Educational Media Reviews Online

This four-volume series uses living history to explore the four estates of the Middle Ages: Monks, Keepers of Knowledge; Knights and Nobles; Peasants, Serfs, and Servitude; and Bankers, Builders, and New Beginnings. Each video follows the imaginary life of a medieval person.

In the first video, Edward, a 14th-century monk at St. Andrews in Scotland, goes on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compestella and Toledo, in order to find a replacement manuscript for one that he had burned when he fell asleep during reading. In the second video, a knight in 1345 Portugal is followed as he tries to find fame and fortune with King John of Bohemia and the Teutonic Order. In the third video, a wandering jongleur/acrobat details his life among the peasants of Europe, including the peasants revolt in Switzerland. Finally, in the fourth video, a merchant from northern Europe in 1492 travels to Venice and Bruge to acquire maps, and must deal with the plague at the same time.

All of these videos include various modern-day re-enactment activities to reconstruct life as it was in the Middle Ages. For instance, Volume 2 details how modern archaeologists are building a 13th-century castle using medieval construction techniques, while Volume 3 does the same with a medieval peasant village. The first video uses 3D visualization to show how the monastery of St. Gall, whose construction plan still survives, may have been used and incorporated in the building of other monastic establishments in Europe. This group of videos is one of the better scholarly presentations of life in the Middle Ages, and is highly recommended as a visual introduction to life in the Middle Ages in Europe.