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A Medieval Life

Judith Bennett

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Important Quotations Explained

1. Most medieval people were not knights, kings, churchmen, or merchants. Most (more than nine out of ten) were peasants who eked out hard livings from the land. This book tells the story of one such peasant.


2. “When Adam delved and Eve span, / Who then was a gentleman?”


3. As Cecilia’s kin argued over her lands, her mental health, and her last actions, they acted out the oldest and most enduring story in peasant communities: the story of inheritance, kinship, and land.


4. Some people imagine that a sense of community was better achieved in past times—that it was free of conflict, strengthened by homogeneity, and purified by isolation. This is a fantasy. Cecilia’s experience of community was much like ours: powerful and compelling in conception, fractured and partial in reality.


5. In such cases, their desperate expedients were her timely opportunities.