Going medieval for 2026

[Buttalapasta]

I feel like I have a medieval-shaped hole in my literary and historical knowledge and would love to do something about that in 2026. I am going to read The Canterbury Tales but I'm also looking for books about medieval history, novels set during the period etc. Nothing too highbrow but I would love any suggestions!

I really liked Company of Liars by Karen Maitland. It's about a group of travellers trying to avoid the plaque. It is definitely an accessible read.

To Calais in Ordinary Time, by James Meek

For Thy Great Pain have Mercy on My Little Pain, Victoria Mackenzie

Both amazing

I really love ken follett’s pillars of the earth series, not at all highbrow but very readable

If you haven’t come across it before, Katherine by Anya Seton is an absolute classic. Based on the real life of an amazing woman.

If you are up for a bit of non-fiction A Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer.

Katherine by Anya Seton. It is very much romance lit but is very entertaining and the key events are historically accurate. It is about Katherine Swynford who was Geoffrey Chaucer's sister in law and John of Gaunt's mistress for about 15 years before marrying him.

Dan Jones has a passable three book fiction collection on 100 Years War.

There's a lot of fiction on/around war of the roses - Jean Plaidy style. Alison Weir too.

Early medieval you're scraping a bit as less is known. Bernard Cornwell's last kingdom series is good, all about vikings really though.

An author worth reading is Aphra Benn.

If you like a mystery Ellis Peters' Cadfael Chronicles are great. They are by no means 'literary' fiction but enjoyable never the less. I loved them.

The Daughter of Time and Phillipa Gregory's War of the Roses books (The White Queen about Elizabeth Woodville especially).

Can recommend Elizabeth Chadwick novels, particularly the Summer Queen, Winter Crown and Autumn throne trilogy.

Seconding this.

Would also like to suggest the Mistress of the Art of Death series by Ariana Franklin (AKA Diana Norman, wife of Barry and Medievalist).
They are well-researched murder mysteries, with a great cast of regular characters. The female main character is really interesting as are her peculiar circumstances.

I didn't enjoy Anya Seton as I found the main character a bit of a drip. Also didn't get on with Sharon Penman who gets recommended a lot.

Enjoy Chaucer!

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest For Thy Great Pain have Mercy on My Little Pain, Victoria Mackenzie

Both amazing

I loved this book! I went to Lady Julians shrine after I read it. Its still there in the church and I coud imagine her there really vividly because of the book.

Susanna Gregory also writes medieval detective fiction. I think I can see a running theme in my choices...

Matrix by Lauren Groff is about medieval nuns. I loved it!

Sharon Penman's books are amazing.

Here to second Sharon Penman, amazing author.

Dorothy Dunnetts House of Niccolo series.

Another Anya Seaton fan.
Also look at the Moorland dynasty by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. There are 35 books in the series but it starts around the 14th century iirc. I read it just before I visited Richmond castle which brought it to life.

The Doomesday Book by Connie Willis is excellent, time travellers getting stuck in 1320.

This is excellent, by a serious medieval scholar, funny, well informed.
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/443234/fierce-appetites-by-boyle-elizabeth/9780241992432

In only read the first of those Ariana Franklin books and thought it shockingly badly researched, to the extent that I wondered why it was published (well-connected author, duh).

Ellis Peters is an enjoyable read.

Francis Pryor is both accessible and very sound on the archaeology, both this one and Britain AD for the earlier medieval period.

https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/britain-in-the-middle-ages-an-archaeological-history-francis-pryor?variant=32798398611534

Ditto. This is a great series. As is the William Marshal series by the same author and weaves into the same time period. I’m a big fan of Eleanor of Aquitaine since reading these.

I loved Poet Mystic Widow Wife which is a (v readable) non-fiction about medieval women.

My 10yo and I listened to this on audiobook, she loved it!

Zoe Oldenburg The World is Not Enough and its sequel The Cornerstone

I also heard a recent recommendation for The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner, which sounded fascinating

Just a word on The Canterbury Tales. The General Prologue is wonderful. I re-read it every spring, and would urge everyone to give it a try. It's kind of where English literature (by which I mean the poetic canon of England, from Chaucer through Shakespeare and Milton and Blake and Wordsworth up to Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin) really begins. But, as G K Chesterton said, the pilgrims are far more interesting than the tales they tell. The interaction between the pilgrims is wonderful. The voices are so fresh and vivid it's like they are in the room. Chaucer has a Dickensian ability to create vivid, 3-dimensional characters. But their actual tales are often tedious and in some cases repulsive.