Fawcett MK: Keeping Up

Colliding Worlds, Parallel Universes April already, and the blossom is out, the martins are nesting and we can feel the sun’s warmth on our necks. It’s the time of year, as Chaucer noted in The Canterbury Tales , when people long to go on ‘pilgrimages’, (or jolly outings, more likely). Chaucer wrote the Tales between 1387 and 1400, a turbulent time for the world. War and the Black Death had killed millions, there was conflict between competing popes, anti-Semitism was rife and crusader armies were fighting the expanding Ottoman Empire. Huge technological advances were being made, mainly in military hardware and the use of gunpowder. In England, having crushed the Peasants Revolt in 1381, the autocratic rule of Richard II led to his deposition in 1399. Sounds familiar? It might well have been 600+ years ago, but there’s much we can relate to. Chaucer created some lively women fictional characters in the Tales , and there were, of course, many exceptional women living at the time. But yo...