The past is a foreign country: t his is your guidebook. Imagine you could get into a time machine and travel back to the fourteenth century . What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? Should you go to a castle or a monastic guesthouse? And what are you going to eat? What sort of food are you going to be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? This is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: revolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail, and startling for its portrayal of humanity in an age of violence, exuberance and fear. BRAIN SHOTS: the byte-sized guide to a completely different world : England in the Middle Ages