Chaucer's People
Everyday Lives in Medieval England
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Narrated by:
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Jennifer M. Dixon
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By:
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Liza Picard
About this listen
The Middle Ages re-created through the cast of pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.
Among the surviving records of 14th-century England, Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry is the most vivid. Chaucer wrote about everyday people outside the walls of the English court-men and women who spent days at the pedal of a loom, or maintaining the ledgers of an estate, or on the high seas. In Chaucer's People, Liza Picard transforms The Canterbury Tales into a masterful guide for a gloriously detailed tour of medieval England, from the mills and farms of a manor house to the lending houses and Inns of Court in London.
In Chaucer's People, we meet again the motley crew of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury. Drawing on a range of historical records such as the Magna Carta, The Book of Margery Kempe, and Cookery in English, Picard puts Chaucer's characters into historical context and mines them for insights into what people ate, wore, read, and thought in the Middle Ages. What can the Miller, "big . . . of brawn and eke of bones" tell us about farming in 14th-century England? What do we learn of medieval diets and cooking methods from the Cook? With boundless curiosity and wit, Picard re-creates the religious, political, and financial institutions and customs that gave order to these lives.
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Life in a Medieval Village, by respected historians Joseph and Frances Gies, paints a lively, convincing portrait of rural people at work and at play in the Middle Ages. Focusing on the village of Elton, in the English East Midlands, the Gieses detail the agricultural advances that made communal living possible, explain what domestic life was like for serf and lord alike, and describe the central role of the church in maintaining social harmony.
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A step back in time
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Stick a Flag in It
- 1,000 Years of Bizarre History from Britain and Beyond
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- Narrated by: Arran Lomas
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From the Norman Invasion in 1066 to the eve of the First World War, Stick a Flag in It is a thousand-year jocular journey through the history of Britain and its global empire. Forget what you were taught in school - this is history like you’ve never heard it before, full of captivating historical quirks that will make you laugh out loud and scratch your head in disbelief.
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Interesting history, hilariously recounted
- By Tori on 10-14-20
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The Story We Carry in Our Bones
- Irish History for Americans
- By: Juilene Osborne-McKnight
- Narrated by: Juilene Osborne-McKnight
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
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More than 40 million people consider themselves Irish American, and yet most of them do not truly understand the rich cultural history of their ancestors. From prehistoric times to the emigration of the Irish to Amerikay, this broad, yet comprehensive, history gives a general overview of the deep history of Irish Americans.
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Blown away
- By Bob on 01-27-22
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Black Tudors
- The Untold Story
- By: Miranda Kaufmann
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A Black porter publicly whips a White English gentleman in a Gloucestershire manor house. A heavily pregnant African woman is abandoned on an Indonesian island by Sir Francis Drake. A Mauritanian diver is dispatched to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose.... Miranda Kaufmann reveals the absorbing stories of some of the Africans who lived free in Tudor England.
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I thought I knew it all...
- By Sylvia Schmidt on 08-01-19
By: Miranda Kaufmann
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The Jamestown Brides
- By: Jennifer Potter
- Narrated by: Charlotte Strevens
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
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Jamestown, England's first real foothold in the New World, was fraught with danger - from starvation and disease to violent skirmishes between colonists and the native populations. Mortality rates were impossibly high: six out of seven settlers died within the first few years. How clear these and other perils were made to the 56 young women who left their homes and boarded ships in England in 1621, nearly 15 years after Jamestown's founding, is not known. But we do know who they were. Their ages ranged from 16 to 28, and they were deemed "young and uncorrupt".
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WOMEN IN HISTORY
- By Grams on 06-29-19
By: Jennifer Potter
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The Travels of Marco Polo
- By: Marco Polo
- Narrated by: Walter Covell
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
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Marco Polo (1254-1324), is probably the most famous Westerner who traveled on the "Silk Road." His journey through Asia lasted 24 years. He traveled the whole of China and returned to tell the tale, which became one of the world's greatest travelogues.
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An educational experience.
- By Doug on 06-23-03
By: Marco Polo
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The Story of Liberty
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- Narrated by: Edward Lewis
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Charles Coffin's The Story of Liberty, originally published in 1879, is not America's story alone. It belongs to all those who are enjoying freedom and liberty in any part of the world. And it belongs to all nations that will yet serve Him. As we reach back into the records of history to observe the hand of the Great Author of all liberty, we will find direction for the days ahead and discover the keys we need to understand and interpret the future.
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Facinating history
- By KenLStone on 02-20-08
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Foundation
- The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors: The History of England, Book 1
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
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In Foundation the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England's prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country's most distant past - a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house.
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The Most Annoying Narrator EVER
- By JudieBee on 12-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
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Gargantua and Pantagruel
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- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
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Here is a grotesque and carnivalesque collection of exuberant, fantastical stories that takes us from the ancient world through to the European Renaissance. At the heart of these tall tales are the giant Gargantua and his equally seismic son, Pantagruel. Containing magical adventures, maniacal punning, slapstick humor, erudite allusions, and just about any bodily function one can think of, here is quite possibly the zaniest, most risqué book ever written.
