keeping documentation will have agendas and these will make accounts biased. (The king chapter is a great example of this!)
Jones’ writing style is humorous and easy to read. It’s light-hearted, fun, and extremely witty. Jones also does a good job of including quotes from primary sources to help the reader get into the head of a medieval person. Not only that, the book has several pages filled with medieval art, which enhances the experience.
Overall, the text is entertaining, funny, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to learn about the medieval period but isn’t quite sure where to start.
The Mediaeval Monk 