Realm Divided - A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England

A vivid, in-the-round portrait of English society in the year of Magna Carta, from the best-selling author of The PlantagenetsEngland in 1215. This was not just the year of Magna Carta and King John's war with his barons, but a year of crusading and church reform, of foreign wars and dramatic sieges, of trade and treachery; a year in which London would be stormed by angry barons; England would be invaded by a French army; and a supposedly impregnable castle would be brought down with burning pig fat. But this was also a year in which life, for most people, just went on. Thus 1215 opens a window onto everyday life in the thirteenth century: home and church, love and marriage, education and agriculture, outlawry and adventure. It offers a vivid and authoritative portrait--from royal court to peasant wedding--of medieval life in the round, as well as an exhilarating and revelatory exploration of the big themes of politics, warfare, religion, feudalism, mercantilism, travel, and the law in a transformative year in English history.