Historians find it easy to tell the stories of kings and lords. They are intriguing stories of courtly politics, conquest and defeat, and large national movements. Telling the stories of the people is considerably more difficult. Which peoples' stories to tell? What is an appropriate sampling of people? Information is difficult to come by. And often the lives are not as exciting as conquest or defeat.

Our sample is the Boynton families. They lived in northern England, mostly Yorkshire, removed from the center of courtly politics. They were knights from the time we first meet them through their entire history, but they did not become unusually wealthy until the 17th century. They ventured into king of the mountain politics only a few times in their history.

And that gives us the opportunity to address the question: How did people [or knights] live the history? The history we are interested in is 1066 to 1650 -- from William the Conquerer to the Civil War. By doing a chronology we want to show how the Boyntons lived and did not live the national history of England. In what national history did they participate? In what national history did they not participate? Six centuries is an audacious aspiration, but focussing on the Boyntons provides a framework in which we can speak with some confidence. We know a lot about the Boyntons.