Now, as you rightly point out concerning our general life style before this modern "all hail the individual" mentality, we always had roots over the land and a good way to both understand and learn more about them is to look at releases in the very early 20th century and 19th (any earlier will always be prohibitively expensive and rare) that cover our older histories with a general overview. For example, A Short History of Ireland from the earliest times to 1608 (yes that is it's full title) contains not only Ireland's history but early laws, how the "classes" of previous eras related and operated and how we functioned as a community or small kingdom and the lifestyle of those within it. Here's an excerpt;

>In theory the land belonged not to individuals, but to the tribe. The king or chief had a portion assigned to him as mensal land. The rest was occupied by the tribesmen in the several ways mentioned below. The chief, though exercising a sort of supervision over the whole of 'the territory, had no right of ownership except over his own property, if he had any, and for the time being over his mensal land.

I've included a copy of this text as well in the post, it's not a far fetch to consider this state of affairs would be repeated in a multitude of European nations as well in previous periods, most followed similar models of societal evolution with deviations occurring due to outside factors such as significant wars that claimed territory, overt vassalisations or the use of ursery by the parasite. Now bear in mind if you look at English language texts on other nations histories and peoples you should always consider the author in question and their connections *to* that particular land. For instance, the reason I chose the books previously is because in most of the cases it is written by men *of* that particular land, who have an intrinsic link to the blood and soil of it or worked very closely with the translation. They should always be first and foremost in your list of choices when seeking literature on a particular group within our grand brotherhood.

However if your looking to know the people themselves and how they saw their lives in the day to day rather than a macro level, there's two distinct avenues, that of their poetry and that of their folk songs (I divide them into two for poetry is always more prosaic or pedantic on occasion where as folk songs are always more direct). For instance, you can get a good picture of the greater skein of a peoples feelings on significant events through poetry, the lesser known poets of a nation can be a good source for more interesting viewpoints where their folk songs can tell you of a day to day feeling. An example of this is Dominion of the Sword, a ballad of English Cavaliers which can be sourced from The Loyal Garland (1686 with reprinting in 19th century) (no PDF available). It is quite revealing in it's lyrics of the time they lived in and their perspective. For instance;

> This fits a Lay-man to preach and pray man,
'Tis this can make a Lord of him that was a Drayman;
Forth from the dull pit, of Follies full pit,
This brought an Hebrew Iron-monger to the Pulpit;
Such pittifull things be, more happier than Kings be,
This got the Herauldry of Thimblebee and Slingsbee;
No Gospel can guide it, no Law can decide it,
In Church or State, untill the Sword hath sanctify'd it.