Among the surviving records of 14th-century England, Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry is the most vivid. Chaucer wrote about everyday people outside the walls of the English court—men and women who spent days at the pedal of a loom, maintaining the ledgers of an estate, or on the high seas. Liza Picard transforms The Canterbury Tales into a detailed tour of medieval England, from the mills and farms of a manor house to the lending houses and Inns of Court in London. What can the Miller tell us about farming in 14th-century England? What do we learn of medieval diets from the Cook? With boundless curiosity and wit, Picard re-creates the religious, political, and financial institutions and customs that gave order to these lives.