Posted on by TracyC

Anno’s Journey

Anno’s Journey by Mitsumasa Anno, 1977.

This picture book is unusual because there are no words in it at all until the very end. It’s all pictures, except for the part that explains the inspiration for the story. The author/illustrator, Mitsumasa Anno, depicts himself as a traveler, traveling through the countryside and towns of Europe. The “story” is the story of his journey, but it’s all in the pictures.

In the first pages of the book, we see Anno arriving by rowboat and either buying or renting a horse. The following pages are a little like the Where’s Waldo/Wally books, showing Anno’s travels. Anno appears somewhere on every page, riding his horse, but readers have to look for him. There are also other things to look for, but readers don’t get that explanation until the very end.

The scenes start out in the countryside, and as Anno goes through towns and cities, they can be very busy, with many people and lots of things happening. Toward the end of the book, Anno goes through the countryside again, and it ends with him riding off toward the horizon.

Along the way, there are interesting, detailed scenes that show various aspects of countryside and town life. There are people working in farm fields, people packing up to move house, some men carving tombstones for a churchyard, some children playing and running a race near their school, and a busy market square.

There are also special occasions and very busy scenes, from a wedding in front of a town church to a circus scene and a parade through a city. Aside from the main event in each scene, there are also other things happening in the background, from people working to repair a roof to a prisoner escaping from a castle. Through it all, Anno is always somewhere in the scene, riding the horse.

There is hidden depth to the pictures. There is a section at the back which explains the story behind the book. The author and illustrator, Mitsumasa Anno, is from Japan, but he has always been fascinated by European culture, art, and architecture. Twice, during the 1960s and 1970s, he visited Europe, taking in the sights and producing his own art. This book is based on his travels, and the pictures incorporate the types of towns, fields, and churches he saw. However, they also include many hidden details, including details from famous paintings, characters from books and folktales (and also Sesame Street), and the stories of some of the characters in this book, carried across multiple pages, for readers to notice.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive, along with a couple of other books by the same author, in a similar format, Anno’s Italy and Anno’s Britain.

My Reaction

I enjoy books with detailed pictures, especially ones that contain details for readers to notice, like a game. I didn’t see many of the details that are hidden in plain sight until after I read the explanation of what to look for, but there is quite a lot to see in this book. It’s the kind of book that you can look at many times and notice something new every time! Although this is considered a children’s picture book, I think that there are many things that adults might see in it that would go over the heads of children. Children wouldn’t be likely to get all of the art references, for example. It’s a book that can appeal to a variety of people of different ages!

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Medieval Places

Medieval Places by Sarah Howarth, 1991, 1992.

This book takes a unique approach to explaining life in the Middle Ages. It focuses on the types of places where people spent their time and what they did there. I like it that the author doesn’t rely on just one country for the descriptions of places, providing examples from various places around Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, and Iceland.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also a companion book to this one about Medieval People. The author has also written other books about people and places in different time periods.

The places described in the book are:

The Field

During the Middle Ages, most people lived in small farming communities, making their living through farming. This chapter describes the agricultural year and the feudal system, where peasants worked fields belonging to lords and gave the lords their services and food they produced in return for use of the land.

The Peasant’s Cottage

This chapter explains what a peasant’s house and living conditions were like.

The Castle

This chapter explains how castles were built and how they were used to control territory. There is also a brief description of what life in a castle was like.

The Battlefield

This chapter describes how warfare and sieges were conducted and what types of weapons were used.

The Forest

People hunted animals in forests for sport and food, but there were rules regarding who could hunt where and what types of animals they were permitted to hunt. Anyone caught breaking these rules would labeled a poacher and could suffer serious consequences.

The Law Court

There were different types of law courts in different places, and they could handle different types of cases or offenders. For example, clergy were often tried in special courts. Punishments for offenders varied with the nature of the offense. Prison wasn’t typically a punishment by itself. Dungeons were more for holding prisoners until their case was tried. After the trial, another punishment would be assigned, possibly a fine or some form of public humiliation. For more severe offenses, offenders might have a hand or an ear cut off or might be executed. However, there were some law breakers who had so many supporters that no one was ever able to bring them to justice.

