A History of Everyday Life inMedieval Scotland 1000-1600Edited by Edward J. Cowan & Lizanne HendersonWhat was it like to live in the medieval period? In what ways did extraordinary events affect the everyday?The first volume in the Everyday Life series answers these questions as it opens a window onto medieval Scotland from 1000 to 1600. The everyday involves all that is common to most of humanity: food, drink, weather, shelter, gender, birth, children, love, courtship, marriage, death, religious belief, superstition and so on; or in Scotland that which pertained to weekdays but not the Sabbath.A strong international team of contributors draws upon a range of primary sources and published material, as well as artefactual and archaeological evidence, to present as complete a picture as possible of how people experienced life over five hundred years ago.To date the historiography of medieval Scotland has not been greatly concerned with the mundane and the everyday. In fact some might claim that the topic has been entirely ignored. This volume thus presents peculiar challenges in that historians have had to develop new methodologies to uncover information about Scots and the complex issues of identity, geography, language, family and subsistence that informed everyday life.Key FeaturesNovel and innovative approach to medieval Scottish HistoryEnlivens the past through new research from respected scholarsChallenges assumptions about medieval life and evidenceSeeks to show that our medieval ancestors had similar issues to usEdward J.

Cowan, Emeritus Professor, formerly Professor of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is much in demand as a speaker, journalist and broadcaster. His most recent publications are The Wallace Book, For Freedom Alone: The Declaration of Arbroath 1320 and Folk in Print: Scotland's Chapbook Heritage. He is currently working on a book on The Arctic Scots.Lizanne Henderson is Lecturer in History at the University of Glasgow. She is co-author, with Edward J. Cowan, of Scottish Fairy Belief: A History, editor of 'Fantastical Imaginations': The Supernatural in Scottish Culture and Witchcraft and Folk Belief at the Dawn of Enlightenment: Scotland c.1670-1740.