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Pimpmust posted:The coin and plate examples are interesting. A breastplate would cost a average mercenary around 1 months pay? (Not counting other expenses), I suppose it shouldn't be completely unexpected but I guess years of RPGs have taught me the heirarchy/cost of armor in a screwy way. Basically, it requires an assessment of how many expenses someone has compared to their earnings to decide if a month's pay is a large or small amount. For example, if you only spend half your pay on upkeep you would be able to afford a new suit every second month, while if you can only save a sixth it would take half a year's work to afford one. (and not being able to save anything would probably not be out of the question.) It's also not unusual I think to have to spend more on upkeep as a poor person actually, as your limited wealth can force you into buying temporary solutions instead of more permanent ones. Such as buying shoes that cost half as much, but only last a quarter of the time, because when your shoes start falling apart there's not really the option of waiting three months until you can afford a better choice. I have no idea about medieval prices though, nor the needs of mercenaries or really anyone, so where they would actually fall I can't say. I basically just wanted to warn against projecting the realities of people who pretty well off on a global scale with people living a much more marginal existence.
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Jan 29, 2013 22:33
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Hello, I am not sure if this is an area you guys can help me with but I figured I'd try. I'm an art history undergrad and I am fascinated by pre-16th century printmaking like block books as well as older medieval manuscripts. I took a medieval art class at my school hoping to learn more but we focused mainly on church architecture. So my question is, are there any seminal books or resources you could recommend for someone wanting to study these things in detail?
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Jan 29, 2013 22:34
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I know I'm now a couple pages behind, but I have a question about the equipment listed for only 19 men that were supposed to be in a unit of twenty. Is it possible that the twentieth man was some sort of standard-bearer or aid that wasn't expected to carry arms?
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Jan 29, 2013 22:42
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Anne Whateley posted:Yeah I'm not talking about a high-school teacher racing through your one allowed semester of non-US history and covering all of the HRE with a snappy one-liner. I'm talking about the professors who taught me undergrad & graduate courses for my Medieval & Renaissance Studies major at a well-regarded university -- professors who felt that it was a good in-class conversation or a good essay question (one of many) because it required you to take a position, make a decent argument, and demonstrate a lot of knowledge in the process. I promise they knew and taught a whole bunch about the HRE. Yeah, that's why I put in the edit. It'd be nice to find one solid lay historical book on the subject that covers the whole thing (like you easily can with England or France, or Rome, or Greece, or Egypt, or China....).
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Jan 29, 2013 22:47
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Anne Whateley posted:This is kind of misleading. On a domestic level, then yes, if someone was spinning by the fireplace it would be Mom. As time went on and guilds grew, production moved outside the home, and producing textiles for sale was definitely a man's world. There were more women in textile guilds than in other guilds, but it was still overwhelmingly male. I was thinking in an educational context (what women would know how to do) rather than an economic context (how much it produced). My apologies for not clarifying that point. There was a third group in-between women starting businesses on their own and widows inheriting their husband’s business, and that was married women supplementing their family income by selling produce on the side. The casual alewife who did part-time business seemed to be a common feature of medieval England, it was informal, small-scale business, and it was heavily limited by the restrictions of coverture, but I like to include them because I feel the contributions of working class women were underappreciated. *climbs down off soap box* BetterWeirdthanDead posted:I know I'm now a couple pages behind, but I have a question about the equipment listed for only 19 men that were supposed to be in a unit of twenty. It is certainly possible. My guess is it was the wagon driver, since the Hussite laagers (wagon-forts) had a fairly similar organisation and included 2 drivers.
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Jan 30, 2013 01:47
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Barbara Frale, in her history of the Knights Templar, argues that the Crusades were largely triggered by a surplus of young nobles without access to decent income, who turned to banditry to support the lifestyle, and that the Pope promoted the Crusades as a way to channel their desires for wealth. Is this a fairly reasonable argument for the first few Crusades, and how did areas without large-scale involvement in the Crusades deal with that social pressure?
