Best Medieval History Books I Read in 2019 (Old)

Hey, what's going on everybody? Justin here, and in this video I just want to go over my favorite medieval history books that I read in 2019. This is definitely one of the more popular, kind of like best of videos that I did last year for my reading year 2018. So definitely want to get this one out there, everyone seems to like, kind of like, especially a lot of people that enjoy like fantasy and stuff as a popular genre of fiction, kind of medieval history kind of goes into the kind of fantasy genre quite well, at least kind of the more traditional like epic and high fantasies and things like that. But anyways, 2018 I did quite well with my medieval histories, 2019 not so much. I was able to scrounge up three of them for this video that were definitely my favorites of the ones I did read. But yeah, 2020 I definitely want to pick up my history reading kind of in general, definitely need to go up in medieval and ancient history, and particularly need to kind of go up a little bit, especially since history is my favorite genre to read. But like I said, I got three of them here and I'm not going to rank these ones one, two or three. I don't think any of them are exactly five star reads for my, for my, like my own like kind of preferences. I probably did round them up to five stars on Goodreads. I think I gave all these ones four and a half if I remember correctly. But like I said, I didn't read a whole ton of it in 2019. But these are my three favorite ones to go with for my reading year of 2019, so let's just get started. The first one is going to be one of the great courses. If you follow the channel a bit, you kind of know I listen to quite a few of the teaching company great courses and things. For a while, I think last year I did do pretty well, I think I did at least one a month, which is pretty good for me considering I think I haven't been so far yet this year though. It is only January. But the first course, we're going with The Early Middle Ages by Professor Philip Dayleader. This is actually a repeat listen for me. I think I listened to The Early, The High, and Late Middle Ages, all done by this professor. I think each one's 24 lectures at half an hour each. Years and years ago, when I first like started like listening to courses and books and stuff, it was like I said, this was kind of a reread. What's interesting about this course is it kind of goes from the fall of the Roman Empire to about roughly, if I remember, the reign of Charlemagne and maybe just a little bit after. So roughly about like 250 CE to through the mid 800s CE. So it's definitely The Early Middle Ages, which encompasses Late Antiquity, which is probably my favorite era in history, which obviously gives me kind of an inclination to really enjoy the course. I love this professor. He does a really good job kind of bringing out both the big picture and also going into kind of more, what's the word, maybe vignette styles, vignette styles, like going into like little vignettes of particular profiles of different events and, you know, different characters throughout history. Most of Western Europe is covered. Eastern Europe is also covered a little bit. Byzantium is dealt in with a little bit of detail. But there are some like other areas that do get kind of overlooked sometimes with, you know, like general histories of the Middle Ages. Like, for example, there's, I think, two lectures on Al-Andalus, which is roughly Islamic Spain during like the Early Middle Ages, well, actually during the Early and High Middle Ages, you know, the Reconstant stuff. So you definitely have, what's the word I'm looking for, you kind of get the broad picture of pretty much all of Europe rather than just kind of, well, I guess in the Early Middle Ages, it's mostly just kind of the Merovingian and Carolingian Empire. And I guess, you know, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, if one counts those, the Viking invasions are covered as well. But like I said, the professor does a really good job of kind of blending in big, big picture ideas with smaller profile characters in events to kind of, you know, just do a really good job of history. I guess that was probably like the lamest explanation for why I like the course, but there you have it. Like I said, he does also do the High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages, and they're all really good from what I remember to probably later on this year, I'll listen to those two as well. All right, so now let's go on to some of the books that I actually have. We have right here, we've got Bosworth by Michael Jones of the Battle that Transformed England. Bosworth, the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 essentially kind of ended the Wars of the Roses and with the fall of Richard III from Shakespeare, you know, fame or infamy, probably is a better word, into the Tudor dynasty. Now what I really enjoyed about this book, probably my biggest takeaway is he does a really good job kind of bringing up Richard III from like villainy. For whatever reason, Shakespeare, you