THE YEAR 1000 is a vivid evocation of how English people lived a thousand years ago - no spinach, sugar or Caesarean operations in which the mother had any chance of survival, but a world that knew brain surgeons, property developers and, yes, even the occasional gossip columnist. In the spirit of modern investigative journalism, Lacey and Danziger interviewed the leading historians and archaeologists in their field. In the year 1000 the changing seasons shaped a life that was, by our standards, both soothingly quiet and frighteningly hazardous - and if you survived, you could expect to grow to just about the same height and stature as anyone living today. This exuberant and informative book concludes as the shadow of the millennium descends across England and Christendom, with prophets of doom invoking the spectre of the Anti-Christ. Here comes the abacus - the medieval calculating machine - along with bewildering new concepts like infinity and zero. These are portents of the future, and THE YEAR 1000 finishes by examining the human and social ingredients that were to make for survival and success in the next thousand years.
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Thoroughly enjoyable ... a superb insight into life as it was lived a thousand years ago (INDEPENDENT )
A brilliant little book, well-written, knowledgeable, insightful, accessible, a model of how popular social history should be written (GLASGOW HERALD )
A series of deftly-turned vignettes of what it was like to live in England at the turn of the last millennium ... a quirky and engaging book (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
A beautiful window on past history. My book of the year (Simon Schama )
A brilliant little book, well-written, knowledgeable, insightful, accessible, a model of how popular social history should be written (GLASGOW HERALD )
A series of deftly-turned vignettes of what it was like to live in England at the turn of the last millennium ... a quirky and engaging book (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
A beautiful window on past history. My book of the year (Simon Schama )
Book Description
* Vivid recreation of how English people lived a thousand years ago.
* What life was like at the turn of the first Millennium.
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IT WAS AN OAK TREE THAT PROVIDED THE ink, from a boil-like pimple growing out of its bark. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
IT WAS AN OAK TREE THAT PROVIDED THE ink, from a boil-like pimple growing out of its bark. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Readable, entertaining, informative, surprising and lively. This book is like no other I have read on pre-Conquest England. While most books deal rather dryly with thegns and eaoldermen and the coming of Christianity, this book focuses on what life would have been like for the ordinary man and woman of the time. It is full of illumnating anecdotes about such things as the various types of worm people might have in their guts and the process of minting a silver penny - and what happened to you if you were found to be forging them - not a happy fate. It offers insights into the life of the monk and nun - and tells you where their ink came from to copy their devotional texts. It gives a powerful impression of how life could be very rich, or almost unbearable in times of famine. It deals with diet, religious beliefs, work and labour, slavery and bondage, the legal system, women, the class system, the economy, medicine, paganism, town and country life, battle and war, and all this in a fresh and lively manner. The authors make liberal use of sources to illustrate their topic, to great effect. This text is not written by academics, but it is a very useful insight into the world of 'real' men and women. Highly recommended.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By J Gerrard
Format:Paperback
Monty Python have a lot to answer for. When it comes to life in the dark ages, their comic depiction of mud-splattered, sack-wearing, shrubbery-obsessed peasants has probably influenced more minds than any musty textbook ever could. Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger have clearly taken a leaf out of the Pythons' book, and opted for a similarly irreverent portrait of English life at the end of the first millennium.
The Year 1000 is packed full of details and anecdotes that are designed to entertain first and educate second. For instance, did you know that monks wore underpants, communicated by sign language so as not to break their vow of silence and (rather bashfully) called their toilet a necessarium? Before our very eyes, history is cut into tasty, easy-to-swallow pieces. As a result, the book is accessible and enormously enjoyable, assisted by the light-hearted and direct style.
As an introduction to the era, it's a roaring success, but if you're looking for serious historical analysis, then steer well clear as it will most likely cause you to spontaneously combust. The authors occasionally try too hard to link the past with the present, which, whilst providing much of the amusement, does not always provide sound judgement. One priceless, if ultimately unconvincing theory suggests that a natural form of the drug L.S.D. was responsible for driving the peasants wild during the winter famine. Maybe they were getting into practice for Woodstock.
The Year 1000 can be summed up thus: perfect entertainment, imperfect history. But when it's this much fun, it doesn't really matter does it? And it's nice to think that maybe Monty Python got it right after all...
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio Cassette
The turn of the millennium (the last millennium, that is) in England was an interesting world to behold -- the country was struggling toward unity, but still wary of invaders from across the various seas (an invasion trend that would stop less than 100 years after the turn of the millennium). The typical Englishman was well-fed, but the kinds of food might astound modern readers; when the people got indigestion back then, medical treatments were even more bizarre.
Into the world, Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger venture with humour and insight. Lacey and Danziger, established writers in related topics, have traced a journey through history by tracing the typical life during a year at the turn of the year 1000, through the Julius Work Calendar, on reserve at the British Library, lost for a time due to miscategorisation. The authors (Lacey and Danziger) makes use of this interesting framework of month-by-month chronicling to develop the details of daily life and work in England in the year 1000.
The different months take the paradigm for different topics -- February looks at geography; August looks at medicine (and the frequency of flies); November looks at the issues of gender relationships. Among the fascinating facts that come out in the analysis are the kinds of cyclical patterns that occur in history --Lacey and Danziger point out that under Canute, an unfaithful wife would meet with a horrible fate, but that legislation died with him, until the Commonwealth period several hundred years later, when it would be revived.
The authors do not stick exclusively to English shores -- they discuss the general world situation, as it would impact English development.
... Read more ›9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
A really very readable account of everyday life around the turn of the first millenium AD (with the odd bit of political history thrown in here and there). You really don't need any background knowledge to enjoy this, and it's written from the point of view of human interest rather than with any dry academic aims. Very enjoyable.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Burncastle
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent and entertaining read, very much to be recommended. It did contain a great deal of information about life in England before the Norman Conquest, including a number of surprises for me. When we reviewed it at our Book Group, the general response was extremely positive. I have since bought another of Robert Lacey's books.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not dry and not dull - highly recommended.
I loved this little book, as it came out just before the year 2000, and was a good introduction to a thousand years ago. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Matt
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great history book!
This is an outstanding work of historical writing. I thought when I first opened this book that it was going to prove to be somewhat unreadable, as some academic histories... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Jordan
5.0 out of 5 stars
History brought to life
I am trying to write a timeslip novel so wanted to find books that described what life was really like for real people rather than the dry recounting of past times that so many... Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2011 by Mr. P. M. Harrison
5.0 out of 5 stars
First class tale of the turn of the first millenium
Thought I'd celebrate the 10th anniversary of the millennium by reading this short volume that has been languishing on my shelves for a while. Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2010 by C. Young
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyone should read this!
This is an amazing account of life in the year 1000 AD; it is very readable and packed with fascinating and surprising details. A real eye-opener. Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2010 by Mrs. M. Robbins
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lege Feliciter!
Indeed, 'May you read happily.'
A lovely little book that actually manages to transport you back in time. Read more
A lovely little book that actually manages to transport you back in time. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2007 by S. D. Hutt
5.0 out of 5 stars
He remains an Englishman...
The turn of the millennium (the last millennium, that is) in England was an interesting world to behold -- the country was struggling toward unity, but still wary of invaders from... Read more
Published on 31 Jan 2006 by Kurt Messick
5.0 out of 5 stars
A delightful and informative read.
If dull History books can be described as "dry", then "The Year 1000" should be described as "wet". However, I would choose "warm" or "charming" as more descriptive adjectives. Read more
Published on 31 Jan 2003 by Chris J. Newman
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