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Jan 30, 2013 03:50
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Effectronica posted:Barbara Frale, in her history of the Knights Templar, argues that the Crusades were largely triggered by a surplus of young nobles without access to decent income, who turned to banditry to support the lifestyle, and that the Pope promoted the Crusades as a way to channel their desires for wealth. Is this a fairly reasonable argument for the first few Crusades, and how did areas without large-scale involvement in the Crusades deal with that social pressure? That is a pretty simplistic view. I'd argue that the surplus of noble sons was one of a ton of different contributing factors, everything from the perceived aggression/power of the Islamic empires to the desire to extend the power of the church to genuine religious fervor, as just a few examples. In any case, I don't find the argument that the pope realized that these people were going to be a problem and then decided to use the Crusades as a way to distract them and thin their numbers to be very compelling. That would be some pretty serious long term social engineering for a medieval pope.
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Jan 30, 2013 04:21
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Effectronica posted:Barbara Frale, in her history of the Knights Templar, argues that the Crusades were largely triggered by a surplus of young nobles without access to decent income, who turned to banditry to support the lifestyle, and that the Pope promoted the Crusades as a way to channel their desires for wealth. Is this a fairly reasonable argument for the first few Crusades, and how did areas without large-scale involvement in the Crusades deal with that social pressure? Personally I would say the Crusades were dramatically different. Most of the people who joined the First Crusade were not knights, but instead were peasants who were not really warriors. The knights who did come along were the retainers of a more powerful lord who had spent 4-5 times his annual income for the journey; guys like Godfrey of Bouillon mortgaged most of their estates to go on Crusade. In short, the nobility who went along seem to be the exact people with the least to gain (materially) and the most to lose. Another factor, noted by Thomas Asbridge, is that most of the Crusaders came home after completing their heavily armed pilgrimage, rather than trying to claim land there. There was certainly lots of unowned land to claim after the massacre of Jerusalem killed or drove off most of the original owners. An exception to this was Bohemond of Taranto, who did go to claim his own territory, which became the Principality of Antioch. Where the idea seems to come from was an assumption by Steven Runciman, who tends to overlook possible bias in Byzantine-Roman sources, and Anna Comnene did not like the Crusaders – generally she portrayed them as villains and the Byzantine Emperor as saintly in his generosity. Considering that the arrangement Alexios had in mind was that the Crusaders do all the fighting and dying for him and he would receive all the land they died for, I am not inclined to trust Anna Comnene’s interpretation. Tancred of Galilee, who worried about the morality of war and was excited to discover a battle he could enter into with a clear conscience. I think that would reflect the mindset of Crusading nobility, when most wars in Europe were over petty reasons it probably appealed to their identity as warriors to see a war that seemed righteous. One suggestion for Pope Urban II’s motivation for the Crusade, one which I find convincing, was that His Holiness wanted to heal the rifts within the Christian church. Some of the speeches attributed to him give suggestions what he may have said, and his speeches seemed to focus on atrocities committed by the Seljuk Turks – persecution of Christians, destruction of holy places – not on potential financial gains. We do not know for sure what was actually said, but the possible speeches we have seem to have appealed to idealism rather than greed. The Second Crusade was triggered by the fall of the County of Edessa. The Turks had been gaining military successes, and they were essentially reinforcements. Initially there was not much enthusiasm, the Pope had to call for Crusade again once he found out Louis VII had chosen to answer, it was only after the French king got involved that people took interest. The Third Crusade was in response to the fall of Jerusalem, Saladin had took it back. Leading the Crusade were three kings; Richard the Lionheart, Philip II Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa (who drowned anticlimactically in a river). Again it was an organised effort of kings raising their armies rather than knights looking for adventure. Places without large-scale involvement with the Crusades just… went on as normal. In the case of Spain, this normally meant fighting the Muslims on their doorstep, since they had not finished regaining the Iberian Peninsula yet. The Italian city states would generally act as ferrymen, providing shipping and supporting the Crusades that way. East European powers such as Poland and Hungary were either demilitarised or decentralised, so there was little point in demanding they take part. I think the social pressure for other places simply was not that great.
