Life in the Middle Ages by Robert Delort

An illustrated and engaging book, offering a vivid window into the daily lives, beliefs, and customs of people in medieval Europe. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the social and cultural fabric of the Middle Ages, from peasants and craftsmen to monks and nobles.
Authored by Medieval History Professor Robert Delofort and Translated from the French 1972 edition by Edita S.A. Lausanne and published in 1973. Distributed by Universe Books, New York.
Condition: Excellent. One minor scuff on bottom edge (see image 4). Includes original (well worn) jacket cover. Previous owners stamp on the inside page (see image 5).
2489g. 26x32x3.5cm

Contents:

The Physical Conditions of Everyday Life

The Medieval Environment Man and his Environment Man in the Middle Ages

Mentality and Social Life

The Sense of Time The Notion of Space

The Vision of the Universe

Signs and Symbols

Attitudes and Behaviours in Daily Life

The Christian Family

Legal Structures Western Society

I work for all: The Life of the Peasantry

The Living Conditions Village and Home Life

Social Relationships

I fight for all: The Warrior

The Rise and Growth of the Knightly Class

The Daily Life of the Nobility

I pray for all: The Seekers for Perfection The Church and the World

The Church, Warden of the West

Trade and Commerce

Towns and Town Life

This is a book that links today with the past.

Using the simplest and most striking examples taken from the everyday life of peasants living in Central and Western Europe during the Middle Ages — such as grain growing, pork cooking, winter evenings in front of the fire, the horse collar, the shoeing of oxen and horses, the invention of the wheelbarrow, old wives' tales, the rhythm of the seasons and the religious festivals that went with them, the continual contact with the earth, with animals - it demonstrates that all of these shaped and formed the framework of the daily life of uncounted millions of individuals and continued to be the dominating experience of large sections of Western man until the Second World War.

From all these strands that make up the common heritage of Western man, the author has chosen certain themes that demonstrate most clearly both the differences and the similarities of life as lived then: those of the castle, the cathedral, the court and the monastery, the corporation, fairs, villages, universities, the work in the fields and in the house, the festivals and the uprisings... But above all, the author examines Medieval Man in his context, how he lived, looked and thought; what was the influence of the Christian ethic and religion on his daily life, and what was the place of women, of love, of children, of adolescents, of the warrior, the clerk and the merchant.

The author clarifies these themes with a wealth of information drawn from the area bounded by the Ebro, Tuscany, the Rhine and the Severn - those lands which were the center of that civilization which, for better or for worse, has descended to us as the pattern of Western culture, and in which the daily life was by turns gallant, fervent, sometimes brutal, but always fascinating and moving. Thanks to this book, we can also share in the ideals, the struggles, the whole pattern of daily life in all the wide-ranging social levels. We can see and study the effects of a more vigorous and less controllable nature, of a less-balanced diet, a shorter life-span, an ordered society, willed by God, which was much more conservative, less liable to rapid changes, and was based immutably on the laborers feeding those who fought and those who prayed, and from which emerged the Western civilization we know today. LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES is a passport to our common heritage, which will illuminate and reveal the colorful pageant of existence in medieval times.