Both important and unique, this book highlights how life was for the
everyday person just before the Black Plague wiped out most of
Europe.
1326 was one of the most dramatic years in English history. The queen of
England, Isabella of France, invaded the country with an army of
mercenaries to destroy her husband's powerful and detested lover, Hugh
Despenser the Younger, and brought down her husband King Edward II in
the process. It was also a year, however, when the majority of English
people carried on living their normal, ordinary lives: Eleyne
Glaswreghte ran her own successful glass-making business in London, Jack
Cressing the master carpenter repaired the beams in a tower of
Kenilworth Castle, Alis Coleman sold her best ale at a penny and a half
for a gallon in Byfleet, and Will Muleward made the king 'laugh greatly'
when he spent time with him at a wedding in Marlborough. England
sweltered in one of the hottest, driest summers of the Middle Ages, a
whale washed ashore at Walton-on-the-Naze, and the unfortunate John Toly
died when he relieved himself out of the window of his London house at
midnight, and lost his balance.
Living in Medieval England: The Turbulent Year of 1326 tells the true
and fascinating stories of the men and women alive in England in this
most eventful year, narrated chronologically with a chapter devoted to
each month.
