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Going medieval for 2026

126 replies

Buttalapasta · 10/12/2025 14:18

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!

OP posts:
beguilingeyes · 27/12/2025 22:20

Bit of a diversion. The Mary Stewart King Arthur books are amazing.

Dolamroth · 28/12/2025 08:51

beguilingeyes · 27/12/2025 22:20

Bit of a diversion. The Mary Stewart King Arthur books are amazing.

Oh I'm so glad to read this! Downloaded The Crystal Cave yesterday!

Pennyfan · 29/12/2025 17:39

I’m currently reading Winter Pilgrims. Thanks to the recommendations on this thread and it is wonderful.

MimiThePink · 29/12/2025 20:05

Have bought two books for my Mum off the back of this thread and they both look great, thank you all!!

outerspacepotato · 29/12/2025 20:33

I don't recommend Canticle that I said I was reading earlier in the thread. It was well written, but grim and I did not care for it.

Comfor · 29/12/2025 20:57

More later medieval but I recommend The Godmothers Secret by Elizabeth St John. Also, The Last Daughter by Nicola Cornick is set mostly in modern times but has a 1400s close connection.

Londonmummy66 · 29/12/2025 23:07

Comfor · 29/12/2025 20:57

More later medieval but I recommend The Godmothers Secret by Elizabeth St John. Also, The Last Daughter by Nicola Cornick is set mostly in modern times but has a 1400s close connection.

Elizabeth St John has written a number of novels about her ancestors - quite a few are Stuart rather than medieval but they are a fascinating family with a great online archieve (Lydiard Archives). They are especially well known for the women being into herbal remedies and passing receipt books (recipe books) down the female line - there's one in the Wellcome Collection which can be reviewed online

Comfor · 29/12/2025 23:09

Londonmummy66 · 29/12/2025 23:07

Elizabeth St John has written a number of novels about her ancestors - quite a few are Stuart rather than medieval but they are a fascinating family with a great online archieve (Lydiard Archives). They are especially well known for the women being into herbal remedies and passing receipt books (recipe books) down the female line - there's one in the Wellcome Collection which can be reviewed online

I’ve read all her books, they are good. But yes, most are set later Tudor and in Stuart times. The one I recommended though is set late medieval, earlier than her other books.

cassandre · 30/12/2025 00:13

What a great thread. I second the recommendations of Cynthia Harnett, and of Victoria MacKenzie's For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain.

If you want to read more medieval literature, I would go for Boccaccio's Decameron. Such a wonderful text. It's huge (a hundred short stories), but you don't need to read them all obviously. It was a big inspiration for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

I would also heartily recommend the Lais of Marie de France, twelfth-century short stories with Celtic themes. Love and the supernatural play a big role.

The twelfth-century romances of Chretien de Troyes are also great, and inspired a lot of Arthurian literature for centuries to come.

Finally, the medieval French fabliaux show you how crazy medieval literature could be. They are short comic tales, often quite smutty, that existed side by side with courtly literature. Both Boccaccio and Chaucer were big fans of the fabliaux. The collection translated into English verse by Nathaniel Dubin is good.

Buttalapasta · 30/12/2025 06:59

@cassandre The Decameron is one I've been meaning to look at for ages as ds studied it at school and loved it. I made the mistake of watching a TV adaptation that put me off, though.

So many great ideas here, thanks.

OP posts:
RosamundGarth · 30/12/2025 07:46

I've read and enjoyed Dan Jones and Alison Weir.

Also reading The Corner that Held Them.

I recommend Catherine Hanley's Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior, and her Two Houses Two Kingdoms: A History of France and England 1100-1300.

JaninaDuszejko · 30/12/2025 07:47

Agree that the Decameron is a good option, don't be put off by the TV series which is nothing like the book.

The Norse Sagas were all written down in the medieval period and are fantastic and were an inspiration for Sigrid Undset so worth a read, at least of some of the more famous ones.

Benvenuto · 30/12/2025 11:05

I have just bought one of Elizabeth’s St John’s books (although not a medieval one) - I need to go back through this thread & add more of the recommendations to the wish list.

If anyone likes the Decameron, then there is also the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre (it’s early French Renaissance rather than medieval but it uses the same format of people brought together by an event telling each other stories). It’s another text that I thought about when reading Kristin Lavransdatter as it gives a woman’s perspective. One of the stories is about an attempted assault by a man hiding in a woman’s bedchamber & I have read that this might have been inspired by Marguerite’s own experience - it is chilling to think that even a King’s sister was not protected from this (as if she wasn’t then then nobody else would have been protected either).

