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Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick Press, 2007
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick Press, 2007
Publisher recommended age 10 and up.Summary
A collection of monologues (and two dialogues) takes the reader inside a medieval village in the 13th century.
Language
- none
Sexual Situations
- Young people kiss on May Day.
- Hunting of boar and rabbit is described.
- A stillborn lamb is described with its head "hanging out" of its mother.
- People taunt and beat others considered slow or lower class.
- The beheading of Saint Winifred is described in detail.
- A violent father beats his children and wife.
- Childbirth is described as painful and sometimes fatal.
- Children die at young ages from disease and hunger.
- A father attempts to drown an infant daughter.
- The violence of the battles during the Crusades is described.
- A violent father is drunk on ale.
- Children are offered the "dregs of the beer".
- Stale beer is used in tanning leather.
- The knights of the Crusades are sent to fight Saracens (described as a generic term for all Muslims).
- Jewish people are excluded from most of society, not allowed to own land, and forced to wear yellow identification badges.
- Pope Innocent IV declares that Jewish people are not guilty of immorality, but the author states that they were still likely to be falsely accused of kidnapping and other crimes.
- Pope Innocent III proclaims that there should be no persecution of Jews.
- Pilgrimages are discussed.
- Miraculous cures are explained away scientifically.
- A lord's daughter believes that social status is the will of God.
- Heaven is discussed as the home of Jesus and his mother.
- Relics of saints are revered and feared by the people.
- Astrology is mentioned.
- Judgment day and the "mouth of hell" are discussed.
- The Crusades are explained as "the first time the Pope said killing was a religious duty".
- Other religious topics mentioned: mass, monks, prayer, scourging, Latin and genuflecting.
- The political system includes lords owning their tenants (called villeins) and treating them unfairly.
- The author explains that Muslims were tolerant of others entering Jerusalem, but that the invading Turks were not.
- In stories about the Crusades, Christians slaughter fellow Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.
- The author refers to the Crusades as "an unholy muddle".
