Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

Bibliography
Schlitz, Laura Amy. 2007. GOOD MASTERS! SWEET LADIES! VOICES FROM A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE. Illus. by Robert Byrd. Candlewick Press. Cambridge, MA. ISBN 9780763615789

Plot
In this ingeniously woven collection of monologues and duets, Schlitz takes readers through a tour of being a teenager in the Medieval ages. From Lowdy’s plague of fleas, to Jacob Ben Salomon’s fear of getting stoned by Petronella because he is a Jew, this book is as enchanting as entertaining. Byrd’s illustrations in watercolor give the book a fitting ‘illuminated text’ look that is not only authentic to the time but mesmerizing in detail. Although some monologues are constructed for humor, as Taggot’s experience with a first love, many are touching as we learn how hard life is for the homeless Pask who is given kindness by Lowdy. The monologues are interspersed with sections called A Little Background, that gives more information for better understanding. This slim volume is not only illustrated, but also contains pictures of primary source materials that add to the flavor of the period.

Critical Analysis
This is a magically entertaining book for youth and adults alike. Complete with side notes, primary source pictures, and delightfully charming water color drawings, this book looks at the day to day activities of teens growing up Medieval. Surprisingly, the plights of teens have not necessarily changed much over the years. Constance, Pask, and Jacob Ben Soloman face the same prejudice as youth who are disfigured, homeless or poor, or who are a minority that students deal with today. Full of lively facts such as Lords could give their villein’s any choice of land, good or bad as they saw fit. Thus, villeins truly were depended upon the whims of their masters. Jews were not allowed to own land, could not have an official rank because they were forced to swear the truth under the name Jesus Christ, and were often forced into lending money which they were seldom repaid. I learned that Jews were forced to wear yellow stars of David then, hundreds of years before the Holocaust, where I thought the segregation originated. The use of figurative language makes life come to life for students in such phrases as “There’s a red seam down his faced where the eye melted shut,” as the description from Peirs the glassblower’s apprentice is describing his master. Giles the beggar is a modern day con artist who, with the help of his father, sells amazing cures because he limps into town on crutches and is magically healed by his father’s remedy. In summary, this is a fascinating study on the time period where the author has achieved a perfect balance of fact strung together with the creativity of fiction.

Reviews
Publishers Weekly:Schlitz (The Hero Schliemann ) wrote these 22 brief monologues to be performed by students at the school where she is a librarian; here, bolstered by lively asides and unobtrusive notes, and illuminated by Byrd's (Leonard, Beautiful Dreamer) stunningly atmospheric watercolors, they bring to life a prototypical English village in 1255. Adopting both prose and verse, the speakers, all young, range from the half-wit to the lord's daughter, who explains her privileged status as the will of God. The doctor's son shows off his skills (“Ordinary sores/ Will heal with comfrey, or the white of an egg,/ An eel skin takes the cramping from a leg”); a runaway villein (whose life belongs to the lord of his manor) hopes for freedom after a year and a day in the village, if only he can calculate the passage of time; an eel-catcher describes her rough infancy: her “starving poor [father] took me up to drown in a bucket of water.” (He relents at the sight of her “wee fingers” grasping at the sides of the bucket.) Byrd, basing his work on a 13th-century German manuscript, supplies the first page of each speaker's text with a tone-on-tone patterned border overset with a square miniature. Larger watercolors, some with more intricate borders, accompany explanatory text for added verve. The artist does not channel a medieval style; rather, he mutes his palette and angles some lines to hint at the period, but his use of cross-hatching and his mostly realistic renderings specifically welcome a contemporary readership.
BookList:The author of A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama (2006), Schlitz turns to a completely different kind of storytelling here. Using a series of interconnected monologues and dialogues featuring young people living in and around an English manor in 1255, she offers first-person character sketches that build upon each other to create a finer understanding of medieval life. The book was inspired by the necessity of creating a play suitable for a classroom where “no one wanted a small part.” Each of the 23 characters (between 10 and 15 years old) has a distinct personality and a societal role revealed not by recitation of facts but by revelation of memories, intentions, and attitudes. Sometimes in prose and more often in one of several verse forms, the writing varies nicely from one entry to the next. Historical notes appear in the vertical margins, and some double-page spreads carry short essays on topics related to individual narratives, such as falconry, the Crusades, and Jews in medieval society. Although often the characters’ specific concerns are very much of their time, their outlooks and emotional states will be familiar to young people today. Reminiscent of medieval art, Byrd’s lively ink drawings, tinted with watercolors, are a handsome addition to this well-designed book. This unusually fine collection of related monologues and dialogues promises to be a rewarding choice for performance or for reading aloud in the classroom.
School Library Journal:Gr 4–8— Schlitz helps students step directly into the shoes—and lives—of medieval children in this outstanding collection of interrelated monologues. Designed for performance and excellent for use in interdisciplinary history classrooms, the book offers students an incredibly approachable format for learning about the Middle Ages that makes the period both realistic and relevant. The text, varying from dramatic to poetic, depending on the point of view, is accompanied by historical notes that shed light on societal roles, religion, and town life. Byrd's illustrations evoke the era and give dramatists ideas for appropriate costuming and props. Browsers interested in medieval life will gravitate toward this title, while history buffs will be thrilled by the chance to make history come alive through their own voices.—Alana Abbott, James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT School Library Journal, A Reed Business Information Publication
Kirkus Reviews: Schlitz takes the breath away with unabashed excellence in every direction. This wonderfully designed and produced volume contains 17 monologues for readers ten to 15, each in the voice of a character from an English town in 1255. Some are in verse; some in prose; all are interconnected. The language is rich, sinewy, romantic and plainspoken. Readers will immediately cotton to Taggot, the blacksmith's daughter, who is big and strong and plain, and is undone by the sprig of hawthorn a lord's nephew leaves on her anvil. Isobel the lord's daughter doesn't understand why the peasants throw mud at her silks, but readers will: Barbary, exhausted from caring for the baby twins with her stepmother who is pregnant again, flings the muck in frustration. Two sisters speak in tandem, as do a Jew and a Christian, who marvel in parallel at their joy in skipping stones on water. Double-page spreads called "A little background" offer lively information about falconry, The Crusades, pilgrimages and the like. Byrd's watercolor-and-ink pictures add lovely texture and evoke medieval illustration without aping it. Brilliant in every way.

Connections
Renaissance Faire- After reading the book and having children perform the monologues from memory, allow the students the pleasure of taking them to a local Renaissance faire. One local to Texas is Scarbrough Renaissance Faire and even has days of the school calendar that are specifically set up for school visits. Students get to see a live jousting tournament, get to interact with actors pretending to be people from the day, get to see authentic period costumes, and the antics people would often do in order to earn money.
If attending one as a school field trip is not possible, you could have a fair at the school instead. Invite a group of dedicated parents to help with set up, costumes, activities, and performances. A play ground would be an excellent site for the fair and tents could be set up to act as ‘booths’ for the different vendors. If possible, invite high school or college drama students to demonstrate talents such as juggling, sword fighting, or performing skits. Invite parents to set up centers for soap making, cooking, yarn spinning and/or carding, or smithing.