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Jan 30, 2013 05:02
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^^^^ beaten by Railtus as I was typing this, but the post still has some useful quotes, so here: bewbies posted:In any case, I don't find the argument that the pope realized that these people were going to be a problem and then decided to use the Crusades as a way to distract them and thin their numbers to be very compelling. That would be some pretty serious long term social engineering for a medieval pope. It wasn't so much that the pope realized that they were going to become a problem as they already were a problem. The Empire set up by Charlemagne and maintained (albeit in pieces) by his various successors had provided a overarching political structure that limited violence in Western Europe, but by the end of the ninth century it had basically fallen apart. Fighting between local lords and knights over limited real estate and personal feuds became a significant social problem during the 10th century, particularly because commoners and Church property were getting caught up in the fighting. Eventually the Catholic Church promulgated guidelines for how the nobility should behave and what kinds of activities were permissible in warfare. The most famous example of this was the Truce of God, which started in the early 11th century as a ban on fighting on Sundays, which meant from dusk Saturday to dawn on Monday. This was gradually expanded to the point that war was only sanctioned on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This is also the period when the concepts that were later known as "chivalry" started to coalesce. So we know that for about a century prior to the Crusades, the Catholic Church was trying to figure out how to put a damper on warfare between Christians, but they were only having limited success as the fighting continued. There are some indications in contemporary sources that Pope Urban II called the First Crusade in large part because he believed it would focus aggression outwards for the useful purpose of the reclaiming the Holy Land, and relieve social pressures caused by the surplus of fighting men in society. Here's the Catholic Encyclopedia again, with what is supposed to be a quote from his speech at Clermont, that triggered the Deus lo volt freakout: quote:Let them turn their weapons dripping with the blood of their brothers against the enemy of the Christian Faith. Let them--oppressors of orphans and widows, murderers and violaters of churches, robbers of the property of others, vultures drawn by the scent of battle--let them hasten, if they love their souls, under their captain Christ to the rescue of Sion. Here's a website with several versions of his speech. They vary because they were laid down by different chroniclers, sometimes quite a while after the council took place, but there are common elements. If you look, you'll notice that most of the have Urban II deploring the fighting between Christians right before he urges a military expedition to the holy land, implying that he saw the latter as a solution to the former. This is from the version of Robert the Monk: quote:Let none of your possessions detain you, no solicitude for your family affairs, since this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. Now, given that the versions differ from one another we can't know for sure exactly what Urban II actually said, but at the same time, Robert the Monk was a contemporary of his, who was alive at the time and participated in the Council of Clermont. He wrote his recollection of the speech 25 years later. So, even if Urban II didn't literally say the above, we know that at minimum it's an expression of ideas that were on this guy Robert's mind at that time, so the idea of getting rid of surplus fighting men by sending them to colonize the Holy Land wasn't unknown at the time, and isn't just an invention of later historians.
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Jan 30, 2013 05:32
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Railtus posted:Where the idea seems to come from was an assumption by Steven Runciman, who tends to overlook possible bias in Byzantine-Roman sources, and Anna Comnene did not like the Crusaders – generally she portrayed them as villains and the Byzantine Emperor as saintly in his generosity. Considering that the arrangement Alexios had in mind was that the Crusaders do all the fighting and dying for him and he would receive all the land they died for, I am not inclined to trust Anna Comnene’s interpretation. I feel like I remember reading--sad to say I can't remember where--that Alexios had intended Urban II to send a modest army of professional soldiers who would retake Asia Minor for him. The territory they conquered would return to him, but in order to compensate them and encourage them to remain as a buffer against the Seljuqs, he would give them title via imperial land grants (pronoia) to the land along the border.
