LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE <i> by Frances and Joseph Gies (Harper & Row: $22.95; 257 pp.) </i>

In this latest installment of the Gies’ study of medieval life (their previous books include “Life in a Medieval Castle” and “Life in a Medieval City”), the couple focuses on the English village of Elton. Using histories, material from archives and recent excavations at the town 70 miles outside of London, they piece together an account of daily life as it was experienced by a 13th-Century peasant.

Their extremely detailed research takes up in turn food, clothing, farm tools, marriage customs, prayer, games--in short, all conceivable threads in the fabric of village life. One stereotype the authors seek to explode for the lay reader is that an agricultural society is simple. An extremely complex system of social obligations and legal entanglements held every man, woman and child in its web, from lord to the lowest serf.

The simple and logical organization of the material--together with the lively illustrations taken from manuscript illumination, woodcuts, tapestry--makes “Life in a Medieval Village” a good general introduction to the history of this period; unfortunately, the Gies’ style is a little too dry to recommend to teen-agers, who would be an ideal audience.