Also very late medieval / early Renaissance is Fortune, Misfortune, Fortifies One by Shirley Bonner about Margaret of Austria.

House of Lilies by Justine Firnhaber-Baker is a very readable account of the Capet dynasty in France (it tells the other side of the story to our Plantagenet history).

Nancy Goldstone has written about Eleanor of Provence and her sisters and also about Joanna of Naples, which are very readable (although I preferred her books about the Winter Queen (Elizabeth Stuart) and Catherine de Medicis and her daughter Margot de Valois).

Marc Morris has written about the Anglo-Saxons and about later medieval kings including King John
and Edward I.

Not a book, but on the Gone Medieval podcast there should be some episodes where Matthew Lewis debates with Nathan Amin about the Princes in the Tower (they have opposing views about this issue so you get both sides of the debate).

Juliet Barker has also written about Agincourt (I found her book as Bernard Cornwall recommends it in his novel).

I’m a bit surprised by how many books I have about the Middle Ages, but these are the ones I remember enjoying. Some I haven’t read, so I probably could do with having a medieval focus to my Read What You Own next year!

cassandre · 30/12/2025 16:57

Great recs @Benvenuto !

Londonmummy66 · 30/12/2025 19:30

@Benvenuto - which one? I've done quite a bit of research into that family for a client and they really are fascinating. I'm obsessed with the recipe books.

I had a further thought @Buttalapasta which is that you would enjoy the Medieval Babes series by JP Reedman - don't be put off by the series titel - he researches lesser known women of the period and then writes novels about them. People like lesser known princesses, mistresses and illegititmare daughters. There are 13 of them and counting and they are all really good as he does his reseach well.
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B082819G6L?binding=kindle_edition&ref_=saga_dp_ss_dsk_sdp

Benvenuto · 30/12/2025 20:40

The Lady in the Tower - set in the reign of James VI / I - it was on offer and sounded interesting.

Londonmummy66 · 30/12/2025 21:09

Benvenuto · 30/12/2025 20:40

The Lady in the Tower - set in the reign of James VI / I - it was on offer and sounded interesting.

That's a good one - I really enjoyed it as there was quite a bit about her being a herbalist.

bluegreygreen · 30/12/2025 21:21

If you like mysteries the Crowner John books by Bernard Knight are set around 1150 or so - they're based on the start of the coroner system in England (the author is a forensic pathologist).

TremendousThirst · 04/01/2026 02:09

Haven’t RTFT but one I rarely see recommended is The World Is Not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg. It follows the marriage of a minor noble couple in a backwater castle and their children, along with several excursions of the husband and sons on fhe Crusades. Oldenbourg was a medievalist and this is one of the best works of medieval historical fiction, in my experience, to take seriously how men and women would have thought about their relationships, gender roles, their children and so on.

TonTonMacoute · 04/01/2026 15:58

@TremendousThirst I recommended it upthread - and in fact have done so on several other threads too.

Its a superb book and I have recently discovered that there is a sequel, which is on my TBR pile.

TremendousThirst · 04/01/2026 19:44

TonTonMacoute · 04/01/2026 15:58

@TremendousThirst I recommended it upthread - and in fact have done so on several other threads too.

Its a superb book and I have recently discovered that there is a sequel, which is on my TBR pile.

Glad to find another fan! Yes, in writing this post I also had just realized there’s a sequel - will be ordering ASAP for once I’m done my Christmas books 🙂

TonTonMacoute · 05/01/2026 12:09

I've always thought it was a terrible title, although the French original Argile et Cendres (Clay and Ashes) isn't much better I suppose

CarbonArtist · 05/01/2026 12:19

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth.
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

Benvenuto · 05/01/2026 22:07

@Londonmummy66- I’ve now finished the Lady in the Tower, which I enjoyed and hope to read the rest of the series at some point. It was really insightful on how the actions of the king and court leaders could have a catastrophic effect those who depend on them for a career. I plan to reread at some point to look again at the recipes. I also looked up some of the Lydiard portraits and they were fascinating (although I couldn’t find one of the main character - amusingly the one picture of her beautiful sister Barbara wasn’t very flattering).

@TremendousThirst- I’ve added the Zoe Oldenbourg novel to my wish list. Thanks for the recommendation!

Santasbigredbobblehat · 05/01/2026 22:27

I’m currently engrossed in Sharon Pennan’s When Christ and His Saints Slept, getting my mediæval on!

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