Best Books About Medieval History by Dan Jones

Introduction: The Dynasty That Made England#

Dan Jones is one of the most popular narrative historians of his generation - the British writer whose books have made the medieval kings of England vivid for a wide readership. His essential book on the medieval world is The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England (2012), the story of the dynasty that ruled England for three centuries. This guide maps Jones’s books on medieval history, the themes that make his writing cohere, and the companions for when you want more.

The Jones Books in Reading Order#

The Plantagenets (2012) is the essential Jones on the medieval world, and the book that made the dynasty famous. It is narrative history covering the three centuries from Henry II’s accession in 1154 to the deposition of Richard II in 1399 - a cast of warrior kings and queens, from Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, through Richard the Lionheart and John, to Edward I, Edward II and Richard II. Jones tells the story as a family saga: the ambition, the wars, the betrayals and the crowns. It is the key to everything else he has written.

The Hollow Crown (2014) is the essential companion about the fall: the sequel that carries the story of the Plantagenets through the Wars of the Roses, from Henry IV to the death of Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. It shares the dynasty, with the tragedy at the center.

Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter (2014) is the essential companion about the charter: the short, illustrated account of the document that John was forced to seal in 1215. It shares the medieval politics, with the law as the protagonist.

Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages (2021) is the essential companion about the whole age: Jones’s sweeping history of the medieval world from the fall of Rome to the Reformation. It shares his method, with the canvas widened to all of Europe.

Content Notes for Each Book#

The Plantagenets deals with war, murder, execution and the rough politics of the medieval court - treated with Jones’s vividness rather than graphic relish. It is best for readers from around age sixteen upward.

The Hollow Crown deals with the violence of the Wars of the Roses; it is best for readers from around age sixteen upward.

Magna Carta is a short illustrated account of the charter; it is suitable for interested readers from around age fourteen upward.

Powers and Thrones deals with war, plague and religious violence across the medieval centuries; it is best for readers from around age sixteen upward.

The Medieval History Themes in Jones’s Work#

Three themes give Jones’s writing on the medieval world its distinctive shape.

The family as the engine is his signature approach. Jones tells medieval history as family history - the Plantagenets as a dynasty of warriors and queens whose ambition, rivalry and blood drove the politics of the age. His conviction is that the medieval state is best understood through the people who ran it.

The crown as the prize is the second theme. In Jones’s books the crown is the object of every ambition - the thing fought over, seized and lost - and his conviction is that the medieval politics of England is the politics of the crown. The books agree that the dynasty is the story.

The narrative as the method is the third theme. Jones is a storyteller first: his books move in scenes, with characters, reversals and set pieces, and his conviction is that history is best told as a story without ever ceasing to be true. The books agree that the telling is the keeping.

Why Jones’s Medieval History Endures#

The Plantagenets became an international bestseller and remains one of the most-read medieval histories in English, and its endurance rests on a simple achievement: Jones made the medieval kings of England readable - a family saga of ambition and blood that reads like a novel but rests on the scholarship. The book became the shared doorway into the dynasty for readers who had never opened a medieval history.

His influence extends beyond the page: the television series built on his books brought the medieval kings to an even wider audience, and the sequels carried the story to Bosworth. But the books endure because of their conviction: that the medieval world is best known through the people who lived it, and that the story is the truest way to tell it.

Companion Books for Every Jones Reader#

When you have finished Jones’s own books, these titles extend the same territory.

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer (2008) is the essential companion about the daily life: what it was actually like to live in the fourteenth century - what people wore, ate, feared and believed. It shares Jones’s medieval England, with the lens turned from the court to the street.

A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman (1978) is the essential companion about the century: the narrative history of the fourteenth century told through a single life. It shares Jones’s storytelling method, with the continent at the center.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (1980) is the essential companion in fiction: the murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century Italian abbey. It shares Jones’s century, with the world of the mind at the center.

For the fuller shelves, our best medieval history list gathers the essential books, and our family-friendly medieval history list extends the shelf into the books suitable for younger readers.

A Reading Plan for Book Clubs#

The Plantagenets generates conversation on every level: the kings, the wars, the question of what made a good medieval ruler. The most fertile questions are the ones the book refuses to settle: Was the dynasty’s violence a product of the age or of the family? What does the book ask the reader to make of Richard the Lionheart - hero or failure? Is the crown the prize or the trap?

The book also generates the hardest kind of discussion: the question of whether the medieval world was really as brutal as it is told, and whether the family saga is the truest way to tell the history of a state. Clubs should expect the conversation to range from the battle of Bouvines to the Wars of the Roses, which is exactly the range Jones intended.

A Note on the Book’s Structure and Editions#

The Plantagenets is a long book, and readers should know that it is structured as a series of reigns, each one a chapter in the family saga - the rise under Henry II, the crisis under John, the conquests of Edward I, the collapse under Richard II. Jones’s method is biographical within the dynastic frame: each king gets his scene, his wars and his judgment. The book is best read in generous sittings, and it rewards the patient reader with the closest view of the dynasty in popular history.

What Jones’s Books Teach Together#

Read together, The Plantagenets and Powers and Thrones form a conversation about the medieval age: the first book tells the story of one dynasty in England, and the second tells the story of the whole medieval world from Rome to the Reformation. Both are built on the same conviction - that the Middle Ages is best known through its people and its stories - and each one widens the claim: the family and the age. That is why the books belong together on the same shelf, and why readers who finish one should not stop there.

Where to Begin and What to Read Next#

For readers new to Jones, The Plantagenets is the essential starting point - it is the book that made the dynasty famous and the perfect introduction to his method. Readers who want the fall should follow with The Hollow Crown; readers who want the charter should read Magna Carta; and readers who want the whole age should move to Powers and Thrones. And because Jones is best read beside the other historians of the medieval world, the natural next shelf pairs him with the mirror of Tuchman, the chronicles of Maalouf and the long view of Mary Beard - the dynasty, the mirror, the meeting and the inheritance, together forming the fuller picture of the medieval age.

The Storyteller’s History#

One of the most distinctive things about Jones’s method is his frank embrace of the story: he has said that he writes history as a storyteller, and that the narrative is not a compromise with the scholarship but the way the past is best carried to the reader. The Plantagenets is a family saga by design, and his conviction is that the medieval world is best known through the people who lived it - the kings, the queens, the wars and the crowns. The reader who notices the method will see it as the craft made explicit: the story is the history, and the history is the story.

Conclusion: The Crown Still Glitters#

Dan Jones’s contribution to the literature of medieval history is a single achievement, and it has entered the language of readers everywhere: the Plantagenets as a family saga. He wrote it into the three centuries of the dynasty and the wars of the roses, and it has outlasted every attempt to reduce the medieval kings to a parade of dates. His Middle Ages is the dynasty’s age; his method is the story; his craft is the scholarship worn lightly. Read him, and let the warrior kings show you what the medieval crown was really made of. For more reading paths, explore the Worlds section of our site, or continue with our guide to family-friendly education through history.