12th Century Life

Daily life in the 12th Century.

This set of articles is intended to be a scholarly (i.e. reference your sources) guide to the daily particulars of life in an interesting historical century, particularly in the area of England and France, because these are easier to research. The chief aim is to describe the daily aspects of life (when you ate, how you went shopping, how much it cost, what you did for fun, etc.), rather than the grand historical events (although some of these will be needed to be linked to as background).

12th Century Topics

Money

• coins
• monetary units
• significance and use of purses
• taxes
• foreign coin
• prices - worth of goods

Shopping

• shops
• markets
• fairs
• what to sell?

Food

• meal times
• common ingredients
• food for the poor or piosly destitute
• for the rich
• recipes
• feast food
• camp food

Sanitation

• sewers, or lack thereof
• garderobes
• bathing
• female hygiene
• food hygiene

Clothing

• fabrics
• clothing styles
• fashion
• accessories
• 12th century underwear
• tailors

Entertainment

• music
  • troubadours
• poetry
• theatre
• drinking (incorporating drinks,taverns, drinking games)
• a friend for the night
• Games
• Literature - books for entertainment
• Fools
• feast entertainment

Education and learning

• early schooling
• more schooling
• universities
• apprenticeships
• literacy of the populace including women

Religion

• the church
• a few examples of the symbolism of objects in the 12th century
• some 12th Century Myths
• astronomy and astrology
• the calendar and timekeeping

Travel

• overland (by Road)
• oversea (by boat)
• crusades
• pilgrimages
• foreign places
• duties and customs

Achitecture

• Romanesque Architecture
• churches
• house exterior
• house interior layout
• furniture
• other buildings
• gardens
• Wattle and Daub

History

• 12th Century
• English Monarchs
  • Henry I Beauclerc (1100-35)
  • King Stephen (1135-54)
  • Empress Matilda (1141)
  • Henry II (1154-89)
  • Richard I the Lionheart (1189-99)
  • John Lackland (1199-1216)
• crusades

Medicine

• medicine
• childbirth
• death and cemeteries
• hospitals

Crafts (As in what specialist tradesmen do)

• guilds
• crafts known in the 12th century
• names for specialist craftsmen

Unsorted

• proverbs
• animals
• plants

Reading

• Basic General Books on 12th Century Life (a good place to start)
• References cited in above articles
• Specialist Books on Aspects of 12th Century Life
• Links to good web resources
• Novels set in this period
• 12th Century texts