“What does progress mean to you? And in which periods of history can we see it most clearly? I expect if you asked the average Briton these questions, they probably wouldn’t point to the medieval era as being a time of transformation. After all, this was long before the advances of the industrial revolution and the digital era. But perhaps we should think again. For as Ian Mortimer argues in our cover feature, we need to “take off our technology-tinted spectacles and look at the world with fresh eyes”. By focusing on society, culture and psychology, as opposed to science and technology, the Middle Ages is revealed as a time of astonishing change. You can read his argument on page 20.
Sticking with the medieval theme, this issue we’re examining women’s lives in the late Middle Ages, in a piece drawing on Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. Though Chaucer was of course a male writer, he created one of the most distinctive female voices of the 14th century, whose words provide many insights into opportunities for women at the time. Marion Turner’s fascinating article on this is on page 36.