I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in history—the product of five years of study. In each of those years, I took at least one course on the Middle Ages.
The period was always great for stories. That’s why we loved it. Kings and queens, tyrannical churchmen, gruesome wars, plagues and hysteria—it was a tapestry woven, it seemed, of humanity’s best and worst capacities. On a bad day, when we were overtired, overworked, or just hungover, these outsized tales kept us focused. I remember them still.
But my best instructors weren’t satisfied with this kind of thing. They encouraged us to look beyond the extremes of the period. Consider the people themselves, they said. Think of their daily lives; the stresses they were under. Ask yourself if you’d be any different, in their position.
