Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

Here are two reviews of historian and fiction writer, Ian Mortimer’s wonderful book written six years apart. I first read this book in 2013 – not once, but twice, when researching my medieval novel, The Brewer’s Tale. I loved it then and enjoyed it even more now as I commence research for my next fictional foray into medieval England and Europe with my new novel, tentatively entitled The Mostly True Story of the Wife of Bath. So expect a great many works of non-fiction about these times and fiction set in this period as well to be reviewed over the next few months!

Original review written in 2013: Historian Ian Mortimer does something really interesting with this book: he sets out to recreate the period (the Fourteenth Century) as if he were writing a travel book for tourists as opposed to researching and explaining a forgotten time. In other words, he places the reader in the moment, advising you where to go, what to see, how to behave, speak, dress and what to expect should you happen to have the good fortune to be transported back to not-so-merry old England in the 1300s. 

After my second reading of this book in less than a year, I wish I had access to Dr Who’s Tardis because, with Mortimer’s well-thumbed book under my arm, I would head straight for Exeter, where the book opens, prepared for the ordure of the aptly named, Shitbrook, the breath-taking sight of the cathedral, avert my eyes from the remains of criminals clinging to the gallows, and be careful not to stare at the bright and strange clothes the people are wearing, while tripping along the cobbles, one hand firmly on my money so a cut-purse does not take it. 

Like many contemporary historians, Mortimer believes in social history, reconstructing the past in order to understand how it was lived and not simply by kings, queens, monks, lawyers and nobles, those who have left records of their deeds and desires for us to absorb and through which we judge them. Instead, Mortimer turns to all classes and all experiences and takes the reader on a magnificent and fascinating journey back to a character-filled society with its own delights and dangers. It was so good the first time, I did it again and liked it even better. 

Explaining where to stay, how to tell the time, greet people (Eg. “fellow or friend, ye be welcome”), about the sumptuary laws, what certain coins look like and what you might be able to buy and where, what diseases we might succumb to if we’re not careful, what we might be served and how to eat it whether it be in an inn, a peasant’s house or a king’s castle (all of which are thoroughly described as if you’re on a guided tour), Mortimer runs the gamut of class and place in this vivid recreation that is at once hugely informative and always vastly entertaining. 

Even how to avoid running foul of the law and what punishment might be meted out is made clear as well as the significance of religious observances. Medieval humour is also explored as well as, for those so inclined, where you might find the best er hum, sexual services (Southwark, the Stews, or specific areas in London, in case you wanted to know). He also discusses how to entertain ourselves while we’re there (the Stews aside) and who, among the great figures known to us now, we might expect to encounter on our journey – Geoffrey Chaucer anyone? He has rooms above Aldgate. 
Just when you think you’ve stepped back into the present, Mortimer will remind you to take a deep breath and stop. Listen, he advises. What do we hear? Very little. Maybe some bells, the sounds of birds and animals and, above all, the chatter and clutter of people should we be near a town or city. Or, if present at a joust, the thunder of hooves. The medieval world is a very quiet place, something I hadn’t considered, along with many of the other preconceptions and yes, prejudices I had about this period and which Mortimer’s grandest of tours manages to overturn. 

If you’re looking for a book that will literally transport you to another time and place, than I cannot recommend this one highly enough. A fabulous read. 

Review written March 2019: Having just reread this marvellous book, I have to change my rating to five plus stars. This was even better on a third read. Immersive, dark and wondrous, Mortimer really does bring alive aspects of the calamitous Fourteenth century and the people who inhabited this era.

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The Brewer’s Tale: How beer went from being suspicious to delicious

The wise Homer once famously declared: “Alcohol: the cause and solution to all of life’s problems.”

That’s Homer J Simpson of course, not THE Homer of Iliad and Odyssey fame. Even so, the yellow man with four fingers makes a very good point. When you examine the relationship society has with alcohol – from a social lubricant that makes an appearance at almost every occasion, to being held responsible for inciting lust, passion or facilitating terrible violence and reckless, foolish behaviour – what Homer says holds true. Alcohol can polarise people and behaviours. Yet, since time immemorial, through good times and bad, rites of passage from birth to death have been marked with the consumption of alcohol.

 

While alcohol continues to play an important part in many significant social and private events, in the era the novel, The Brewer’s Tale, is set, the 1400s, alcohol not only solved and caused many problems, it was also an essential ingredient in everyone’s lives.

 

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In medieval times, people didn’t have the drinking choices, knowledge or understanding of health that we do now. Water, which was often polluted and brackish, was considered dangerous – and it was. While other alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks were available, in England before the 1400s, the main beverage consumed by young and not-so-young; particularly in the lower classes and religious houses, was a home-brewed ale. In the 1400s, people drank on average between 1.5 – 5 litres of ale a day (often on top of wine, sack, cider and mead). That meant that most people were at least a little inebriated most of the time. Ale was regarded as a safe means of quenching thirst.

