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There's an International Congress on Medieval Studies happening a week from now within driving distance of where I live, and I've noticed that one of the announced sessions is titled "The Public Medievalist: A Roundtable on Engaging the Public with the Middle Ages". I'd love to be there, listen in, and maybe give some comments on that-- except that as a non-student who didn't pre-register, it'd cost me $195 to attend this thing. That seems like part of the problem they're trying to talk about there. Beyond the basics, a lot of fascinating historical works and research is bound up behind very expensive archives and publishers. Mass consumption of history involves pricing things at mass consumption levels, on the cheap, which only rarely happens with this sort of stuff. There's plenty of introductory works out there fit for public consumption and pocketbooks, but if you're an amateur who wants to find out more about the Visigoths or Italian warfare practices then suddenly the price of everything shoots way up, and it gets harder to track down material, figure out who publishes what, what vendors sell what, and if that pricey hardcover really is the only version available or not. Am I just a whinging poor who has way too high expectations, or is this a real issue other people have talked about?
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May 8, 2015 23:45
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That's really just part of a larger issue in academia ; I don't know of any fields that aren't like that. I also don't know of anyone who likes it that way and is anti-public, but who knows how to actually solve the issue?
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May 9, 2015 00:01
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Maybe it's because I work in a different field, but $195 for registration is actually pretty reasonable for a lot of conferences.
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May 9, 2015 01:44
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That was part of my point, actually. At least in my field (and the ones I have friends in), that gets covered by my university.
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May 9, 2015 02:14
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Trying to help my sister identify something in an engraving. This may be on the edge of this thread's date scope, the mark says 1513. The thing in this guy's lap, that he's holding: what is it? She says it's an engraving of a mercenary. It was done by a former mercenary, so it's probably accurate. Any ideas?
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May 9, 2015 03:13
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Total idiot chiming in : That looks like a sheathed sword. Some kind of katzbalger if I'm having a smart day.
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May 9, 2015 03:16
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Xiahou Dun posted:Total idiot chiming in : yep. homeboy over there is swiss, the artist is urs graf
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May 9, 2015 03:18
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I was wary of saying sword because of the would-be handle and guard looked weird, but I'll be damned if that katzbalger on the wikipedia page isn't a spitting image.
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May 9, 2015 03:19
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Hurray! Mongo was right for once! (I have a reproduction of a very similar sword, which helped.)
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May 9, 2015 03:19
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and you can tell he's swiss because his jacket has a cross cut into it. if he were a landsknecht it would be an x
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May 9, 2015 03:22
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Sounds good. Thanks much.
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May 9, 2015 03:23
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Xiahou Dun posted:That was part of my point, actually. 
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May 9, 2015 03:51
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Ofaloaf posted:What if I've got my degree and want to attend solely because I'm genuinely interested in the subject matter? The University of Postgrad-Low-Wage-Job doesn't cover those sort of fees. Sadness? As is I have to sometimes do shenanigans with getting the school I teach at to pay vs the school study with. Maybe it's better elsewhere? I'm not actually a historian, just a linguist who works on old stuff.
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May 9, 2015 04:08
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Ofaloaf posted:What if I've got my degree and want to attend solely because I'm genuinely interested in the subject matter? The University of Postgrad-Low-Wage-Job doesn't cover those sort of fees. It costs money to put on the conference, nobody is stepping up to pay, so they charge the attendees. If you're hooked up with a school you can soak money from your department to pay for it, otherwise you're out of pocket. It sucks, and in an ideal world the host would eat the cost and attendance would be free. But we live in the real world, where donors vomit millions of dollars into stupid poo poo like athletics instead of funding research and basic university functions like conferences. Sorry, it sucks.
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May 9, 2015 04:51
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EvanSchenck posted:It costs money to put on the conference, nobody is stepping up to pay, so they charge the attendees. If you're hooked up with a school you can soak money from your department to pay for it, otherwise you're out of pocket. It sucks, and in an ideal world the host would eat the cost and attendance would be free. But we live in the real world, where donors vomit millions of dollars into stupid poo poo like athletics instead of funding research and basic university functions like conferences. To expand on this it's the same basic problem as academic publishing. Cheap paperbacks are cheap because of economies of scale. You can sell 50 shades of gray for $10 because millions of suburban soccer moms want to read it. Guess how many people want to read about visigothic warfare and culture or go to a conference on public history?
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May 10, 2015 15:58
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Cyrano4747 posted:Guess how many people want to read about visigothic warfare...? *rises hand*
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May 10, 2015 20:30
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Cyrano4747 posted:Guess how many people want to read about visigothic warfare and culture or go to a conference on public history? This is a cultural failing that should be remedied.
