Toni mount's "Everyday Life of Medieval Folk" is a 20 part course, looking into the lives of normal (and not so normal!) people from the medieval era. From Cooks to Knights, Toni's exceptional research and insight into everyday people shines through in this course. It's presented in a fun, yet thorough, way. Not at all stuffy or boring - it's history the way it should be presented!
A treat for the Christmas period
So, why not treat yourself or a loved-one this December ... and we've even got a 50% discount available in this first month ... making the course an amazing value present for anyone who loves medieval history.
I have a question on your courses if I may. One sees so many discourses on medieval life centered on the south of England (below the Humber estuary). This is an area of fertile soils and good arable lands with the associated productivity. However north of that line it is primarily moorland and mountain; the soil is acid and thin and crop production in medieval times was sparse. Most of the farming was given over to a cattle rearing regime which eventually moved into sheep farming. Consequently the agricultural life in those northern farmstead was largely subsitance farming and diets were extremly limited; the effects of the periodic famines were devestating. On top of that the folk of those northern lands were constantly subect to the predations of the border reivers. This hard amd often brutal lifestyle was rather different from the more productive south. My question is therefore: Do your courses refelect these differences or are they, like most teachings, based on the relativly easier southern lifestyle?
FROM TONI MOUNT: The course does concentrate generally on the ‘south’ but life in the major cities ‘north of the Humber’ York, Durham, Carlisle, etc. was similar to that of life in the south. Some of the farming of that region was the richest in the Kingdom, based mainly around the abbeys of North Yorkshire for example. Residents of York are mentioned in the course as are some other cities. I agree with your question which suggests that large areas are mountain and moor so had a very sparse population, and therefore there is little to talk about in this course on that subject.