know, portrayed him in a terrible light, and just from down to posterity, he's just never recovered from that, basically a hack attack. So, hack job, essentially. So like I said, Richard III is always kind of, you know, he's like that evil king, kind of like King John during like Magna Carta, and Richard the Lionheart and everything. But half the book is kind of dealing with the context of the battle, so kind of biographies of the major players involved, you know, notably Richard III and Henry Tudor. And then the second half of the book is actually about, you know, just purely on the battle itself, probably how it played out, you know, where was it, kind of all the myths and legends around it, and you know, trying to actually piece together the actual sort of historical narrative of, you know, the day before, the day after, and the day of the battle itself and everything. Different kind of like the strategy and tactics that were kind of employed leading up to the battle and during the battle and stuff. So like I said, this was kind of a neat book, the way it was kind of crafted. I think this is actually like a revised or updated edition, after research and everything. But I highly enjoyed it. At first, I'm not really super into like, you know, nitty gritty battle-y, battle-y books. I don't know what the word is. They'll just on like tactics and stuff. I kind of get like bored with those quite easily. But this book does a really good job kind of bringing like the whole scheme of things together. And it's not like a super long book, even though I suppose like a hundred pages on just like the battle itself is quite a bit. But like I said, it's got a lot of like kind of the context, you know, the setting and the environment and where the location actually was and all that kind of stuff. And his kind of main thesis with this is that the French pike mercenaries that Henry Tudor employed during the battle are definitely like one of the main kind of, what's the word, the crucial aspect of the Tudor army that kind of, you know, was able to turn the tide and whatnot. But like I said, the first half is also kind of, you know, more of a historical like narrative with kind of the biographical works and everything and kind of leading up to the like, or bringing up like psychology and everything of, you know, the major players involved. Just, I don't know, highly enjoyed this book. I think some of the like tangents, I think were a little bit, a little too, not fluffy is the word. I think there's a little bit too much speculation in a few parts, but not much. And I think that's the only reason I didn't quite give it a five stars, but definitely highly enjoyed this book. I think I bought it, see it was on sale for $6 at like a, it was actually a new book at a used bookstore. So I just kind of picked it up on a whim because I kind of liked the cover and I knew it was like a medieval history book. That's why I ended up with it and I'm glad I finished it. All right. And lastly, this will not surprise probably anyone as one of these other books was one of my favorites for my 2018 medieval history reads. But we've got Life in a Medieval Village by Francis N. Joseph Meese. I think Life in a Medieval City here was probably my favorite medieval book of 2018. These are very popular, I don't know, these are almost like standard works in popular history, dealing, especially obviously popular medieval history, dealing with like the actual everyday life of, you know, medieval people in, you know, these like locations and stuff. There's also Life in a Medieval Castle here, which I have not read yet, but it's definitely on my 2020 TBR essentially. I don't think this one was quite as good as Life in a Medieval City. And the reason for that is even though this is really good social history, Life in a Medieval Village has to technically, by nature of like being, you know, like a village, it's a little bit more abstract, I guess, not necessarily vague, but you have to deal with, obviously there's not going to be as much, um, how, uh, not artifact, what am I talking about, textual primary sources. I'm totally drawing a blank, but I'm like super lazy and I'm not going to like edit that out. There's not going to be quite as many records that have survived down to us as, for example, the city and everything, or Life in a Medieval City, and probably not as much as actually for Life in a Medieval Castle, if like, you know, the records have been stored in a depository or whatever. But, anyways, also some of the kind of, uh, kind of a lot of the chapters, what I like about these books is they're kind of broken down into very, not by substance, but they're very distinct, like, uh, let me just, it's probably easier if I just, you know, read some of the chapter titles and whatnot. Uh, so we got like, you know, the lord, so like the lord of the village, or in kind of dealing with feudalism and manorialism, sometimes you could have a lord with more than one village and one village could possibly have more than one lord. But, anyways, you know, the villagers, marriage and the family, and