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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
Daily Living in the Twelfth CenturyUrban Tigner Holmes, Jr.Read it in used paper-back at 337 pages including biblio, index, maps, etc.Alexander Neckham was a youth traveling to Paris from England for an education. Alexander was also embracing the revival of scholarly literature during the 1150's that was emitting from places of learning, he was after all traveling as a student; and he chronicled his journeys and life along the way providing a very insightful look at the places he traveled to, the people he met, and the things he observed during a very tense time between two ruling families, the Capetian's and Plantagenet's. Holmes uses this with a lot of other primary source material to show us a picture of Daily Living in the Twelfth Century. What the cities looked like, how they operated, the kind of industries that were present, architecture, the royalty, the commons, those learning etc. Holmes is qualified to write it but I wouldn't say there is anything all that complex in the writing. He avoids speculation as much as possible but there isn't any sort of distinct flare to his method either so it reads pretty flatly at times. Especially if you aren't interested in some of the more granular stuff like how looms worked and how they were operated. The maps included are nice and some of the detail that he goes into about the cities is really fascinating.I wouldn't say that you have to have a lot of history in the back-log to enjoy this book but it certainly helps. Knowing what's going on between the two ruling families of the time paints some of the chronology and interaction of Alexander's travels a little more interesting. While I wouldn't consider this a straight academic work it can get laborious at times although I would speculate that this is probably a by reader basis.