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    How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life
    How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life
    How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life
    Audiobook10 hours

    How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

    Written by Ruth Goodman

    Narrated by Heather Wilds

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From an historian who advised on the BBC's Wolf Hall, an erudite romp through the intimate details of life in Tudor England.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateFeb 15, 2016
    ISBN9781681681474
    How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life

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    Reviews for How to Be a Tudor

    4/5

    133 ratings17 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I loved Ruth Goodman on the various TV shows she was on for the BBC. I got hooked when watching Wartime Farm. So when I had heard that she was going to be writing a book I could not wait to read it. Due to college classes, I, unfortunately, had to put it off and wasn't a part of the hype behind it. Since I am a history major and this is a part of the history that I focus on there wasn't a lot of new material in the book for me. The new information on this era was wonderful and really kept me interested. As well as some of the things I already knew about were expanded upon and there were a few nuggets of new information in those chapters. Especially the parts when she explained how she actually experienced what she was talking about while working on "Tudor Monastery Farm" and "Tales from the Green Valley". So she could say yes this worked well, or how in the world did they deal with this issue. I really liked how she designed the book and how each chapter was a different part of the day. The book goes from when a Tudor woke up to when they went to bed. I really hope she writes more books like this I definitely can't wait to read more from her.

      Re-read 2018

      I found this book as an audiobook on Scribd and felt like listening to it. Still one of my favorite social history books.
    • 4/5
      This book was quite interesting, but the author did go into extreme detail on a number of different topics. Nevertheless I did enjoy it and learned a lot about life in Tudor England.
    • 5/5
      Ruth Goodman is one of my favourite historians, and I've enjoyed watching her in the following documentary series: Tudor Monastery Farm, Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm, Wartime Farm and Full Steam Ahead.In How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life, Ruth covers every stage of the day: sleeping, when to rise, washing, dressing, breakfast, education, dinner, men and women's work, leisure time and activities, supper and bedtime.Goodman packs a punch into these 300 pages and her experience as a living historian is impressive. I especially enjoyed the social etiquette section, and in particular the section about walking and posture. Goodman says that today we can guess someone's nationality from their gait, and in the Tudor period you could guess someone's occupation from the way they walked."Ploughmen were described as having a 'plodding' gait, slow and deliberate, while shepherds were renowned for their light and springy step, striding out across the hills." Page 91Ruth goes on to outline the preferred posture of the era and even touches on the differences wearing ruffs and lace cuffs made to posture and bearing. I'd never considered ruffs other than presuming they'd be uncomfortable to wear, and discovered that they significantly effected the way the wearers stood, ate and held themselves.I also learned that starching a ruff can take an entire day and a white ruff was a versatile item of clothing thanks to the use coloured starches. Yellow ruffs were worn, pale pink ruffs were worn by young boys, and blue starched ruffs were popular until they became associated with prostitutes and Elizabeth I declared that "no blue starch shall be used or worn by any of her Majesty's subjects." Page 78.In How To Be a Tudor is full of interesting tidbits like this and I enjoyed them all. Did you know that a middle class woman could be wearing 1000 pins at any one time? And these pins are still being found in the Thames? Wow!I thoroughly recommend In How To Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life by Ruth Goodman to readers with an interest in history, fashion, England and the Tudor period.
    • 3/5
      Very interesting and chock full of details. A little dryer and more academic than Goodman's previous book How to Be a Victorian.
    • 1/5
      Faulty audio - keeps skipping. Could this be fixed?
    • 2/5
      The book itself it great and the narrator is superb. But the actual audiobook cuts out, leaving chapters unfinished. I couldn’t even finish the last 40 minutes of the book because of this.
    • 4/5
      Really interesting, detailed info about that era. Everything from plowing the land to sex.
    • 5/5
      Loved it, except I highly recommend daily showers. That's just me.
    • 5/5
      I liked this book even better than How to be a Victorian -- mostly because I like the time period more, but also just for the sheer distance into history that Goodman is writing about. As usual, a delight to read, with really engaging first person stories about reenacting and how things were done. The kinds of experiences that Goodman brings to the book are so incredibly useful for understanding the time period! Finally, someone explains floor rushes in a way that I can visual and understand. Marvelous, funny, and great, great history.
    • 4/5
      Always love Ruth Goodman's books! Very detailed and informative look at the every day realities of Tudor life.
    • 4/5