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The king of all the narrators
- By amazon on 02-13-20
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Marco Polo
- From Venice to Xanadu
- By: Laurence Bergreen
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
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Story
As the most celebrated European to explore Asia, Marco Polo was the original global traveler and the earliest bridge between East and West. A universal icon of adventure and discovery, he has inspired six centuries of popular fascination and spurious mythology. Now, from acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen, comes the first fully authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history.
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Educational and Entertaining but a bit repetitive
- By PETER on 01-02-13
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24 Hours in Ancient Rome: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There
- 24 Hours in Ancient History Series, Book 1
- By: Philip Matyszak
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In this entertaining and enlightening guide, best-selling historian Philip Matyszak introduces us to the people who lived and worked there. In each hour of the day we meet a new character - from emperor to slave girl, gladiator to astrologer, medicine woman to water-clock maker - and discover the fascinating details of their daily lives.
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Took me back to Latin class and the origin of word
- By tony harris on 05-19-20
By: Philip Matyszak
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If Walls Could Talk
- An Intimate History of the Home
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
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Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two "dirty centuries?" Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did rich people fear fruit?In her brilliantly and creatively researched book, Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen.
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Compelling.
- By Kirsten on 06-05-12
By: Lucy Worsley
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Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love, and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different from our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or where the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.
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Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.
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Intriguing for a broad audience.
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What listeners say about Chaucer's People
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Clay Wilcox
- 05-09-19
Great Book
I read Mortimer’s book on 14th century England and was concerned this would overlap. There was some but not as much as you’d think.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Mrs Rancher
- 08-20-24
so many insights
I have read all the Brother Cadfael books, have been in a medieval reenactment society and have cookbooks translating medieval recipes, but this book ties so many things together for me. it is also a great and more approachable great companion book to "A Distant Mirror ' , Barbara Tuckman' s very scholarly account of the 14th century
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- Tad Davis
- 05-10-19
A delight
Lisa Picard has made a career out of writing histories of what life was like in various periods. Chaucer’s People seems to be her take on life in medieval England. It bears some comparison, at least as far as intent is concerned, with Ian Mortimer’s book The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England. Picard doesn’t cover the details of city living in as much detail, but she gives a wealth of information about people.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales provides the basic structure. Chaucer included travelers from all classes, and so Picard takes each one in turn, refers to Chaucer’s description, and then teases out details that draw on the larger history of the time. For example, the Wife of Bath — her first subject — provides a springboard for looking at the wool trade, the craft of weaving, and the elaborate medieval system of pilgrimages and indulgences. The Cook provides an excuse for including an extensive set of mouth-watering recipes; the Yeoman for the role England’s murderous longbow archers played in the battles in France. The Shipman includes a survey of medieval geography and the travels of Marco Polo and John Mandeville.
It’s a delightful book. Liza Picard has done the research, but she hasn’t lost her sense of humor. And Jennifer Dixon’s sparkling narration strikes exactly the right note.
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17 people found this helpful
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- J Guo
- 04-01-23
A delight
I am listening to this audiobook again. Perfect delivery of history in a light hearted yet profound fashion.
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- Caroyn Mcgehee
- 05-21-24
Interesting
Interesting explanation of chaucers characters. A lot of information that I wish I had when I taught Canterbury Tales
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- nolan
- 12-04-21
great history
loved it, that's all I loved it! now I have to add filler to leave a review!!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Tod Higman
- 12-14-23
Unexpected content
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but not a continuous entertaining stream of medieval anecdotes. Chaucer's characters and everything around them are described.
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- Brooke
- 01-24-24
Interesting way to look at the characters
The author does an incredible amount of research for this book! I don’t always agree with the conclusions, but it was great to get another perspective on people in Chaucer’s day.
Probably would not listen to again, but might find a print copy to revisit
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- Patrick Mullane
- 05-08-24
Modern vs Medieval
Not recommeneded. While the book does provide a context to the historical tales and certain sections such on Medieval dining and clothing are well written, this is spoilt by the author's modernism. She drips with 21st Century condescening putdowns to those who attrach her ire for failing to living up to present day moral standards. Her deconstuction of the Knight's tale seems to be more driven by spite rather than scholarship.
Better to lister to a more neutral offering such as Prof Dorsey Armstrong's Great Course lectures on the period.
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- ajcb
- 12-05-21
Deep dive into medieval daily life
You probably are listening to this book to understand daily life of average people in Medieval times. For the most part that is delivered. I was impressed about how much baloney and myth-based silliness medieval people were immersed in. Falsehood, story and myth dominated the existence of everyone. There's not much story here, but some Chaucer is woven into the essay, to serve as a platform for reconstructing people's existence. It's a long listen, and a lot of religious myths are explored. Perhaps too much.
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2 people found this helpful