The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England

A literary time machine transports the reader into fourteenth-century England and treats the past as a place to inhabit rather than merely study. Mortimer reconstructs daily life by asking practical questions: how people dressed, how they earned and were paid for work, what foods peasants, monks, or lords would offer, and where a traveler might stay. Using daily chronicles, letters, household accounts, and contemporary poems, Mortimer provides vivid concrete details such as greetings on the street, what was used as toilet paper, why a physician might taste blood, and how leprosy could be identified. The book portrays humanity amid violence, exuberance, and fear.