      Author Ruth Goodman perused court records, wills, estate inventories, diaries, and other resources to examine life for common people in Tudor England. Her readable guide explores facets of daily life--household furnishings, cleanliness and hygiene, clothing, food, education, work, recreation, and sex. She treats subjects such as religion as part of the discussion for other topics. The resulting book contains social history that genealogists can utilize in constructing fuller narratives of ancestors and relatives living during this period. While several of Shakespeare's plays are mentioned throughout the book and theatre is treated in the section on recreation, the lack of mentioning Shakespeare and the Globe in that section seems a serious omission since his influence began in Elizabeth I's days and extended into the Stuart reign of James I. I found it interesting the author tried many Tudor ways of doing things prior to writing about them.
    • 5/5
      Loved it, except I highly recommend daily showers. That's just me.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I loved Ruth Goodman on the various TV shows she was on for the BBC. I got hooked when watching Wartime Farm. So when I had heard that she was going to be writing a book I could not wait to read it. Due to college classes, I, unfortunately, had to put it off and wasn't a part of the hype behind it. Since I am a history major and this is a part of the history that I focus on there wasn't a lot of new material in the book for me. The new information on this era was wonderful and really kept me interested. As well as some of the things I already knew about were expanded upon and there were a few nuggets of new information in those chapters. Especially the parts when she explained how she actually experienced what she was talking about while working on "Tudor Monastery Farm" and "Tales from the Green Valley". So she could say yes this worked well, or how in the world did they deal with this issue. I really liked how she designed the book and how each chapter was a different part of the day. The book goes from when a Tudor woke up to when they went to bed. I really hope she writes more books like this I definitely can't wait to read more from her.
    • 5/5
      This thoroughly engaging book about the day-to-day life of the ordinary people provides an excellent snapshot of Tudor England. From waking in the morning and getting cleaned and dressed, all the way through to going to bed and what is done there, Goodman provides an entertaining and complete view of what life was like. She considers differences in class, gender, and professions to make this book feel more like living history than textbooks. Admittedly, some sections were drier than others, but that is probably more due to my own interests--I could have read even more of her descriptions of weaving and craft-work, but the sections on dancing bored me to distraction. It was fascinating to learn a) where so many last names come from, b) how old some traditions are (such as the order in which we eat our meals) and c) how new other traditions are (marriage). There are many ideas I'd taken for granted that we absolutely obliterated. For example, I assumed that most boys were apprenticed and learned a trade that they grew into, when in fact, most apprenticeships didn't last the entire contracted time. One of my favorite parts of the book was the personal insights Goodman brought in. She has worked on numerous TV shows and in living museums, living as a Tudor (among other eras), and brought her experience from that into the book. Mundane things like brewing beer or how to keep from getting stinky while wearing the same clothes every day were so much more lively thanks to her insights. Most of the book's information comes from more traditional primary sources: wills, inventories, legal cases. These also help get the feel of the era and bring more authority to her own work.Anyone interested in Western history, but tired of history as one war after another, would appreciate this book. Even if you don't read it all the way through and skip the sections that seem boring, you'll have a much firmer grasp on the lived experiences of the normal English.
    • 3/5
      This was a fun look at the day of a person living in the Tudor England. As someone who reads a lot of both nonfiction and historical fiction set in the Tudor period, I enjoyed this. Goodman goes through the day chronologically. Some parts were more interesting to me than others - I particularly liked the food discussions. Goodman is obviously knowledgeable and has lived in the manner of Tudors herself at different points in her life. Recommended if you're interested in the time period or like hearing about the lives of normal people in other eras.
    • 4/5
      I found a good deal of this audio book very informative, although some detailed instructions, for example for silk spinning, made me thankful I could skip over them. Well narrated, but suffered from frequent skipping on a seemingly new set of CD's.
    • 4/5
      This book was chock full of tidbits about how people lived in Tudor England. It is from a researcher and re-enactor point of view, so the author has actually done many of the activities listed (such as malting barley for brewing her own ale). This lends an authenticity to the account that is hard to find elsewhere. The list of sources at the end is extensive and wide-ranging. However, there are no footnotes in the text, which somewhat hampers checking up on her facts.This was a great book to read in little snippets at a time. The topics changed rapidly, and one can read, for instance, about Tudor wheat growing while waiting in line, and then pick it up a day or two later while at a bus stop and read about bread making, without feeling like you need to review what you've already read. I found the book fun, fascinating, and informative. I particularly recommend it to my friends who do Tudor and Elizabethan re-enactment. The author was apparently doing these activities for the purpose of filming. I would be interested in hearing a reaction from those who do long-term costumed interpretation.