The medieval underworld

This book looks at medieval times from the point of view of those men and women who either would not or could not conform to the conventions of a society whose insistence upon conformity was obsessive - such sections of society as outlaws and brigands: homosexuals; heretics; witches; Jews; prostitutes; thieves; fraudulent beggars and vagabonds. Andrew McCall looks at both their activities and the punishments, often barbarously savage, which were meted out upon them by State and Church.

This book explores a way of life which is both extraordinarily modern and yet totally of its period and provides considerable food for thought in the twenty-first century.