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The Life of a Medieval Peasant: Daily Life and Struggles
How ordinary medieval villagers lived: the farming year, one-room homes, bread-heavy diets, labor duties to the lord, and the risks of bad harvests.
Life and Learning
Medieval Lives
Typical lives of a peasant, a knight and a monk.
The Life of a Medieval Knight: Chivalry and Honor
Follow a medieval knight from page to squire to dubbing and service, and see how the ideals of chivalry compared with the realities of war and politics.
The Life of a Medieval Monk: A Life of Prayer and Study
A walk through a medieval monk's day: the cycle of prayer hours, manual work, reading and copying, meals and silence, as shaped by the Benedictine tradition.
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Learning and Science Schools, universities, stars and maps. Food and Drink What people ate and drank, from peasant pottage to noble feasts. Dress, Festivals and Folklore Clothing, holy days, customs and legends. Literature and Legends Poems, sagas and tales told across the Middle Ages. Music and Entertainment Songs, dance, jesters and court amusements. Science and Technology Alchemy, astronomy, ships and the tools that changed work. Women in Medieval Society Work, law, family and religious life for medieval women. Poets and Authors Writers of the medieval world and those who shaped how it is remembered. Courtly Love and Ideals Love, chastity and etiquette in noble circles. Elements, Humors and Senses Medieval theories of matter, the body and perception. Medieval Worldview How medieval people thought about time, seasons, life stages and fate. Universities, Oxford and Cambridge How universities arose and how Oxford and Cambridge took shape. Everyday Life Details Homes, hygiene, childhood, marriage and death in ordinary medieval lives.