 

Ale was drunk on rising, given to children, downed regularly by paupers and princes, nuns and priests, sailors and soldiers. People went to battle, farmed, birthed children, treated illnesses and injuries, made important policy and diplomatic decisions, married, died, cooked, cleaned, sewed and accomplished a range of tasks effected by the drink they consumed all day every day. It’s a scary thought!

 

Professor Lynn Martin, who has done a study on alcohol, sex and gender in history, claims that “normal” drinking was a very social activity in traditional Europe. “Normal” drinking is still considered a pleasant social activity in the Twenty-First Century. It’s the abnormal or excessive kind we read about in the media and which arouses grave concerns and causes many of those life problems to which Homer refers. What’s evident is that what passed for “normal” in the 1400s differs considerably from today.

 

The other huge difference between drinking now and in the past was that unlike the ales and beers of today, most of which are produced by big conglomerates who export their drink, or smaller craft brewers who are trying to diversify the market, ale was made overwhelmingly by women (called brewsters or ale-wives) and was localised.

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Ale-making was a domestic industry or a by-product of other cottage-type businesses like baking or milling. The ale was flavoured with various spices and herbs as well as the woodsmoke used to cook the grain and was often sickly sweet. There was great variety in quality and taste.

 

Quantities made differed, but whatever was made had to be drunk very quickly before it soured, so it was sold or shared with neighbours (bartering likely happened in exchange for a brew) and impromptu parties erupted with the attendant fun, violence, accidents, propensity to curl up and rest the head and fire passion they still engender.

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People appreciated that a kind of magic occurred when water, grain and yeast came together. Though the term “yeast” was yet to be used, they understood that the frothy head that was produced must be preserved and transferred to each new brew. They called this “godisgoode”.

 

While almost anyone could brew, few were genuinely good at it. Woe betide the person who sold sour or tasteless ale. They not only attracted the wrath of the authorities and fines, but worse the fury of the townsfolk. Pilloring, dunking (called “cucking” – there was even a special “cucking stool” designed for this purpose), and all sorts of punishments were regularly meted out – mostly to women – sometimes even those who produced a fine ale or sold one. This was because women’s role in brewing and people’s dependence on what they produced and/or sold was regarded with suspicion. It was a double-edged sword. Women associated with alcohol-production, with brewing and sales, while providing something necessary to everyday life, were often resented and perceived as “disorderly”, as trouble-makers who were licentious, dishonest and needed to be reminded of (male) authority, God and the law.

 

imgres-4While some monasteries (and thus monks) were involved in large-scale production (relative to the era) and often sold their ale for a profit, brewsters and alewives played a really important role in the manufacturing and local distribution of ale up until around the 1500s, after which men slowly took over. Historian Judith Bennett attributes this to an interesting and quite complex notion. She argues, “When a venture prospers, women fade from the scene.” That is, once decent profits could be made from brewing and the scale of production grew, it became a male-dominated and very profitable (despite assizes and government controls which were strict) business. Men stepped in and women were eased out due to facts like intensive labour, dealing with authorities and workers (mostly men) and the capital needed to maintain and start a brewing business at this level. The only exceptions were a few widows and resourceful wives and daughters – most of whom inherited the business but also passed it over to male hands either through re/marriage or sale.

 

Another reason that women left brewing and which is directly related to the above is because of the additive hops. Before roughly 1420 in England, with some exclusions, the ale the women made contained no hops. This herb – from the same family as marijuana – came from Europe and when placed in a brew made the ale quite bitter but also preserved it. Preservation and thus hops was what changed the face of the brewing industry forever.

 

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Once hops was introduced as a regular part of ale/beer making, the product had a longer shelf-life. The new drink, called beer to distinguish it from ale, could be made in larger quantities, exported around the country and overseas. It was also cheaper to make, requiring less grain, so the overheads were fewer and the profits greater. Regarded with distaste and “unEnglish” by many at first, beer was gradually adopted as the preferred beverage. Initially, even the laws reflected the negative attitude towards the hopped ale, as those who made ale were forbidden from making beer and vice-a-versa. (Important to note that “ale”, as a description of a type of beer, didn’t come into use until the 1800s).

 

It was the ambivalent role of women in brewing – as makers of something essential to the diet of medieval folk – as bitches and “witches”, and the constant assertion of authority and control over them and their product through the presence of ale-tasters and taxes and guilds (the latter which virtually excluded them) that finally clinched the story for me.

 

I started to think, “what if a woman did succeed as a brewer in the medieval man’s world? What would she endure? What would she have to do to earn respect and make a living? Was it even possible in a time of plague, church corruption, powerful religious beliefs and strict gender roles? What would be done to prevent and/or punish her temerity?”

 

I began researching and uncovered so much fascinating information – not just about medieval times, of course, but brewing ale and beer.

 

From being indifferent to beer, I’m in its thrall. In awe of its colourful history and the dedication of contemporary craft brewers (mostly men), many of whom advised me in the writing of the novel – from the fabulous Bill and Lyn Lark, whisky makers extraordinaire, to Owen Johnson formerly of Moo Brew, Ashley Huntington of Two Metres Tall in Tasmania, Scott Wilson-Browne of Red Duck in Ballarat and many others who knowingly and unknowingly helped, I have a deep and abiding respect for the brewers who make something so suspicious and dimgres-5elicious (to paraphrase Lorenzo de’ Medici).