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Jan 30, 2013 05:46
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EvanSchenck posted:I feel like I remember reading--sad to say I can't remember where--that Alexios had intended Urban II to send a modest army of professional soldiers who would retake Asia Minor for him. The territory they conquered would return to him, but in order to compensate them and encourage them to remain as a buffer against the Seljuqs, he would give them title via imperial land grants (pronoia) to the land along the border. Yeah, what Alexei wanted and what was dumped on his doorstep were definitely two different things. Barely-armed peasants, fractious feudal princes, Bohemend... not what he wanted. And remember the land that he wanted re-conquered was formerly Byzantine. Antioch, for example, had been the second city of the empire for centuries, and to have Bohemend seize it for himself was quite the annoyance.
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Jan 30, 2013 06:15
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Will my Level 7 Ice Armor hold up against a Level 4 flame sword for eleven consecutive attacks?
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Jan 30, 2013 08:18
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Geek USSR posted:Will my Level 7 Ice Armor hold up against a Level 4 flame sword for eleven consecutive attacks? Yes, unless your opponent has good halfswording technique.
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Jan 30, 2013 14:11
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Phisty posted:Hello, Look for these authors: Christopher De Hamel, Michelle Brown, Jonathan Alexander. Never you mind fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 16:20
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EvanSchenck posted:I feel like I remember reading--sad to say I can't remember where--that Alexios had intended Urban II to send a modest army of professional soldiers who would retake Asia Minor for him. The territory they conquered would return to him, but in order to compensate them and encourage them to remain as a buffer against the Seljuqs, he would give them title via imperial land grants (pronoia) to the land along the border. That sounds very plausible, and interestingly most of Crusaders seemed to agree to terms like that, although they were expecting an integrated strike with a combined Frankish-Greek army. When it became apparent Alexios was not going to do that, the Crusaders felt betrayed. I think it was less the subject of land grants and more that they were being expected to take all the risks that upset them - they saw themselves as rescuers and thought Alexios was viewing them as cannon fodder. Railtus fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jan 30, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 16:53
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What did the lower down troops like the longbowman wear into battle? And speaking of longbowman, what were the non-english counterparts to the longbowmen like?
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Jan 31, 2013 00:21
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SlothfulCobra posted:And speaking of longbowman, what were the non-english counterparts to the longbowmen like? Welsh
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Jan 31, 2013 00:23
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SlothfulCobra posted:What did the lower down troops like the longbowman wear into battle? Longbowmen varied. Period illustrations such as one of Crecy show men with longbows wearing brigandines (a canvas coat lined with small metal plates riveted or sewn to the inside) and helmets. However, doublets (another term for padded armour like a gambeson), hauberks and mail coats are mentioned. In short, they were less well-protected than a man-at-arms (knight) but might have anything from padded armour to a mail coat. Generally references say such things as “body armour of iron or jerkin” – which usually means to me something like a jack of plates or brigandine, although gambesons were acceptable too. This should be open up to a copy of the 1252 Assize of Arms, if it does not go to page 177: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...%201252&f=false After 1388, this becomes looser and all servants or labourers were to have bows. However, this just means their equipment varied even more. The longbow never really caught on outside of the British Isles. France tried making Francs-archers although they made mixed use of longbows and crossbows. Initially they started off seeming pretty well-equipped, ordinance for them was a ‘sallet’ (though any kind of helmet would do), dagger, sword, jack (padded armour), either brigandine or mail shirt, and their bow. However, they were short-lived, being established in 1448 and disbanding in 1479. Apparently they were not all that respected. For continental Europe, training longbowmen seemed more trouble than it was worth. Instead you could just hire the White Company which had longbowmen in. Welsh longbowmen were different mostly for their tactics, the Welsh used them in ambushes at point-blank range. They seemed to do quite well, although seemed more or less interchangeable. Scotland had longbowmen, although they do not seem to be mentioned that much. In wars between Scotland and England, longbow and artillery seem to play a more prominent role in the English victories thant he Scottish ones.
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Jan 31, 2013 03:23
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As far as women and literacy goes, I took a course where the instructor mentioned that women were often taught to read, but not taught to write, since reading and writing were taught as separate skills. She was talking about 15th and 16th century England, but said this may have been the case earlier.
