My Listings... about Medieval & Related Books

• Medieval Life
• Medieval Warfare
• Plague & Black Death

Related topics / see also:

Medieval Links, Role-Playing, Plague! Game Review

Medieval Life

• A Medieval Home Companion, by Tania Bayard (HarperPerennial, 1991) is the translation of an original medieval source giving advice about all things concerning a medieval household. A gem of a sourcebook.
• A Distant Mirror, by Barbara W. Tuchman (e.g. Ballantine, 1979). Barbara Tuchman has written books covering different epochs of history, and I still have to find one that does not incite interest in the topic she writes about. The "Distant Mirror" gives an account of medieval Europe by relating the fate of a family of French nobles. The plague was just one of the things that troubled people then. The only apparent drawback of the book: its 600-page-bulk.
• Ritter, Mönch und Bauersleut, eine unterhaltsame Geschichte des Mittelalters, by Dieter Breuers (Bastei-Lübbe, 1994, German text). Nearly 600 pages of medieval history, told in an entertaining manner (and sometimes in the form of "eye-witness reports") but still based on solid knowledge. Highly recommendable!
• A Medieval Tapestry, Personalities of Mythic Europe, by Jeff Tidball et.al. (Atlas Games/Trident, 1997), originally a sourcebook for the Ars Magica role-playing game but good reading in its own right. Also beautifully illustrated.
• Prospects of England, 2000 Years Seen Through Twelve English Towns, by Adam Nicholson and Peter Morter (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1989). The book includes a 12-page chapter describing Weymouth and Melcombe in text and drawings.
• Weymouth, An Illustrated History, by Maureen Attwool and Jack West (Dovecote Press, UK, 1983, revised and extended edition 1995). A well-written book covering the history of Weymouth from its earliest traces to this day. The text is generously accompanied by maps and pictures as well as a biliography.
• Weymouth and Portland in Historical Photograpy by Ted Gosling (Alan Sutton Publishing, 1995). This is an interesting collection of 200+ photographs, many of them from the turn of the century and some as recent as 1970.
• Barbarian Europe and Age of Faith by Gerald Simmons resp. Anne Freemantle (TIME-LIFE Books Inc., New York 1965 resp. 1968) are very readable and well-illustrated. They are concerned with late Roman to early medieval times resp. with the middle to late Middle Ages. The books are a part of the TIME-LIFE history books series. I read the German pocket book edition (RoRoRo Sachbücher, Mönche, Krieger, Lehensmänner, 1972 resp. Kaiser, Ritter und Scholaren, 1973).
• England Under the Normans 1066-1154 (Ed. Guy Wilson, Historical Times Ltd. 1978) gives the background to that epoch of British history. I bought the booklet in Battle, UK, the village at the site of the Battle of Hastings, during the celebrations for the 900th anniversary of "Domesday" (the Norman survey in 1086).

Medieval Warfare

• La Guerre au moyen âge (Philippe Contamine, Presses Universitaires de France 1980, translated by Michael Jones: War in the Middle Ages, Blackwell Publishers 1984-1996) is a scientific book covering all aspects of the topic completely. I found it a bit hard to read, but the information provided is complete and well-researched. It also contains an extensive bibliography. (There are very few detailed descriptions of weaponry and armour, so it is not a good source-book for role-players.)
• Weapons- an International Encyclopedia form 5000 BC to 2000 AD (Ed. David Harding, Diagram Visual Information, London 1980 + 1990, German edition: Waffen-Enzyklopädie, Motorbuchverlag Stuttgart 1993) covers all types of weapons used in medieval (and other) warfare.
• The Osprey Men-At-Arms series covers different aspects of the topic in great detail in separate small well-illustrated volumes. An incomplete German edition has been published by the Wehr & Wissen Verlag.
• Die Burg im Mittelalter by Comte Herbert de Caboga (Ullstein 1982) is a German book about medieval castles.
• Stephen Biesty's Cross-Section Castle by Stephen Biesty and Richard Platt (Dorling Kindersley Ltd., London, 1994) is an illustrated (and I mean illustrated) book about medieval castle life. Written and drawn for children, and excellently suited to give an impression of what it meant to live there and then.
• An Outline of Arms and Armour in England by James Mann (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1969) is a small booklet giving an illustrated introduction about Middle Ages to Civil War weaponry.
• The Compendium of Weapons, Armour & Castles (Matthew Balent, Palladium RPG, Detroit 1989) is an invaluable source of information, though you must consider that it was written as a role-playing sourcebook rather than a scientific treatise.

Plague & Black Death

Remark: "Black Death" usually refers to the 1348-1350 plague, while "The Great Plague" is a common synonym for the recurrence of the epidemic in London, 1665.

• The Black Death, by Philip Ziegler (1969, reprint Penguin, 1982). Philip Ziegler talks about history as the ordinary people experienced it, but from a vast knowledge of facts and backgrounds. He does not leave out "official" history but breaks it down to something you can understand and feel while you read. You might want to skip one or the other statistic data, but nevertheless the book is very good to read.
  (Another recommendable book by him: "London at War" (1939-1945))
• The Great Plague, by Pam Robson (Macdonald Young Books, UK, 1996). This book covers the topic really well, from many points of view. Though it is primarily a book for children it features a glossary and an index and gives a very good overall information about most aspects of the epedemic, from Black Death times to today.
• La Danse Macabre de la Chaise-Dieu dans son contexte artistique et religieux, by Père Marie-Bernard, F.J. (Association La Casadéenne, F-43160 La Chaise-Dieu, France, 1993), a booklet in French language describing not only this specific Danse Macabre but also related works of art. It also gives an overview of the known paintings of the genre.

There are some more books I found referenced, but I did not read them myself:

• Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence; Kohn, George C.
• In Time of Plague : History and Social Consequences of Lethal Epidemic; Mack, Arien (Ed.)
• Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348-1530; Hatcher, John
• Black Death in England, 1348-1500; Ormrod, Mark; Lindley, Phillip (Ed.)
• King Death : Black Death and Its Aftermath in Late-medieval England; Platt, Colin
• Journal of the Plague Year; Defoe, Daniel
• Great Plague; Worsnop, I.R.; Hornsby, Pauline (Ed.)
• Great Plague of London; Bell, Walter George