''The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century'' is a handbook about

Late Medieval England The history of England during the Late Middle Ages covers from the thirteenth century, the end of the Angevins, and the accession of Henry III – considered by many to mark the start of the Plantagenet dynasty – until the accession to the th ...

by British historian Ian Mortimer. It was first published on 2 October 2008 by The Bodley Head, and a later edition with more pages was released on 29 February 2012. The volume debunks and explains various myths about the period. The book is confined to the

14th century As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was a century lasting from 1 January 1301 ( MCCCI), to 31 December 1400 ( MCD). It is estimated that the century witnessed the death of more than 45 million lives from political and n ...

in England, with passing references to the

Continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

. Mortimer goes into details about food, clothing, building materials, the layout of houses, but also covers things like laws, customs, travel, entertainment. It is ground-breaking in historical literature in that it is written entirely in the present tense.

Illustrations

All the illustrations in the volume were provided by

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

Reception

The book is one of the best-selling social history titles of the twenty-first century, it reached number six on the ''Sunday Times'' paperback non-fiction bestseller list at Christmas 2009. The book has sold more than 250,000 paperback copies in the UK, 100,000 copies in the USA, and is published in several other languages. On first publication it was widely praised. Sue Arnold, writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', commented "After The Canterbury Tales this has to be the most entertaining book ever written about the Middle Ages." The historian Alison Weir stated,"It`s an incredible tour de force, a vivid and page-turning evocation of an age that is long-gone yet has been brought to life again in vibrant and robust fashion thanks to Ian Mortimer`s impeccable scholarship and pacy writing." Professor Steohen Howe, writing in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', remarked that it was "Perhaps the most enjoyable history book I've read all year." A review written by Kathryn Hughes for ''

'' praised the book's different approach and abundance of trivia, adding that "It is Monty Python and the Holy Grail with footnotes and, my goodness, it is fun... The result of this careful blend of scholarship and fancy is a jaunty journey through the 14th century, one that wriggles with the stuff of everyday life... deft summary of life in the high medieval period." ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

s short review by Aaron Leitko vaunted the book as "Fodor's-style framework" and a travel book that gets into "heart of a different time zone". Tom Holland, writing for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', was a lone critical voice. He described the volume as an "old-fashioned study". Holland also proposed that Mortimer felt embarrassed to write a book about what was "familiar to a reader in the 19th century". Mortimer addressed Holland's criticism by implying that Holland had failed to understand the book, going as far as to call Holland's review "bizarre". In his reply, Mortimer assumed that Holland wanted the book to be "semi-fictionalised" and explained that such an approach would trivialise his work, as the volume is intended to be useful to students, but also hoped to stand the "test of time".

Sequels

The book has spawned several sequels such as: * ''The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England: a Handbook for Visitors to the Sixteenth Century'' was published in 2012 by

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...

* ''The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain: Life in the Age of Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton and The Great Fire of London'' by The Bodley Head in 2017 * ''The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain'' was published in 2020 by Random House

Popular culture

Various big YouTube historians—such as Raffaello Urbani ("Metatron") and Skallagrim Nilsson—have produced videos about the book and endorsed it.

References

External links

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England
at Mortimer's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, The 14th century in England 2008 non-fiction books 21st-century history books Handbooks and manuals History books about the Middle Ages