Life and Death

[chargirlgenius]

I love Barbara Hanawalt, but man, is she depressing. She wrote about every day life for children in London, and now I’m finally reading The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. She used coroners’ inquests for her main source of evidence, so every anecdote used to prove a point includes somebody dying!

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Obviously, people in the past faced death much differently than we do today. When you could easily die of a fever or an abscessed tooth, life, death, and risk took on different shapes than they do now. We now live in a world when we can know days in advance that a deadly storm is coming, and can get out of the way. I can’t even fathom what life (and death) was like before this was possible.

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Stay safe, everybody. I don’t think I have many on my flist from Texas, but I’m sure that people have friends and family there.

Comments

[belledlr.livejournal.com]

I, too, Had Dr. Hanawalt as a prof at the same time as ardenkris. What doesn't necessarily come through in her books is how humurous she really is. She was my favorite professor of all time and I view her as somewhat of a mentor. I took a Medieval Woman's class by her and it was the best class ever. All we did was read period women authors (Margery Kemp, Christine de Pisan, etc) and then discuss them after we read their works. It was awesome for a SCAdian! She is at Ohio State and I have her e-mail addie if you ever want to discuss her books or sources with her.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

What doesn't necessarily come through in her books is how humurous she really is.

Actually, it does come through, but it’s subtle and somewhat sardonic. I forget what it was now, but a few days ago I found myself laughing at one of her statements.