Medieval People

Contrary to modern myth, medieval people lived in an era of innovation more than of superstition. This beautifully illustrated, highly readable book will appeal to all those who want a truer picture of a world often wrongly represented today.

People in the Middle Ages did not believe the earth was flat; torture was far less common than in later centuries; and technological advances included guns, printing, blast furnaces, spectacles, stirrups and the compass.

Medieval People tells the life stories of seventy individuals across Europe and the Middle East from the ninth to fifteenth centuries - monarchs and merchants, popes, peasants and poets, artists and adventurers, saints, scholars and soldiers.

Empire builders such as Charlemagne, and Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) are included as well as influential women such as Matilda of Tuscany, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc. Religious figures range from Urban II, the pope who started the Crusades, to Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas Becket, martyred archbishop. Fulk Nerra, pioneering castle builder, sits beside the great Persian polymath Avicenna. James Douglas, hero of Scottish independence, rubs shoulders with Dante and Giotto.