100 Books Like War, Politics and Finance in Late Medieval English Towns

This is a masterful work covering the period from the Norman conquest to the Black Death. Sarah Rees Jones is one of my go-to scholars for medieval York, as well as an engaging writer. I particularly appreciate her looking beyond the importance of the royal government in the city’s development to include the strong influence of the Minster and other ecclesiastical institutions in the city as well as the significance of the people of York—merchants and craftspeople.

Check here first if you want a feel for how the city grew, who were the makers and shakers, how the neighborhoods developed, where the influential people lived. Every time I dip into this book I learn something new. With 18 useful maps and an extensive bibliography.

If you want even earlier information than 1068, Palliser begins with Roman York, Eboracum, moves through Scandinavian York, Jorvik, and then joins up with the city as it grows in the middle ages. The introduction discusses why a city grew in this particular spot, the strategic, geologic, and geographic advantage of the Vale of York.

This is the perfect complement to Rees Jones’s book, with more emphasis on the political and military history than hers and extending past the Black Death into the large degree of independent rule gained in two charters granted by King Richard II, then on to the gradual decline of the city in the 16th century.

Kermode focuses on the dynamics of northern urban society in the three major towns along the corridor on the lowland plain by the River Ouse—York, Beverley, and Hull. Merchants from the three towns joined partnerships and intermarried, creating dynasties, the most prominent mingling with the gentry and royal households of the region, and served in parliament as MP’s. The merchants tend to be wealthier than their craftsmen neighbors.

Chapters cover politics, the nuts, and bolts of their trade, how they accrued wealth, and how they used that wealth. Appendix B, Some Merchant Biographies, reads like the society pages, offering tantalizing glimpses into family connections.

A classic cited in every title on my list, Goldberg’s book provides a glimpse into the lives of women in the area, both rural and urban. The book grew out of the question, How far was marriage a necessity for medieval women? His focus is on women in the north, with its unique labor issues. To answer the question he examines the economy and how women participated in it, with an emphasis on the changes brought on by the decline in population after the Black Death in the later 14th century.

He covers tradeswomen, servants, prostitutes, farm laborers, with glimpses into the lives they led and how the different groups made choices about marriage. Women in York and Yorkshire chose to enter the workforce, often delaying marriage until it offered a clear advantage, and their economic independence offered them an advantage in making decisions about their future. Gives a… show more.

Forget the Wars of the Roses! Give me the fourteenth century and the reign of Edward III—whose like, according to the chronicler Jean Froissart, “has not been seen since the days of King Arthur." A happy warrior, exuberant ruler, and skilled commander, who at least one modern military historian has described as “the greatest general in English history.” Edward kicked some serious French butt during the beginning of the Hundred Years War. (Great from the English point of view. Devastating for those on the receiving end of Edward’s chevauchees.) The poignancy of outliving one’s peers and one’s time and dying alone—all of that is compassionately detailed in Ian Mortimer’s compelling biography, which reminds us why Edward of Windsor ranks among England’s greatest kings. 

Captain Bristol and his ship Blue 87 are taken prisoner by scientists who want to take Blue’s cognizant brain and use Bristol in regeneration experiments along with the others they have plucked from history. Outgunned, outnumbered, and definitely outdated, this unlikely gaggle of prisoners must find a way to save not only themselves, but the British Galactic Empire. I’ve read this book twice this year and it kept me laughing every time with its crazy antics. I’m dying for the sequel. (Hope they can resurrect me!)

Written by an author from the English West Country city of Bristol, this story accurately captures the inequality of life in the 1970s. Fifteen-year-old Carol lives in a council estate on the edge of town. She goes to school with a farmer’s son who will inherit rolling acres. One day, she meets handsome Frankie, who is staying with his aunt in a manor house nearby.

Every reader will know louche Frankie is bad news. Carol, of course, falls for him and finds herself pregnant. So far, so predictable. What is far less predictable is the way Carol herself is sucked into crime, secrets, and lies. Forty years later, how far will she go to evade exposure? Emotional, clever, and exquisitely written, this book is hard to put down. 

The Kennet & Avon (K&A) Canal is a remarkable example of conservation. It is a very attractive way of travelling across southern England from London to Bristol, via the Thames, the K&A, and the River Avon. 

In the 1950’s it was almost closed but a petition to the Queen and heroic work by volunteers brought it back to life in 1990. Kirsten Elliott tells the story of this waterway as a journey from Reading to Bristol with gorgeous modern pictures and fascinating old photographs.

Personal stories are usually the best way of getting the flavour of a time. Joyce Storey, who would describe herself as an ordinary working-class woman, married in 1939. Her story tells of the everyday struggles of a young mother of two daughters with a husband absent in the RAF. She spent some of the war living with him when he was posted to Grimsby—very foreign to her as she came from Bristol—and with all the everyday battles of in-laws, air raids, and struggling for every penny. She’s a lively writer, conjuring up pictures of her new neighbours in Grimsby, the birth of her babies, and early motherhood ‘Yuk!’—which she did grow into. You get very fond of Joyce and her challenges.

Every European nation has its own conspiracy theory about discovering America. This is the best and most readable evocation of the British conspiracy theory – that, far from being called after Amerigo Vespucci, the new world was called after John Cabot’s backer Richard Ameryk – who, bizarrely, had the stars and stripes as his family crest.