I liked the vast majority of the topics covered, such as the excellent story about criminals, the hierarchy of law enforcement and the structure of the judiciary. People rarely bathed or did laundry but they did try to rinse their hands with water before eating.

As aids to our understanding, Mortimer also provides charts, a fair amount of artwork (in color), and lists,..lots of lists. One list is all about "Ordinances"... a list of offences of the time and what their penalties were, including items like "No man shall play tennis...within the guild hall" or "No butcher may work in the city as a cook." Additional lists cover such items as "Household Inventories" of actual people, "Clothing Regulations," and "The Social Hierarchy."People's lives are changing rapidly - from a world of superstition and religious explanation to rationalism and scientific calculation. In many respects the period sees the tipping point between the old world and the new as fear and uncertainty, hardship and eating with your fingers give way to curiosity and professionalism, fine wines and knives and forks. Travelling to Restoration Britain encourages us to reflect on the customs and practices of daily life - and this unique guide not only teaches us about the seventeenth century but makes us look with fresh eyes at the modern world.

The chapters are well structured, and the clear and complete style of writing in these chapters facilitates the understanding and clarification of many facts. Talking of present-centred approaches to a book like this, there are people who criticize Mortimer for not having paid sufficient attention to women both as subjects of his look into the past and as time travellers who accompany him on his journey. I cannot say that I see much sense in such criticism: The author remarks that in those days it was unusual and, of course, extremely dangerous for women to travel the country on their own, and from this to draw the conclusion that the book is directed at men primarily because it feels as though the author had a male time traveller in his mind when he invites his reader, for example, to follow him into the house of a town merchant and look about him, is unfair and bespeaks a mind that is bent on taking offence because the sex of the time traveller does not play any role at all the way Mortimer conducts us on his tours of virtual history. Speaking of fighting, it is not unusual to come across men who have lost eyes, ears, and limbs in battles. A surprisingly large amount of men have to hobble around without a leg or with foot injuries that never healed correctly.

Retailers:

I truly love the Middle Ages, and have read many books and texts about them...and this one is one of the very best. The plot is clear and voluminous. In non-fiction literature, the plot is usually built around the coverage of a topic, and in this book, the author describes in a logical and consistent way about all aspects of life in medieval England. is the year I have decided to learn more about history, well that's the plan anyway! So, starting with this one I think was a good choice. It reads almost like a novel. The idea that you are a visitor to medieval England, discovering what life was like there from your own observations draws the reader/listener into that world immediately.

The entire book is consistently vivid and instructive. Ian Mortimer uses the second person and the present tense throughout. So, you travel into the city or you sit down at a table, making it an effective technique for fully engaging the reader. This approach may not be for everyone but I found it compelling and involving. The book shows well how citizens of the medieval society lived - it creates a great effect of presence. Cities, villages, buildings, bridges, churches, roads, laws, customs, courts, trade, feudal lords, servants, artisans, merchants... - many aspects of life are presented in the book. Frankly, after ten minutes of thinking, I did not find a topic that was not represented in the book. Mortimer, Ian (2020-11-12). The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4735-4798-8. So, as long as you can get enough to eat, and can avoid all the various lethal infections, the dangers of childbirth, lead poisoning, and the extreme violence, you should live a long time.” —————Approximately ninety different themes from medieval life are shown in the book, so there is no point in listing them. Some are described in more detail, some less detailed, but even for the latter the level of detail remains high. Sometimes there are comparisons with the present state of a topic, which provides a good contrast, and also brings a little humor. But what they don't say is that no one much knew what was going on in London if they didn't live close as there wasn't any mass communication and by the time the horses brought the post, changed at every Post House my parents lived in a Post House at one time. It is where the horses were changed for fresh ones combined with an inn it must have been like Chinese whispers. A good story, but who knew how much was true. But then nothing much happened fast then anyway. Women are blamed for all intellectual and moral weaknesses in society and are basically viewed as deformed men. We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time?