Edad Media

Medieval People by Eileen Power

In her book Medieval People, Eileen Power describes the daily life of different individuals from the middle Ages. The book concentrates on the stories of sixaverage people who lived among the 9th and 16th centuries: Peasant Bodo, a Frankish peasant who lived during Charlemagne's reign, Marco Polo, a Venetian traveler of the 13th century; Madame Eglentyne,Chaucer’s prioress, the Menagier’s wife, a Parisian housewife of the 14th century, Thomas Betson, a merchant of the staple from the fifteenth century, and Thomas Paycocke of Coggeshall, an Essex clothierwho lived during the days of Henry VII.
Eileen Power’s character, Marco Polo, is always drawing sketches and writing on his books about his trips. Marco Polo’s recorded documents received the name ofII Milione. Marco Polo is a young, impatient, and visionary man. He knows how to trade while his father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, are always traveling. Finally, he gets the opportunity to travelaround with Nicolo and Maffeo. He observes, asks qustions, and learns many things through many experiences, among which he becomes proficient in the Tartar language, meets the great Khan Kublai andbecomes his attendant for many years. Ms. Power is careful to point out at the end of this chapter that Columbus not only read Polo's writing in the Latin versions and took extensive notes on them,they were the reason he decided to sail west and have adventures himself!

The third character we meet is Madame Eglentyne. When I read "For a long time historians foolishly imagined that kings andwars and parliaments and the jury system alone were history" on pages 74 and 75, I had flashbacks to college classes when I would be thinking the same thing. Any classes I took that focused on non-male(or non-white for that matter!) historical figures had to be separate. Anyway, in this chapter the author does a fantastic job of describing the huge amount of information historians found on social...