The School

Most schools were church schools held in monasteries, cathedrals, and other churches. There, students would be taught Latin (the universal language of educated people all over Europe during the Middle Ages) and religious lessons. Students practiced writing lessons on wax tables or pieces of slate that could be reused. School was not a requirement, and most lower-class children did not attend, either simply helping their families on their farms or learning a trade. There were some secular trade school run by towns to teach the children of merchants some basic skills, like reading, writing, and keeping accounts.

The University

The format for modern universities began during the Middle Ages. Particularly skilled teachers, often ones who taught at church schools, who gained a reputation for their teaching ability sometimes attracted a following of scholars, and people would travel to the location where they were teaching in order to study with them. Universities grew because of the excellent reputations of individual teachers, who attracted students to come. As they grew, they developed sets of rules, sort of like the a trade guild, organizing courses for students to study and exams to test them on what they had learned. There were no age requirements for students, but they always started by studying some general knowledge subjects, like Latin and mathematics, before choosing a specialty to study, such as law, medicine, or theology.

The Road

There were various reasons why people had to travel during the Middle Ages. Nobles had to travel to to visit different parts of their estates, and peasants had to travel to bring their produce to markets. Merchants would travel in search of customers for their trades. Criminals and judges both had to travel to law courts. Messengers would carry letters. There were also soldiers and religious pilgrims. People from every level of society could be on the roads. However, the roads were rough, making travel uncomfortable, and there was always the danger of robbers.

The Port

People also traveled by ship, and merchants brought goods from other countries through ports.

The Parish Church

Local parish churches were important centers of life and religion in the community. The local church would perform baptisms, marriages, funerals, and other services for the parishioners. Because most people couldn’t understand Latin and many couldn’t read at all, priests had to use sermons and scenes painted on the walls of the church to teach people Biblical lessons. Sometimes, church buildings and the churchyards surrounding them were also used for other important community functions, like schools, hospitals, meetings to discuss local matters, and even markets, dances, and games.

The Market

People in towns practiced trades other than farming, so towns held regular market days when village farmers could come and sell their produce.

The Guildhall

Various types of merchants and craftsmen formed guilds to organize and regulate the standards for their trades and how much their goods and services would be worth. Guilds were also responsible for arranging apprenticeships for those wanting to learn specific trades.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Medieval People

Medieval People by Sarah Howarth, 1991, 1992.

This book looks at Medieval history in terms of the different types of people in Medieval society and what their lives were like. It has examples from different countries focusing mainly on western Europe.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also a companion book to this one about Medieval Places. The author has also written other books about people and places in different time periods.

The types people included in the book are:

The Chronicler

This is an important chapter because it explains how we know many of the things we know about the Middle Ages. Some people kept chronicles of events that happened in their time. Most of the chroniclers were monks because they were usually the ones who had both the education and the time to keep written chronicles. That’s part of the reason why many chronicles have religious overtones. People who wrote chronicles not only recorded events but also considered why certain important events may have happened, and they interpreted events through their religious beliefs.

The King

Medieval society was structured in levels, and the king was the person who held the most power and authority. However, he also depended on the nobles who supported him, so he had make sure that they were satisfied with his rule and rewarded for their loyalty. A successful king had to be a successful military leader, and he rewarded the nobles who served him with gifts of land. In turn, the nobles had to serve the king militarily and successfully manage their estates, and they could attract other people to serve them by granting them some of the land that they received from the king.

The Pope

The pope is the highest leader in the Catholic Church, and during the Middle Ages, Catholicism was the major Christian denomination in western Europe. (The Greek Orthodox Church was the major Christian group in eastern Europe, and Protestantism wasn’t an option until the Reformation.) Medieval popes were different from modern ones because they were political leaders as well as spiritual ones, and they clashed with secular kings about whose authority was greater.

