Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thoughts on Papyrus with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. In the chapter entitled 'The Worms of the Earth Against the Lions' I was just about to cheer wholeheartedly for the weavers of Ghent until I read of the way they in turn oppressed the lower class fullers; and my sympathy was with commoners of Anjou demanding tax relief until "In a frenzy of triumph and unspent wrath, the people rushed to rob and assault the Jews, the one section of society upon whom the poor could safely vent their aggression.

Chock full of details, it fills in all the details of a bloody, unenlightened time in history where war for no justifiable reason was the norm, crusades against distant lands were the epitome of a knight's duty, and the Black Death was decimating half the world's population. I will look into Le Goff books, thanks a lot for this recommendation, and I highly recommend this book by Tuchman. Both England and France were ruled by minors and prey to factions, but the seeds of effective rebellion and reform would lie dormant for many decades more. Her culminating chapters are some of her best, and it doesn't even matter that the people and events she's describing are so old and of so little relevance to your daily life that you will probably never hear them mentioned again, not even on Jeopardy. In these eminently readable and compelling pages the author brings the insights of a modern historian to bear on the decades of Chaucer and Boccaccio, the time of the Hundred Years' War and the Black Death, of the great fame of Dante, of extravagant civilization and bizarre superstition, of pilgrimage and plague, of revolutionary new technologies and enraged revolt against a poll tax.Among the clergy there were those who became obsessed with witchcraft, demonology and heresy—fueling the fires of the Inquisition. As in any age, it makes for more comfortable living being at the top rather than at the bottom of the social scale. In the years after Charles V death in 1380, France was struck by yet another series of violent revolts led by the merchant class and supported by the peasants sick of high taxes and declining incomes while the rich got richer.

The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, Tuchman was one of the great author/historians of her time, or any time.In the evening minstrels played with lutes and harps, reed pipes, bagpipes, trumpets, kettle drums, and cymbals.