What would have been common topics of conversation between friends and family? Would it have been current events, politics, etc. Or was the conversation usually confined to what was happening locally?

Also, what would a religious debate have looked like between "ordinary folks"? Would they have read enough of the Bible and know enough about theology to actually discuss the topic?

What did the hierarchy of identities look like for, say, a northumbrian peasant -- was he a Christian first, or a resident of his village, or a man, or a farmer?

Just how commercial was the economy? How important were feudal customs, common rights, and the like? When does the open-field system really give way to enclosed fields (is it as late as the 18th century, or is this going on well before)?

And what's the state of research on medieval sports, football especially?

What role (if any) did love play in non-royal marriages?

• To start off with a question about kings, how widely was the sort of sacral powers of kings believed? Stories about the king's touch having healing powers, for example.

• Related to this, what was the theology of the average peasant? How did they interact with religion, and how effective was the Church at imposing uniformity in belief?

• My understanding is that the High Medieval period is where the distant origins of the pub are found. What were proto-pubs like? Who went to them?

• What are the origins of Robin Hood? And is he just one of a number of different bandit folk heroes?

• How "militarized" was life along the frontier areas of Wales and Scotland? Were reavers a fact of everyday life?

Since you're writing a book on it, just how religious were the common folk? Was religion just kind of an expected activity every now and then to please the clergy/nobility/higher classes? I assume services were performed in Latin; if so, would commoners even understand what was being said or care?

What was the literacy rate in the late Middle Ages?

Also, what would an average peasant, living in the midlands, say, know about Jews? Would they know about them being expelled, know vaguely about difference in beliefs? Would they think they were heretics? Or would they know very little?

Did people have any concept or relation of neighboring nations. What was their relation to Scotland, Ireland, France, Denmark?

How common was it for women to own and/or run businesses in medieval towns (especially the larger, more populous centers of trade)?

Maybe to a generic question for this sub but...what quirky fact in your area of expertise are you dying to tell us?

I still have on my shelf from graduate school a copy of Barbara Hanawalt's The Ties that Bound. My hazy memory of it from my historiography class was that her methodology was novel at the time and that the look it provided into ordinary lives was unique.

Has her scholarship stood up over time? And are there similar "ordinary people" works you'd recommend?

Would it be common for the bishop to tour the dioceses saying masses in local churches, or would he be considered "above that"? Would he be expected to say mass on special occasions?

Was there that much in the way of gender distinctions in labor? Did men and women generally perform similar tasks at home, or was there a sharp differentiation? Was there an understanding of the home as the domain of women? Did this differ between classes, or between towns and rural areas?

2 Questions

1. Is Margaret Wood's Book on The House in Late Medieval England a good reference? It seems comprehensive but I'm not to sure how up to date the scholarship is.

2. I feel like historians of everyday life have been moving away from demographic explanations (IE the black death) for changing social structures and rising living stands in the late middle ages (particularly England). To what extend is this true - are demographic factors still considered important? What other explanations are offered for rising living standards in late medieval England?

I would be curious to know how much interaction commoners and everyday folk in a medieval English setting would have with their direct feudal lord, and with those above. Did local lords attend the same church services, travel the same streets, and patronize at least some of the same shops as their serfs, or did they stick to private chapels, messengers, and lackeys to do their browsing? Would an ordinary peasant recognize their feudal lord if they met face to face? The lord's lord? The king or queen? I have heard passing reference to people recognizing a ruler from coinage, but that would only work for later designs and very specific situations - is there any evidence for the presence or lack of a more regular interaction?

What types of song, dance, music, and instruments did the English common folk participate in? Would it have been in old or Middle English, or French?

I know "what did people think about X" questions aren't really easy to answer, but hopefully this one won't be too bad.

In historical linguistics circles (a.k.a. 2 bearded guys downing craft beers at the local and joking about Nostratic) Chaucer is a well known example of someone with a good metalinguistic awareness. That is to say he seemed to know what was going on with things like different registers, formalities of speech, regional and class variations and the like.

My question is, how much would the average person hearing/reading his work be equally clear on this sort of thing? Would they have no trouble reading some passages but great difficulty reading others? Do we have any near-contemporary commentaries on these writings where people express anything of that sort? Or, how much of the Other-ness of some of the passages was part of the humour/appeal in the first place?

How did ordinary people view their rulers? Did they ever organize to discuss politics? Feel free to get more specific with any examples you can think of and thanks!

I recently read Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England -- highly recommended, by the way. One of my big takeaways from that book is the massive advantage better nutrition and diet conferred to the nobility versus the commoners. Whereas the nobility had heights and even lifespans similar to our own, the commoners were much shorter and tended to max out at 40 years.

Is Mortimer correct on this? If so, did any commoners notice the physical differences? How did they generally react to it?