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Jan 31, 2013 07:29
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Though perhaps not as knowledgeable as some of the other posters in this thread, I recently finished writing my undergrad thesis about recently discovered relics from the reign of King Offa, and know a decent amount about Anglo-Saxon topics. If you guys have any questions about that period and place, I'd be happy to answer them.
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Jan 31, 2013 08:35
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Loving this thread so far, thanks for posting. Can anyone please tell us about what the normal diet was like for nobles and commoners?
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Jan 31, 2013 08:46
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Dr. Platypus posted:Though perhaps not as knowledgeable as some of the other posters in this thread, I recently finished writing my undergrad thesis about recently discovered relics from the reign of King Offa, and know a decent amount about Anglo-Saxon topics. If you guys have any questions about that period and place, I'd be happy to answer them. What did pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons believe in, and how does it compare to what we know about Viking religion and mythology? I understand they had gods like Woden and Thunor which were their versions of Odin and Thor, but did they believe in Valhalla and valkyries?
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Jan 31, 2013 10:54
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Dr. Platypus posted:Though perhaps not as knowledgeable as some of the other posters in this thread, I recently finished writing my undergrad thesis about recently discovered relics from the reign of King Offa, and know a decent amount about Anglo-Saxon topics. If you guys have any questions about that period and place, I'd be happy to answer them. I used to live within walking distance of Sutton Hoo, and I wish I could go back there now that I'm old enough to appreciate it more than "woah dead guys!" 
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Jan 31, 2013 17:52
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Soylent Pudding posted:Loving this thread so far, thanks for posting. Can anyone please tell us about what the normal diet was like for nobles and commoners? A fun thing to watch on the topic is this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH5O_fCstyI I cannot fully vouch for it, but my professor at university likes to use it in our lessons. An interesting thing when it comes to medieval cookbooks is they often represent the least commonly made meals. Before paper, people used parchment or vellum, and that was fairly costly. If you make a meal regularly, you know how to make it, so there’s no point in writing it down and using up costly parchment and ink. If you see something on paper, then it is probably for the upper classes and probably an uncommon enough dish for the cook to forget if it wasn’t written down. Around 1000, peasants did start getting a little more meat in their diet than before. This, combined with the use of new cooking pots, meant peasants were getting more iron in their diet. A helpful consequence of this was that puberty began earlier – previously it could begin between 16 & 18! (Dorsey Armstrong, Medieval World, I was floored when I first heard it) Meat became more common after the Black Death. Or rather, meat remained as common as it was before; there were just far fewer people around to eat it. Overall most people did not eat meat that often. Nobles ate more meat – hunting was considered part of his war training. Also, most meaty animals were producing other things, such as milk for cows or wool for sheep. Essentially cattle were too much effort to raise for them to butcher lightly. Pigs were the main meat, just because they required far less attention to raise. You could just turn them loose and they could find their own food. How exactly you got the pig to come back after foraging I don’t remember. Also, medieval people tried to be economical about food. Black pudding or blood sausages were a thing. If the household is going to slaughter an animal, we are going to get a lot of food from it. Cereals and vegetables were the major foodstuffs for most people. Between 700 & 1100, cereals (such as porridges, gruels and bread). increased from 1/3 of the diet to 3/4. Meat and fish days imply that there was definitely meat and fish available, although perhaps to be used economically. Assizes in England measure wealth by the amount of cattle kept, which hints to me that dairy products were common, although milk was mostly reserved for the sick. Cheese and butters were more common. That said, almond milk is a popular recipe. However, the usual source is cookbooks for that and that indicates it was not standard fare. Quality_Guaranteed posted:What did pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons believe in, and how does it compare to what we know about Viking religion and mythology? I understand they had gods like Woden and Thunor which were their versions of Odin and Thor, but did they believe in Valhalla and valkyries? This is something I have never looked into before, so this is just what 5-10 minutes of research turned up. On Anglo-Saxon religion, there were regional variations. Rather than Valhalla, they seemed to have a more meadow-like heavenly place. A less violent interpretation of heaven. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neorxnawang Old English manuscripts occasionally mention Waelcyrie which seemed to get use as a synonym for sorceress. So they did have a concept of Valkyries, but they were not necessarily match up with the Norse interpretation.
