The Paston family's story, extracted from their letters and papers and told largely in their own words, shows a view of history rarely revealed: the lives and blessings not of kings and queens but of ordinary people with problems, tragedies, and moments of happiness. In his book, Virgoe offers an intimate glimpse into the customs, society, manners, and life of an upper middle class English family of the 15th Century.
Each character brings about an honest representation of life during the fifteenth century. Every character stands out as a real person, including Margaret Paston, a wife and mother who fought the family and land battles. Her husband, John Paston I, who was tough, hardheaded, and was sent to Prison three times yet never yielding to his enemies. While the book boasts a large cast of interesting characters, the Paston family really comes alive through the author's use of the family's own words and the three generations of Paston letters. Virgoe also excels at weaving explanatory material, diagrams, and artwork among the letters to make their contents more meaningful to the readers.
The letters are presented for the most part in chronological order, starting with the birth of William Paston I in 1379 and ending with the death John Paston III in 1504. Their contents reveal clearly the joys and trials of the Paston family as they dealt with marriages, lawsuits, disease, and other relationships and concerns in many cases not unlike those we encounter in our own lives today. The wry humor of Margaret Paston is conveyed in a letter she wrote to her husband John after becoming pregnant for the first time. She explains that she has “grown so slim that I cannot be girt into any girdle I have except one (41).” It is Margaret's playful attitude that makes the later somewhat depressing circumstances bearable throughout the correspondence of the letters, such as when she explains her concerns on the shortage of money while in the same paragraph passing on some mischievous gossip about her neighbor.
During the bloody Wars of the Roses, the Pastons were fortunate to pick the winning side, and their power and influence grew for a generation. But glory could not last forever, and ruin eventually did come. Succeeding generations of Pastons spent their fortune more quickly than they could replenish it. Facing bankruptcy, Edward Paston sold off the family home outside London, including furniture, works of art, and documents that chronicled his family's rise to influence hundreds of years earlier. It is these documents that constitute the reconstruction of the Paston timeline, and also the history of English society as it emerged from the Middle Ages into the early-modern period.
The book is very readable and can be thoroughly enjoyed by either the casual layman reader or medieval historian. It is non-fiction, but through the letters and the context the book reads like a non-fiction novel. The letters vividly convey an impression of the diversity of peoples and customs of Eastern England. The book accomplishes this with the help of many excerpts and diagrams meant to aid in the understandings of medieval life. In one case a diagram shows the structure of the fifteenth century government in England, with the King at the top and the Constables of Townships at the bottom. Another excerpt details on fifteenth-century fashions.
Virgoe describes that by the time of the Paston letters, “cloaks were shortening yet again and waists becoming tighter, creating an emphasis on the buttocks and loins (42).” Long hair was also coming back into fashion around this time. Facts such as these were supplemented with art and pictures relating to the fashions of the fifteenth century. The integration of explanatory material, diagrams, and art is very effective in broadening the overall immersion into the Paston's time period.
Virgoe does an efficient job at interpreting the Paston family letters as each account is explained with little to no bias. The emotions and feelings of the characters are self-explanatory, and Virgoe simply summarizes them for each set of letters. In conclusion, I believe that like any other lineage, the Paston lineage had its highs and lows, and ultimately can relate to modern families in more ways than would be expected. As in medieval times, families now deal with marriage, love, religion, adolescence, and plain stress in everyday life.
Through reading the accounts of Paston life, I feel as though there are more similarities than differences in lifestyles of old and of now. The Pastion family's story is real and unaltered, revealing the humane aspects of life that are often forgotten while shifting through the pages of a history book. The lives and desires of ordinary people with problems to overcome, tragedies to suffer, and that elusive, brief moment of happiness.
