Judith M. Bennett, A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader and the World of English Peasants Before the Plague. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021, 196pp, 2 maps, 27 b/w figs

This book is dedicated to the fourteenth-century female peasant Cecilia Penifader, whose life Bennett traces through the manorial court records of Brigstock and medieval mentalities. Although certainly not the only woman to appear in these records (see the sidebar in chapter 1), Cecilia’s activities are exceptionally well documented (16). This makes her a good case study “to approach, in an intimate way, the ordinary lives and communities of medieval peasants.” (17)