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May 10, 2015 21:47
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xthetenth posted:This is a cultural failing that should be remedied.  before i started posting here, how many of you cared about the 17th century? go, spread the word to others Also, some conferences offer little stipends to scholars who couldn't make it otherwise. It couldn't hurt to ask them, Ofaloaf.
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May 10, 2015 21:50
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If we're going to be talking shieldwalls I've always wondered how various Irish armies were consistently able to defeat Viking shieldwalls to the extend that the Vikings in Ireland adopted the smaller buckler-like Irish shield
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May 10, 2015 21:53
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HEY GAL posted:
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May 10, 2015 23:51
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Bum the Sad posted:We still don't.
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May 11, 2015 00:18
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HEY GAL posted:i walked right into that Yeah, but even after that defeat you get to leave the field with arms and standards displayed.
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May 11, 2015 05:01
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HEY GAL posted:
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May 11, 2015 05:12
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I have a FB friend from Italy who does some great metalworking. I've posted his crossbows here before. He finished this today:  
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May 11, 2015 19:17
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JaucheCharly posted:I have a FB friend from Italy who does some great metalworking. I've posted his crossbows here before. He finished this today: drat nice! Could you post his bows again?
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May 11, 2015 19:37
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I'll just copy what he wrote on his album: Preserved in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, this replica has its particularity in extremely small dimensions, long just 64cm from the bracket at the end of tiller, this piece gives off a weight of 170kg. The reflex bow is in steel by Jens, this type is a little more sophisticated, but very common in the Italian peninsula during the Renaissance. Crossbows with this kind of hold way system for the bow, with the nut without metal reinforcements in the wooden stock, and without metal pins, or rope the nut, in iconography can be traced to a context of the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth. So many thanks to Fario Alberon trout, a photographer of the highest order.    
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May 11, 2015 20:02
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JaucheCharly posted:weight of 170kg Good lord, what is the muzzle (?) energy of that?
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May 11, 2015 20:16
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Medievalists know how to get down.
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May 11, 2015 20:23
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170kg drawweight, so 374 pounds. e: That is not so much, but packs a good punch. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:43 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 20:40
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bewbies posted:Good lord, what is the muzzle (?) energy of that? Most of that isn't transferred to the bolt. A bolt shot from that crossbow would have about 120 J of kinetic energy. It wouldn't have been a particularly heavy crossbow, but the bolt would go through padded mail at very close ranges. Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 21:00
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120J is from a ~1200# crossbow. The crossbow above is good enough for hunting deer. I'd guess it delivers about the same punch as a 50# bow with a 10-12 grain per pound arrow. e: The guy said that he takes them to reeactments. I hope he doesn't shoot people with it. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 21:22 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 21:17
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JaucheCharly posted:I'll just copy what he wrote on his album: He cannot hide who his patron is: 
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May 11, 2015 21:51
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That patron is scary and revulsive. Here's a Han dynasty crossbow trigger: 
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May 14, 2015 11:17
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Graduated sights, that's cool.
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May 14, 2015 12:08
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Does anyone know how crossbow trigger mechanisms work? I have read somewhere that the chinese version above doesn't allow drawweights like european crossbows.
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May 14, 2015 12:33
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Maybe because it's bronze?
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May 14, 2015 13:26
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No, it had something to with the mechanics, not with problems with the material of the trigger.
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May 14, 2015 13:48
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JaucheCharly posted:Does anyone know how crossbow trigger mechanisms work? I have read somewhere that the chinese version above doesn't allow drawweights like european crossbows. Do you have a similar schematic of a European one? I'm curious too now. e: Okay, looking at it, the trigger is a much shorter lever arm than the longer horizontal type you would see on a medieval European crossbow, so that might have something to do with it. Some guy on the internet says that this vertical trigger let them place the trigger further back on the stock, creating a longer powerstroke and reducing the need for high draw weights. P-Mack fucked around with this message at 00:29 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 14, 2015 16:13
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That makes sense. This is how the european trigger type looks.
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May 15, 2015 15:06
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Re: Globalization in earlier times. I once read a book about the plague that mentioned 14. century global (as far as they knew) trade networks, which allowed the plague to become more than a marmot desease from the eurasian steppes. To set the stage, the book also explained a bit about the world at that time. Now triggered by a discussion in another thread, I'm curious to learn more. Who did travel those long distances? (Certain) Traders are a given, but was travel more general than that? Did many people emigrate to other countries? Was this restricted to the important, big cities (and the locations along the important traderoutes) or more general?
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May 15, 2015 20:37
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