Mortimer goes into details about food, clothing, building materials, the layout of houses, but also covers things like laws, customs, travel, entertainment.

[5] Sue Arnold, writing in The Guardian, commented "After The Canterbury Tales this has to be the most entertaining book ever written about the Middle Ages.

"[7] A review written by Kathryn Hughes for The Guardian praised the book's different approach and abundance of trivia, adding that "It is Monty Python and the Holy Grail with footnotes and, my goodness, it is fun...

[8] The Washington Post's short review by Aaron Leitko said it had a "Fodor's-style framework", like a travel book into the "heart of a different time zone".

Mortimer believed that Holland wanted it to be "semi-fictionalised", and explained that such an approach would trivialise a work intended to be useful to students and that would stand the "test of time".