A Review of Everyday Life in Tudor London by Stephen Porter

October 18, 2018 by Natalie

Everyday Life takes the reader on a journey through the many layers of London from the start of the Tudor era in the late 1400s to the end in the early 1600s. Stephen Porter reveals the workings of the capital from the perspective of travellers, traders, immigrants and from those that lived, worked and worshipped there; from the very wealthy to the destitute.

The book is separated into sections setting out how London society was organised for trade both at home and overseas. The author explores how London cared for the sick and the poor, observed religious practices, dispensed with heretics and adapted to the various upheavals and changes around them that the Tudor age would bring; the changes to the Church following Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn, the dissolution of the monasteries and the religious implications of each subsequent succession. On reaching the 1600s the final chapter concludes with exactly how London’s topography evolved and expanded to nearly four times the size since the beginning of the reign of Henry VII.

It is clear that every aspect of the subject matter has been thoroughly researched and reveals a huge amount of information on each chapter from a wide variety of source information. It is well constructed and presented in an easily accessible format which makes it an enjoyable and informative read. Given the sheer amount of information covered, this is an incredible achievement.

I read a great deal of Tudor history and historical fiction from the period and would highly recommend this book not only for those interested in the period but also for those who are fans of historical fiction novels such as the Shardlake series by CJ Sansom, the John Shakespeare series by Rory Clements or S J Parris’s Giordano Bruno. This book will complement the fascinating glimpses these authors show the reader in their fictional works and will go beyond the stories to recreate for the reader exactly what it must have been like to survive in London during that time, how it has since changed and where you are likely to find glimpses of Tudor London if you were to visit today.