Life in a Medieval Castle
by Joseph Gies | 
The Making of the Middle Ages
by R. W. Southern | 
The Civilization of the Middle Ages
by Norman F. Cantor | 
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives
by Terry Jones | 
Mysteries of the Middle Ages
by Thomas Cahill | 
Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages
by Frances Gies | 
A World Lit Only by Fire
by William Manchester | 
The Last Duel
by Eric Jager | 
The Waning of the Middle Ages
by Johan Huizinga | 
A Distant Mirror
by Barbara W. Tuchman | 
The Pursuit of the Millennium
by Norman Cohn | 
The Inheritance of Rome
by Chris Wickham | 
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England
by Ian Mortimer |
Witchcraft in the Middle Ages
by Jeffrey B. Russell | 
Becoming Charlemagne
by Jeff Sypeck | 
Dead Wake
by Erik Larson | 
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs | 
One Summer: America, 1927
by Bill Bryson | 
Six Frigates
by Ian W. Toll |
102 Minutes
by Jim Dwyer |
Life in a Medieval City evokes every aspect of city life in the Middle Ages by depicting in detail what it was like to live in a prosperous city of Northwest Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The time is A.D. 1250 and the city is Troyes, capital of the county of Champagne and site of two of the cycle Champagne Fairs--the "Hot Fair" in August and the "Cold Fair" in December. European civilization has emerged from the Dark Ages and is in the midst of a commercial revolution. Merchants and money men from all over Europe gather at Troyes to buy, sell, borrow, and lend, creating a bustling market center typical of the feudal era. As the Gieses take us through the day-to-day life of burghers, we learn the customs and habits of lords and serfs, how financial transactions were conducted, how medieval cities were governed, and what life was really like for a wide range of people.