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Jan 31, 2013 21:46
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Railtus posted:Food Something I think people might easily forget is the fact that a lot of the iconic fixtures of various regional dishes are rather recent imports/inventions. Tomatoes, like potatoes, are an American import, which had to be cultivated to become the fruit we know today. Before that it seems to have been a smaller, denser (and probably more seed-filled) golden fruit, used more for decoration than eating. Which of course means that the Italian kitchen as we know it today is a pretty modern invention. Likewise, orange carrots apparently took till the 17th century to appear, though yellow and red versions did exist before that point. That leaves cabbage and cucumbers as far as I can tell, and cucumbers didn't even exist everywhere in Europe. Not super exiting really. Thinking about it, does that pretty much mean that rich man food and poor man food basically just differed in proportions/size/freshness, not character? In contrast to later periods, where contact with Indian Sea traders gave the rich access to spices, and sugar plantations meant that the rich now had access to delicious and sweet baked goods? E: Railtus posted:On Anglo-Saxon religion, there were regional variations. Rather than Valhalla, they seemed to have a more meadow-like heavenly place. A less violent interpretation of heaven.  mythology, especially if they think we're trying to just incorporate German mythology as a small part of the Nordic mythology. You also have to consider the fact that even accounting for the existing differences in mythology, the conquest of Celtic groups (Whether in southern Germany or Britain) must have had some influence, and the Norse also got some extra centuries to have their religious views evolve in competition/contact with Christianity. Not to mention a lot/most of it being written down by Christianized Norse, who would have a kind-of outsiders perspective on the whole mythology. (Though the conversion of Scandinavia was pretty gradual and far less violent than in Germany for example, so a lot of the traditions continued right up to today.) I guess the Germans would also have been influenced by Rome, which could have caused them and the Norse to split even further. (And of course a lot of Indo-European religions bear striking similarities, even if the specifics of the myths are different.) A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jan 31, 2013 |
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Jan 31, 2013 22:46
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Heads up: answers will be slower for the next week maybe - I have an essay about war, food and civilian populations.A Buttery Pastry posted:I never thought about that, but the part about only writing down recipes for stuff you rarely make makes a lot of sense. That of course would also go for other stuff, making it more likely that things that were common knowledge would never be written down. Proportions is an excellent to describe it. The poor might have barley bread and the rich have wheat bread, but it is still bread. The rich will eat meat more often than the poor, but that is not the same as the rich having a meat-based diet (grain was 65-70% of calories for gentry in 14thC England). My guess, is medieval lords still got their food from the same general land that the peasants were getting their food from, so while what the lord got was the best what was practical to grow in the area was still kind of similar regardless of who owned the land. Cookbooks tend to tell us about the rich diets, and sometimes include clearly imported ingredients. For example, there was a distinction in one cookbook between cinnamon and Chinese cinnamon. Spices in general were more common among the rich, save for the common herbs such as sage, mustard and parsley. St Hildegard of Bingen (1100s) described mustard with meat products as a poor man’s food, but King Henry V is reported as having said “war without fire is like sausages without mustard.”
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Jan 31, 2013 23:30
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60% of calories from carbs isn't too far off from today, is it? Nobility and royalty definitely had access to foods others wouldn't. Spices and exotic foods were available if you had the money -- and the class. If you were, say, a merchant with the money but not the class, there were actually sumptuary laws regulating what you were allowed to have. Practical issues were of course the biggest limiter. Look up medieval hunting laws -- huge amounts of forest were enclosed and set aside, and it was forbidden for anyone else to hunt there. You would be lucky if you could snare rabbits elsewhere; you definitely weren't getting deer, boar, anything brought down by hawking, etc. And if you want something crazy and awesome, check out subtleties. "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" is barely the beginning. Anne Whateley fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Feb 1, 2013 |
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Feb 1, 2013 00:25
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i like nice words
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Railtus posted:Cookbooks tend to tell us about the rich diets, and sometimes include clearly imported ingredients. For example, there was a distinction in one cookbook between cinnamon and Chinese cinnamon. Spices in general were more common among the rich, save for the common herbs such as sage, mustard and parsley. St Hildegard of Bingen (1100s) described mustard with meat products as a poor man’s food, but King Henry V is reported as having said “war without fire is like sausages without mustard.” As to spices, that series linked earlier seemed to state that trade had declined severely before the Mongols reestablished it, which if true would probably indicate some variation between different periods. Fever exotic spices coming to Europe might mean that simply being nobility wouldn't be enough, you had to be high nobility or royalty to actually get access to it on a regular basis. That would really make some of the nobility nothing more than rich peasants, in terms of diet. Anne Whateley posted:60% of calories from carbs isn't too far off from today, is it?
