A Jewish ethical treatise warns that a man must not express his anger by pounding on a book or by hitting people with it. The angry teacher must not hit the bad student with a book, nor should the student use a book to ward off blows.

Even for a well-to-do city family, making life comfortable is a problem. But arriving at a point where comfort becomes a problem for a fair number of people is a sign of advancing civilization.

Between two each places stands a two-handed bowl, or ecuelle, which is filled with soup or stew. Two neighbors share the ecuelle, as well as a winecup and spoon.

Sometimes the pagan spirit of Roman poetry arouses qualms. Guibert of Nogent confesses in his autobiography that early in his monastic life he took up verse making and even fell into "certain obscene words and composed brief writings, worthless and immodest, in fact bereft of all decency," before abandoning this shocking practice in favor of commentaries on the Scriptures.

For outdoors, he wears a mantle fastened at the shoulder with a clasp or chain; although buttons are sometimes used for decoration, the buttonhole has not been invented.

Instrumental keys [on organs], introduced in the twelfth century, are so heavy and stiff that they must be played with clenched fists.

As the baby grows bigger, she [wet nurse] will chew his meat for him.

...beggars were permitted to enter great houses and solicit directly from the table, but now they are restricted to the doorstep.

At mealtime a very broad cloth is laid on the trestle table in the solar. to facilitate service, places are set along one side only. On that side the cloth falls to the floor, doubling as a communal napkin...there are several kinds of knives...but no forks.

Across the bottom of the last page of many a book is written 'Explicit, Deo Gratias ('Finished, thank god')...Books are kept not on open shelves, but in locked chests.