Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne

Translated, with an Introduction, by Jo Ann McNamara.
Translated from Pierre Riché, "La vie quotidienne dans l'Empire carolingien".
In the growth of towns and the revival of commerce, historians have seen the development of a bourgeois and capitalist Europe, but Riché reminds us that Carolingians saw a world of forest and wasteland, in which scattered castles and villages were outposts against the savagery of nature, bands of outlaws, and a myriad of pagan superstitions. Rather than an historical analysis of the development of feudalism and Christianity, he gives us a vivid and deeply textured picture of the fear and insecurity that drove people, great and humble alike, to draw together with one another, with their stronger neighbors, and with God and His saints in search of protection and sustenance.
Aware as he is that the sources of the period, which were written by members of the upper class, tended to ignore the common man, Riché has made extensive use of modem social history techniques and the tools of new studies on nutrition, disease, demography, and climatology. In addition, he has drawn upon the research of art historians and archeologists to comprehend the Carolingian mentality and reconstruct the material culture of the early European world.