Forward:
This is a book about the fourteenth century. It takes place, to be exact, June 23 to June 26, 1370.
It is not a serious book, but it is meant to be an accurate one. There is documentary evidence for every detail in it, from the actual name of the mayor of Guildford to the recipe for face cream.
As for the mood, no century is one of unrelieved sobriety, least of all the fourteenth. It produced Geoffrey Chaucer, and he was the greatest comic poet England has ever known.