What was the diet of the average villager like?

What was the availability of leisure time? What were the most popular leisure activities? And, was leisure time available to all across society, just a select few...?

How much did people drink, and what was it? Was ale/wine/spirits available in the common home? And did people make their own?

At what age would young couples marry in medieval England?

What sort of recreational and/or religious drugs did medieval people take? I imagine alcohol and tobacco being on top. Where there any others? What was the popular view on different drugs?

I have a few questions, and would love to hear your thoughts on any that might be relevant to your scope of knowledge and study. Thanks for doing this!

• Was there any upward mobility for ordinary people in medieval society?
• Somewhat tied to the above question, how diversified was the economy? Could skill in an area other than farming lead to higher quality of life?
• Was there any downtime for common people? If so, what would they have done to entertain themselves?
• How widespread was the use and possession of simple weapons like a bow and arrow? Did hunters and foresters sometimes work as soldiers?

What influence did the Hundred Years War have on English peasant society? Compared to population, the armies actually fighting in France seem quite small; was there much anxiety or awareness over the kingdom's fortunes in France, or was it just not a part of everyday life?

Would you consider Down in the Common an authentic glimpse of medieval English life?

Was depression a thing back then?

Were people happier because life was "simpler" and everyone had a pretty defined path to follow? Or were they more sad because of more hardship?

Did people express their emotions the same way or was it considered somehow improper to be too emotional? Would there be any big differences to how we deal with emotions now? Smiling, laughing, shouting, arguing, even affection .. would these pretty much be shown as commonly or uncommonly as they are now? ( I guess physical affection is probably an obvious big difference. )

Basically .. anything to say about the "emotional life" of Medieval folk?

IF, you were to be thrown back in time and wake up in 1300, what knowledge from the modern world would most help you?

How would people have fun? Was there significant leisure/recreation time? Was there a value placed on enjoying life to some extent or was there a puritanical attitude that emphasized working hard and celebrating sparingly? How were bastard children treated? Did uneducated people know of the existence of other countries with different languages and traditions?

What were meals and food like in late Medieval England for different groups? I'm curious about both what was eaten and when/how it was eaten (i.e. meal structures).

What were ordinary people in England eating in the 12th and 13th centuries? I know that bread was important, but what kinds of bread? Would any of the kinds of things they ate be familiar or recognizable to us?

How did city life differ from life in the countryside in Medieval England? also How much was the general populace exposed to theatre and what sorts of theatre would have been the most common?

How much interaction, if any, would medieval city folk have with non-European foreigners? Where would these foreigners be coming from and what would have brought them to England?

I've always been curious about the origins of pub culture. Did pubs make their own beer? Did they only sell their one type? How did pubs evolve? When did they become a facet of English peasant life?

What kind of role did stage drama play in this time and place? Did regular folks put on plays or shows for their neighbors? Did people go to theaters for entertainment often? If so, what class of people, and what were the plays like?

• What religious activists would common and highborn people perform during the day? Did they have different obligations?

• Dis common or highborn people even know the basic rules? Or was this knowledge restricted to the clergy?

• What saints were the most popular and why?

• What kind of people would become monks or nuns or get involved with the Church?

• If people had religious doubts who would they talk to?

• Who was in charge of instructing people in religious education?

• Did they have something like Sunday school or catechism classes?

• What would happen if someone with religious authority was found to be committing a crime or a sin?

• Did people know who the pope was?

• How did people chose to name their kids?

• Would common or highborn people know about other religions besides Christianity?

• What festivities were the most important?

• How were Christian holidays like Christmas, Easter or a Saint's Feast be celebrated?

• Was the Virgin Mary popular?

• How would a church look like? Compare to nowadays?

• Who was more powerful the Church or the nobility? Who did the common people like better?

• If a secular ruler was found to commit sin/crimes against the common people would the Church (or anyone else) intervene?

• What would local people think of the clergy?

• What did abbey and monasteries did?

Also I've been waiting for this for so long.

• Why did you decide to specialize in Medieval religion?

• What do you think was the best aspects of Medieval culture?

• What were the worst?

The peasants revolt/Wat Tyler's rebellion is often credited with bringing about an end to serfdom in England. Is that true or were there economic reasons for this change (like inefficiency of the system and population decline due to the plague) ? If it was true then what there the mechanisms of this change, given that the revolt was suppressed - and that king Richard would not have had to honor his previous promises on that regard.

Have you studied medieval arabia? And if you have what are some similarities you seen between medieval Europe and arabia that most people don't know?

I'm not sure if this AMA is done but it's worth a shot. You mention communal work- what was the property structure like among medieval peasants? Was there any communal farming like the obschina in Tsarist Russia?

What folk medicines would be available to a peasant should he become ill?