CHAUCER’S PEOPLE
EVERYDAY LIVES IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
LIZA PICARD Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 368pp, £25, Oldie price £17.95 inc p&p
In the 25 years since she retired as a lawyer with the Inland Revenue, Liza Picard, a self-styled ‘inquisitive, practical woman’, has written five works of social history in which she tries ‘to speak with the voices of the times’. Her latest, Chaucer’s People, is an absorbing and revealing companion volume to The
Canterbury Tales that provides, said Catherine Nixey in the Times, ‘a depth and pungency’ that modern readers might miss in Chaucer himself. Nixey was especially struck by Picard’s luminous asides. Thanks to her we learn that Cinderella’s slipper was much comfier than we thought. In the original French it wasn’t glass – verre – but vair – ‘a type of white fur made from the soft bellies of Russian squirrels’.
In the Spectator, Paul Strohm praised Picard’s ‘sharp eye for lively detail’ and the way in which she amplifies what Chaucer’s readers would have taken for granted. For instance discussing Chaucer’s pub landlord, the Host, she explains ‘the difference between inns, taverns and ale houses, the penalties for selling bad wine, and the likely topics of medieval tavern talk’. Though several pilgrims belonged to the Church, their goals were often terrestrial – an abbacy for the ambitious Monk, ‘a joly wench in every toun’ for the lecherous Pardoner.
In the Church Times, Dr DR Evans contrasted Picard’s exposé of these ‘naughty characters’ with her sympathetic treatment of good men like the Parson, devoted to the care of his flock. ‘Engaging and fun’ was the verdict of Hannah Skoda in the BBC
History Magazine, though she doubted whether, as Picard maintains, ‘all medieval people thought alike’. Medieval society, like our own, was distinguished by its rich variety.