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The most popular reviews in /r/MedievalHistory:
I'm a medievalist, so this could take a while, but I'm including only books I really enjoyed, not necessarily the most informative or useful ones.
Mysteries of the Middle Ages, Thomas Cahill
The Ornament of the World, María Rosa Menocal
The Origins of the European Economy, Michael McCormick--it's huge, and looks and sounds like it should be boring, but it's not
The Art of War in the Middle Ages, Charles Oman--very much out of date, but fun to read
The Making of Europe, Robert Bartlett
Life in a Medieval Castle, Life in a Medieval Village, Life in a Medieval City, all by Joseph and Frances Gies
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, Edward Luttwak--definitely dense and slow, but a lot of fun
The Bowmen of England, Donald Featherstone--if you like Barker, I think you'll like this one too
Granada 1492, David Nicolle
I'll stop there.
I looked at the wiki on this lady, and then went to Amazon to check out biographies, and got the best rated one I saw. Promises to be a fascinating read, so thanks for the tip.
Barbara Hanawalt's The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. She uses coroner's roll which is one of the few ways a peasant's life intersects written records. I'm also fond of her book about medieval children Growing Up in Medieval London which does cover peasant children but other classes as well.
I would recommend this book on the Hundred Years War. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-hundred-years-war-desmond-seward/1110987859?ean=9780140283617
And this biography of the Black Prince. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/edward-prince-of-wales-and-aquitaine-richard-barber/1110930052?ean=9780851156866#productInfoTabs
I used to have a very cool screensaver that scrolled the whole of the tapestry.
I think this is is the latest version: http://download.cnet.com/Bayeaux-Tapestry-Screensaver/3000-2257_4-10775688.html
Yeah this comment sums up my initial fears. Funny how simple tasks can demand so much.
I'm just doing a quick etymology of the word with historical context. Here's a post I did on the history of the word 'wool'.
I'm currently reading The Greatest Knight about the life of William Marshal. I'm not super far in (just finished part 1) but it's been a good read so far, a good mix of medieval knighthood was like with an examination on how Marshal acquired fame and fortune.
Lot's of folks over at /r/AskHistorians can help you out, trying posting there after checking their booklist.
But have a look at this reference that I use, you can preview it on Google books:
If you want something that straddles both the older "Germanic" peoples and the origins of the German empires, you might start with the readable Eric Goldberg's "Struggle for Empire." While older, another good introduction to changes from the older Stamm duchies of the Carolingian and Ottonian Period, I think Benjamin Arnold's "Medieval Germany" is still very good. If you are looking for something denser, you might consider anything by Gerd Althoff. such as "Rules and Rituals in Medieval Power Games: A German Perspective."
Yes, something like what you're describing exists.
<em>The Tournaments at Le Hem and Chauvency</em>: (<em>Sarrasin: The Romance of Le Hem and</em> <em>Jacques Bretel: The Tournament at Chauvency</em>) is a detailed description of two jousts: Le Hem in 1278 and Chauvency in 1285. I don't know if it's as detailed as you'd like but they're some of the most complete translated records of tournaments you can get. Highly recommended.
Chronicler Jean Froissart also devotes a chapter of Book IV of his chronicles to the tournament at Saint-Inglevert in 1390. You can read a decent enough translation here. Both this and the Penguin edition (in my opinion the current best and most accessible) omit and summarize a lot of the lists. Froissart list all of the noble contestants and describes all of their passes with the lance. Where you'd find the original complete description translated accurately to English, I couldn't say. But it's worth reading nonetheless.
I recommend reading Destiny Disrupted.
Europe didn't catch up to the middle east and China until about the 16th - 17th Century.
OP, a lot of people have solid suggestions for you in this thread and in a lot of cases they took the words right out of my mouth.
Instead of a book recommendation, here's a website where you'll be able to download a lot these books if buying them isn't always an option or if you want to preview them before buying. You have to make an account but once you do you can download up to 10 books a day.
Thanks for asking! A good example of what I mean, would be this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Enluminures-Four-Remarkable-Manuscripts-Middle/dp/0997184272
It contains most of, if not all, of four manuscripts.
Not reproduced by an artist who is re-illuminating it, and it's sold for thousands of dollars, but instead by whatever techniques are used to create this book and others like it (photographs more or less?) where it sells for maybe $30-60.
I use this app (not free, sorry) to keep my timelines of events organized. (I'm on Android but the same app is on apple.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.worldhistorymapsinc.worldhistorymaps
Honestly books are better.
I highly recommend the Penguin Atlas of Medieval History as an excellent overview, with maps every few decades so you can really see what was going on. And then your best option is to find books that are focused on a certain area/time you are interested in.
There is obviously Wikipedia articles on pretty much anything, but nothing online compares to the depth of information you will get from focused books.
If you name some periods or countries you are interested in I could recommend some.
I would recommend A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England as an excellent insight into day to day life for a person living in the high middle ages.
"Didn't travel far" wasn't entirely accurate as movement did occur. It wasn't like today, no, but people didn't abhor traveling, it just wasn't as necessary to daily life. Also, people could even move, as a villein, to another Manor if they so wanted, they just had to pay the Lord to do so.
Source:
Tenure and Mobility: Studies in the Social History of the Mediaeval English Village
Raftis, J. Ambrose
The Faithful Executioner - Joel F. Harrington.
It's a bit detailed and definitely only for adult audiences, but paints a compelling picture of the executioner's life in medieval germany. The source of it is the journal of an executioner.
https://www.amazon.com/Faithful-Executioner-Turbulent-Sixteenth-Century/dp/1250043611
The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
https://www.amazon.com/dp/014312563X
I've read the Medieval version, and it's entertaining and informative. It'd be a good place to start before reading any other work set in the Renaissance.
J. & F. Gies wrote many excellent books on castle and medieval life.
If you're interested, there's several books by Francis Gies that are decent surveys of medieval life, accessible reading, and affordable. They are a part of the Medieval Life anthology, which focuses more on society rather than tedious tudor biographies (ok so I'm biased).
https://www.amazon.com/Knight-History-Medieval-Life-ebook/dp/B003JBHVOA
The link there takes you to the book on knights, but all of them are pretty good.
It's pricy, but Jonathan Sumption's 'The Hundred Years' War' is good. The second volume covers both the Black Prince's Poitier campaign and the Nájera campaign https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-War-Trial-Middle/dp/0812218019/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1487091462&sr=8-4&keywords=jonathan+sumption+hundred+years+war
This is good, comprehensive, and not very expensive. https://www.amazon.com/Destruction-Greek-Empire-Edwin-Pears-ebook/dp/B00U36PP3S?ie=UTF8&qid=1465233014&ref_=sr_1_2&s=books&sr=1-2
It's also in paperback. It covers the end of the Latin occupation to the end of the empire.
For a quick, interesting view of life in the medieval period, try the book "The Year 1000". It offers a day-to-day perspective on life in that year alone. Of course there were good and bad aspects of daily life, much like there are now. http://www.amazon.com/Year-1000-First-Millennium-Englishmans/dp/0316511579
A good starting point: Terry Jones - Medieval Lives (series) and book
I'm not an expert, but I believe books were relatively rare things during this time period. Also, an extensive library during that time might seem quite small by today's standards. Only the well to do, universities, and monasteries would have significant libraries. The vast majority of people didn't own a book, not even a Bible or religious text. I'm basing this half-baked answer off of what I recall from Ian Mortimers's book http://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908