Margaret Paston, the indomitable wife and mother who fought the family's battles;
her husband, John Paston I, tough, hardheaded, and thrice confined to Fleet Prison but never yielding to his enemies;
daughter Margery, who scandalized family and friends by falling in love with the Paston bailiff, Richard Calle;
lighthearted, chivalric Sir John; and
cheerful, sensible John Ill, who against all odds succeeded in marrying for love.
A Medieval Family traces the family history from 1420, through the stormy Wars of the Roses, to the early 1500s. The family's story, extracted from their letters and papers and told largely in their own words, shows a side of history rarely revealed: the lives and fortunes not of kings and queens but of ordinary people with problems, tragedies, and moments of happiness.
It is non-fiction, but through the letters and the context provided by the Gies' extensive research, the book reads like a non-fiction novel. I especially enjoyed Margaret Paston and the wry humor she managed to express in her letters as she played an important part in both family battles and the land battles that were common in her time.
I was also impressed with the small world that medieval England must have been. Chaucer's relatives, a few English kings, Queen Margaret, and Sir John Fastolf (the basis for Shakespeare's Falstaf) all came and went in various roles of importance in the lives of an otherwise everyday middle class family.