the village at work and the parish and stuff. So they're very distinct kind of, uh, bite-sized pieces. Whereas, like, the Medieval City, um, also had the same thing, but they were even smaller. Like, a lot of the professions had their own chapter, um, and there was definitely a lot more of them. So I think it was just, there's more, uh, I guess the information is richer for Life in a Medieval City. Uh, just because by nature of a village, a lot of it's kind of, there's going to be a lot of mixing, uh, between, maybe mixing's not the right word, um, what am I thinking of? There's going to be a lot of... That was, that was a complete fail. Okay, well definitely, that's got to get, like, edited out. That was, that was completely terrible. Uh, but anyways, what I think what I was going with is, uh, for like Life in a Medieval Village, for example, uh, there's going to be a lot of overlap and kind of mixing of boundaries with, uh, kind of, like, different, like, professions and whatnot. It's not going to be as cut and dry as, say, in a city where you actually have, you know, an apprenticeship, uh, for example, as part of a guild and whatnot. But in a Medieval Village, everyone's kind of, like, working together on, um, quite a bit, uh, of kind of, like, daily life and everything. So everything's not, not everything's going to be as distinct, if that makes sense. Plus, also with Life in a Medieval Village, kind of distinguishing, like, one village from another, um, is quite difficult, even though there must be, um, quite a bit of variation in Medieval Villages, you know, between, obviously, like, English, uh, uh, parish villages and stuff. Same thing kind of, like, in France and everything. And then also, like, German villages would be quite a bit different, and they kind of touch upon that, but there's just not as, there's not enough, uh, I don't know, textual evidence to kind of make, like, distinct books for, like, each of those. And that's kind of a, uh, kind of a, a down point, I guess, if that's kind of what I'm going for. But all that negativity aside, this is still a really good book, kind of dealing with what a peasant life is really going to be like. Um, this is just fabulous social history, um, you know, like I said, dealing with the everyday, you know, what did they eat, what did they do, like, when they get up out of bed, you know. Because not every day is going to be, you know, you're not slaving away in the fields quite every day. Even though I would not want to be a peasant myself, um, that's kind of a misconception that, you know, and then, I mean, technically, you know, there's serfs and whatnot. Um, but anyways, they did have some time to themselves. They obviously had, like, you know, personal lives and whatnot. It's kind of, you know, how did they go about, you know, you know, what did they do in their free time, whatnot. Stuff like that. And then, I don't know, social history is definitely one of my favorite aspects of, uh, history, especially when dealing with, like, ancient and medieval and, like, kind of pre-modern-ish history. Um, but anyways, I did a terrible job selling this book. You should just go get it. You should just get, like, all three of them and read them all if you're interested at all in kind of medieval life. It's definitely probably the gold standard in that field. So, yeah, that was complete, that was just a complete massacre. No pun intended there for, you know, medieval massacres, whatnot. Um, yeah, those were my three favorite medieval history books. Uh, leave some comments down below if you've read medieval history. Um, let me know what you think about any of those. I'll leave a link, I think, to my 2018 favorite medieval history books and you'll probably just be amazed at how terrible this one was compared to that one, if I had to guess. You know, your skills are supposed to improve, you know, for videography and, you know, just talking well. But apparently not. Maybe it's just, like, I'm tired and whatnot. But no excuses, right? So anyways, like I said, leave a comment down below if you've read any medieval history and if you have, what your favorite medieval history book has been that you've ever read. I'd really enjoy, or I'd really like to hear what they are so I can pretty much go get them and read them because, like I said, I did really bad in 2019 with my, like, just overall medieval history reading. Definitely need to pick up a few more and get going with that. So, um, yeah, hope you enjoyed the video despite all the problems and all the flaws. There's quite a bit in this one and I actually have to go out and go on my computer and edit, like, a couple pieces, which I hate doing, but gonna have to. I can't, like, leave some of that stuff in there. But anyways, like, subscribe, comment, all that cool stuff. Check out all the things, you know, my Etsy shop and Instagram and Twitter and there's probably other social media stuff I have that I just can't even, like, remember because there's so much of it. But anyways, whether you're reading medieval history or not, always remember, read the toys.