The Bishop

Bishops were below the pope and the archbishops in authority, but they oversaw the lower religious officials within their territory or diocese. A bishop would make sure that church buildings in his diocese were being built and properly maintained and that the clergy were doing their jobs correctly and teaching and leading their parishioners properly. He would also oversee the training of new priests. In some ways, his position would be somewhat like that of a noble within the church, answerable to people higher than himself and in charge of people below him, but aside from his position in the church, a bishop would also have obligations to the king, owing services to him. Kings often used bishops as ambassadors and advisers and even as military leaders because they were among the most educated people available. However, this sometimes put bishops in an awkward position when their kings’ demands conflicted with their orders from the pope.

The Knight

A knight was a warrior who fought on horseback. Part of the service that nobles owed to their king in exchange for grants of land was supplying him with knights when he needed them. In the early Middle Ages, the status knighthood was a reward for excellent performance as a soldier, but later, there were rituals associated with knighthood, including that knighthood could only be granted by a king.

The Pilgrim

Pilgrims were travelers going to religious shrines. Some shrines were fairly close to the places where they lived, and some were far away, in major cities like Rome and Jerusalem. Pilgrims hoped to spiritually connect with the saints associated with the shrines they visited in order to ask for their help with some special purpose, such as recovery from an illness or the forgiveness of their sins.

The Lady

Women in Medieval society were subject to the authority of their fathers up until their marriage, and then, they were under the authority of their husbands. Money was a consideration when marriages were arranged, and marriages could be arranged for wealthy heiresses when they were very young. Married women had the task of managing their husband’s household and accounts, supervising the servants, and making cloth and clothing for her household. Women who did not marry might become nuns. Some liked the religious and scholarly life of a nun, but others simply became nuns because they had no other options and their families didn’t know what else to do with them.

The Herald

Knights always wore full armor when they fought, including a visor that covered the face. In order to know who was who, knights had special crests or coats of arms, which included identifying symbols and colors. Knights could wear their coat of arms on a tunic over their armor, have it displayed on a banner, and on coats on their horses. The herald was the person who kept track of everyone’s coat of arms, ensuring that they were all unique and settling disputes between knights who tried to claim the same combination of colors and symbols.

The Monk

Monks and nuns devoted their lives to prayer and meditation. Their days were organized around prayer, but they also performed manual labor, producing food for the monastery where they lived. Other tasks involved copying the Bible or prayer books and making clothing or medicine for the poor.

The Doctor

There were many dangers from illness during the Middle Ages, particularly the Black Death in the 14th century, when about a third of the population of Europe died. Doctors often didn’t understand the causes of illness, and not all doctors and healers even had any formal training. Wealthy people could afford doctors with more training. Cures often included combinations of herbs and various experimental substances, like crushed bugs or even gold and pearls. They had reasons for choosing the substances they did to put in medicine, but because they were lacking knowledge of the true nature of disease, their choices were often flawed.

The Heretic

Although the Catholic Church was the major form of Christianity in western Europe and widely regarded as the “true” Christian religion, religious beliefs were not completely uniform in the population. People whose beliefs seriously conflicted with the Church would be labeled as “heretics.” Because the Church believed that heretics’ souls were in danger, they could use severe punishments and even execution or the threat of it to force them to change or to stop spreading their messages to other people, thus endangering their souls.

The Mason

Masons were responsible for the great building projects of the Middle Ages, like castles and cathedrals. Some of these great buildings kept a staff on site to handle repairs, but some masons were itinerant, moving from site to site as necessary.

The Merchant

Merchants had to travel frequently to obtain and trade goods, some of them even from other countries. Towns would hold fairs at regular intervals where merchants would gather to sell their goods. Merchants with highly desirable goods could become very wealthy, and some people thought that they often got above their station in society, living like nobility.