(Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, 1). Painted signs above the doors show what is on sale in the shops beneath. The wooden beams of houses project out over the street. Nearby traders call out from their market stalls while two women stand chatting, one shielding her eyes from the sun, the other with a basket in her arms. A dog guarding a traveller’s packhorses starts barking. A servant opens an upstairs shutter and starts beating a blanket. Imagine yourself in a dusty London street on a summer morning. Mortimer begins his immersive history by vividly setting a typical scene: To do this, we have drawn on Ian Mortimer’s book, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England. This article aims to immerse the reader in the landscapes – town, city, and countryside – of medieval England, with a focus on the 14th century (1300-1400). We cannot assume that the landscapes of the past are the same as what we see around us today. In reality, human activity and the land are always entwined, constantly shaping one another as they evolve. While human history is portrayed as ever changing, we tend to think of the natural landscape as static and unmoving.
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