An everyday story of fifteenth century folk
This is an excellent book which is eminently suitable for the student of the period or for those with a general interest in life in the fifteenth century, or even as an introduction to the uninitiated. I agree with other reviewers about its general readability and that it engages the reader in the story of the rise and tribulations of the Paston family.
The letters themselves, with their immediacy and mix of legal matters and contemporary politics together with affairs of the heart, family bickering and requests for shopping, make their writers come alive. This book integrates that material into a narrative in which the Pastons and those they interacted with really step out from the page as people one can understand and visualise as being as human and complex, as vulnerable and as hopeful as ourselves. The intervening five and a half centuries slip away and we feel ourselves to be observers in the Paston household in Norwich, their manor houses, the contested castle at Caistor or in London, at court or in court, or at Calais. Although not unique the Paston letters are unsurpassed as a collection and they remind us of how theirs was a literate as well as a litigious society, and make us regret more such family papers do not survive.
One slight criticism that could be made is that the account of the historical background at times moves a little too briskly and the fates of some who were involved in the Paston’s property disputes are not recorded. Thus the executions of the Earl of Oxford and Sir Thomas Tuddenham in 1462 and Sir Philip Wentworth in 1464 whilst not recorded in the letters cannot have passed the family by without some degree of interest.
This is a book that is human and humane, and by no means lacking in the humour of daily existence.
Posted on Amazon 28.3.23
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