 

Finally, there’s my husband, Stephen who, inspired by my research and delight in all things brewing, shared his formidable knowledge with me as well as started his own craft brewery, Captain Bligh’s Ale and Cider in Hobart (and yes, you can visit the brewery if ever you are here and also taste some of his delicious beer jams as well!). I even enjoyed being his “brew bitch”, assisting him and having a hands-on experience.

 

Homer may have been talking about beer in the present when he joked that it caused and solved all life’s problems, but it holds true for the past as well. Only for women, the problems outweighed the solutions. That is, until The Brewer’s Tale…

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Meet My Character: Blog Hop

This is an unusual blog for me as I don’t often write about my books (a situation that will change as I am upgrading/changing my website soon – watch this space!) but the notion came via a lovely invitation from the wonderful writer, Josephine Pennicott, author of the fabulous Poet’s Cottage and Currawong Manor as well as award-wining crime novels. This is a “meet my character blog”, where I answer questions about a character from one of my books or a work in progress. I have chosen to discuss the lead character in my latest novel, The Brewer’s Tale which is published by MIRA, Harlequin. I really hope you enjoy learning a little more about her – thank you for the opportunity, Josephine!

My latest novel

My latest novel

 

1.) What is the name of your character?

When the reader first meets her, she’s called Anneke Sheldrake but due to circumstance, she undergoes a slight name change, taking her mother’s family’s name and hoping it gives her some anonymity and autonomy as well as the ability to put the past behind her.

2.) Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

She is most definitely a fictional person but her life-story is grounded in historical research and fact. Some women had incredibly tough and poignant lives and Anneke’s, with all its trials and tribulations, reflects that.

3.) When and where is the story set?

It’s set in early Fifteenth Century England, commencing in the fictional town of Elmham Lenn (on the east coast of England and loosely modelled on Bishop’s Lynn (now King’s Lynn) and Cromer) before moving to Dover, then Southwark. In order to be authentic, I not only read many, many books, articles, spoke to brewers and distillers and poured over old maps, my old life as a cartographer came in handy after allbut in the final stages of editing, travelled to the United Kingdom. At one stage, I wandered along the Thames, walking in my characters’ footsteps. I stood on the banks of the river, in Southwark, in approximately the place Anneke ends up living, which is in a dwelling called “The Swanne”. Lo and behold, when I turned my back upon the river to see what was built there now, what did I see but this…

The modern day "The Swan", Bankside,  Soithwark

    A modern day pub called “The Swan”. I confess, I welled up and then went had a drink (or two) to celebrate! How amazing is that – not that I was drinking –  but the serendipity of it all?

 

 

 

 

4.) What should we know about him/her?

Medieval beer barrels

After her father drowns at sea, and Anneke and her young siblings are left orphans, she is forced to make a living in order to keep her family together, so turns to what once made her mother’s family in The Netherlands prosperous, brewing ale. This not only drives her into competition with nearby producers but more significantly, the local priory who dominate the market and do not like others impinging on their trade. Beyond being an excellent and ethical brewer, Anneke is loyal, brave, smart and lovely – inside and out. But she finds being a female brewer tarnishes her reputation and exposes herself and those she loves to terrible danger.

 

5.) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

The main conflict comes in the form of people and organisations with power – familial, social, financial, class, political, those who don’t like seeing a single, talented and lovely woman succeed – so the people representing these forces come in various shapes, sexes and sizes, from family relations to bailiffs, ale-conners, sheriffs, and the church.

There is much that “messes up” her life, and in this regard, despite so much happening, it reflects what women of that era endured. But there is always hope and love and friendship  as well.

 

6.) What is the personal goal of the character?

To be ethical and successful; to be loyal in love and life, to care for those for whom she is responsible and to not let injustice, in any guise, win.Different kinds of beers

 

7.) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

It’s called The Brewer’s Tale. It was its working title (drawing inspiration from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales – it even features the Wife of Bath as a character)  and that never changed. You can read more about it at Harlequin’s website (which also features a video with me discussing this and my next novel)   http://www.harlequinbooks.com.au/product/9781488742620  or just Google the title.

 

8.) When can we expect the book to be published or when was it published?

It was published by MIRA, Harlequin October this year!

Cheers and thank you!
Beer Mo

 

 

Now it is my turn to nominate another author to introduce you to their character. It is with great pleasure, that I would like to introduce you to Sheryl Gwyther.

Sheryl Gwyther_image1Sheryl is a children’s author and artist who has written many books, such as the wonderful Secrets of Eromanga, as well as Secrets of Eromanga

plays and short stories and is actively involved in the writing community and very generous with her time and support. I know she is juggling many writing balls at the moment, so I’m looking forward to discovering which of her characters she decides to let us meet.

 

Over to you, Sheryl!

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