Medieval Wordbook

About this book

This book celebrates the vocabulary of the medieval period, the era of European history dating roughly from A.D. 500 to 1500 - one millennium of life, love, food, ideas, medicine, art and war. Over 4,000 words culled from those years are presented in Medieval Wordbook. In Medieval Wordbook you will discover the source of many words and phrases that make up part of our modern vocabulary, for example: corduroy, from the French corde du roi, "cloth of the king," is a ridged silk or cotton fabric; gossip, from the Anglo-Saxon god sib, "sister in God," a friendly woman companion; upper crust, the top crust cut from round loaves of bread presented to the noble guests at feasts; and riggamarole, a meaningless recitation of words, as in the 13th-century Scottish ragman's role, a reluctant pledge of allegiance to the English king. Medieval Wordbook makes an interesting and readable companion to medieval history, full of wonderful anecdotes and literary, pictorial and sociological references to everything from merchants and poets to architecture and beer halls. Though formidable in scholarship, this unique work, fully cross-referenced, is friendly to the reader.