For most of us, our world is all we know. Its here and its now envelop us, creating an ever-present and essentially constant cocoon that acts upon us as much as we act upon it. It is a world of coffee shops and restaurants, of universities and ideas, of stadiums and parks. It is a world whose biases and realities we cannot shake. But what if we could? What if, through time travel, we could venture to a past era, to be immersed in the rules and the customs of a time different from our own? Would we find it barbaric? Would we find honor in it? Would we adjust and assimilate? Just how strongly does our environment influence us? Mr. Mortimer has never traveled through time, as far as we know, but his exhaustive research has produced an entertaining primer to what it might be like to journey into a different world, governed by totally different laws, and survive on hostile shores.
As a result of its preponderance of heroes and villains, wars and plagues, extremism and chaos, discussion of the 14th century has generally focused on the big events of that apocalyptic time. Consequently, we know much about the rulers, priests and nobles whose battles, pontifications and schemes characterized the strife. But this is a great man's view of history, one that, with its sweeping assessments of the period, fails to capture what life was like for the everyday souls who inhabited this tumultuous world. It skips over its superstitions, its customs and its occupations which, altogether, weave the fabric of a society.
In The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England Mr. Mortimer sloughs off the legendary figures chronicled to death by countless historians and, grasping us by the hand, transports us to 14th century England where he walks us down the village streets, through the ubiquitous forests and into the boisterous taverns, all in an attempt to suffuse us with the everyday notions of a world now extinct. The food, the laws, the literature, the fashion and the pastimes are all thoroughly explored, overlooking no detail too grotesque or too bizarre in an effort to explain what the passage of 600 years has made so foreign. What results is an amusing portrait of a brutal world, one in which life is as cheap as it is short, where its pleasures are as fleeting as its justice, and where most people don't have the time or the energy to be learned.
While it's clear that our romanticism has glossed over much of the dangers and torments of 14th century England, Mr. Mortimer succeeds, with his painful clarity, to yet make this perilous time appealing. No matter how the world changes, there are some constants to the human experience, customs that arise from deep-seated desires coded into our cells. Amidst the death and the destruction, the suspicion and the xenophobia, there lie acts of charity and togetherness, kindness and brotherhood, upon which the scaffolding of a freer, more enlightened world can be built.
Full of impishness and charm, Mr. Mortimer entertains and educates in equal measure. For as much as this piece plays up the sensationalist elements of the 14th century, it delves into the hearts and minds of those who lived in and shaped this tempestuous century. Memorable if unspectacular work. (3/5 Stars)
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