English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages

We know Egypt, thanks to her tombs, and we know Rome, thanks to Pompeii, in these modern days, better than we know the Middle Ages of Europe and the life of an ordinary man during that period. We cannot hope to find in any corner of France or England a Pompeii, catacombs, or pyramids. In our countries the human torrent has never ceased flowing; rapid, impetuous, and tumultuous in its course, it has at no time ensured the preservation of the past by deposits of quiet ooze. But, this common life of our ancestors, is it indiscernible, impossible to reconstruct?