Daily Life in Chaucer's England

As well as being a general introduction to daily life in the fourteenth century, this book is intended to facilitate medieval living history. We have included enough information to allow a group to organize a living history event, or to allow an individual to participate in such an event. The suggestions in this appendix are geared towards a living history event, but elements will apply equally to medieval fairs or feasts, school pageants, and other sorts of activities in which there is some attempt to recreate a historical milieu.

If you think you might be interested in trying medieval living history, the easiest route is to find an already existing organization. There are relatively few medieval living history organizations in North America; all of those known to the authors at the time of writing this book are listed in Appendix B. There are a few more overseas, particularly in England, although most of them focus on the fifteenth century.

Among the organizations in North America involved in medieval living history, the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is by far the largest, with chapters all over the continent and a fair number abroad. The SCA covers a broad temporal scope (roughly AD 500-1600) and accommodates very diverse interests, some of them oriented towards history, others not. The educational quality of the SCA's activities is therefore quite variable. However, the SCA does provide a context for many people with a genuine interest in the Middle Ages to pursue their interests and meet others of like mind, and it has helped foster a good deal of valuable research, particularly in the field of medieval crafts.

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