THE FOLIO SOCIETY

We are familiar with the kings and queens, the famous scholars and priests of medieval Europe, but what of ordinary people? What was their existence like? How did they think?

Eileen Power was one of the first historians to delve into contemporary documents to discover the way ordinary men and women actually lived. Medieval People – which vividly depicts the lives of six individuals of varying wealth and status – has proved an inspiration to many historians. Within its pages we meet Madame Eglantyne, the real life inspiration for Chaucerrsquo;s Prioress; Thomas Betson, a successful English wool merchant; the Essex clothier Thomas Paycocke; the fifteen-year-old wife of a Parisian bourgeois who learns her duties from his treatise on marriage; and Bodo, a Frankish peasant at the time of Charlemagne. Power also examines one famous subject – Marco Polo, whose tales tell us as much about the medieval mind. A keen eye for detail and distinctive narrative voice brings each of her subjects to vibrant life.