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Feb 1, 2013 00:46
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Soylent Pudding posted:Can anyone please tell us about what the normal diet was like for nobles and commoners? Of course it varied quite a bit based on what part of Europe you're talking about, but there are some pretty consistent themes we saw throughout. Grains were hugely important everywhere you looked; rice was grown in Italy, wheat, rye, oats, and barley everywhere else. Wheat was the most expensive, becoming moreso the finer it was ground...white flour was a luxury in every sense of the word. Whole wheat mixed with rye or oats ("dark bread") was the staple food for most of the continent, though styles varied between regions. Baker's yeast in its modern form wasn't really a thing yet, but bakers figured out how to leaven bread by fermenting it using naturally occurring yeast in the environment (nowadays we call it sourdough). It is a really neat process, one which you can only learn by trial and error, and one that is different for every place you go. Alternatively they could use brewer's yeast, albeit at greater cost. Stews and gruels were the other way they consumed grain calories, though this wasn't as common as we might think. Beer was an extremely important staple: it very much considered liquid bread at this time and it provided a lot of important calories. It was also a great way to preserve rye, barley, and oats as well as a way to hydrate oneself without much concern for nasty microbes that were in all of the water. The yeast for the beer was carefully cultured and sheparded over many centuries; some of it survives today. Hops weren't a thing for flavor until late in the era, instead they used a strange, varied bouquet of herbs called "gruit" that had all kinds of crazy crap (juniper, mugwort, anise, ginger, yarrow, just to name a few) in it for flavor. Nearly all beer was ale; lagering was difficult given the lack of refrigeration and the tricky temperature requirements. Beer was consumed at all meals and by all ages, but bear in mind that the beer of the era was mostly extremely weak alcohol-wise. Except for the in the monasteries, of course... In regions that could grow grapes, wine became a staple as much as beer was everywhere else. It seems that medieval peoples, particularly the wealthy, were remarkably sophisticated about their wine, noting vintages and regions just like we do today. Wine grapes were pressed several times, with the first pressings going to the most expensive dark red wines and the later pressings made into low-alcohol vinegar flavored crap for the poor folk. Grappa was then made from the leftover stuff. A lot of wine was spiced and was often served hot; this was considered an extremely effective medicine. It is strange to us today, but it can be delicious. For the upper classes, meat was eaten at pretty much every meal. In northern Europe the height of cuisine was the giant roast, the rib or haunch of a domestic pig or sheep (rarely beef), or perhaps a hunted deer or boar was thrown on a fire and then eaten with a knife and the bare hands (forks were not common until very late in the era). Fowl was also popular, particularly pheasants and geese. The lower classes got a good amount of meat as well, though they didn't typically enjoy the pricey cuts. Stews, sausages, and pies made from less expensive bits of animal were most common. Fish was a staple for all classes in coastal communities, and salt fish (particularly herring) were among the most important commodities traded throughout northern Europe. In southern Europe and Spain they didn't have the huge populations of sheep and pigs, nor did they have the same quantity of large animals to hunt, so meat was less common. They did have access to much better spices though, so what they could produce was almost certainly tastier. Rabbits in particular were a major staple in Italy, a tradition that has trickled down to our age. Vegetables were consumed by all classes and were extremely important for the lower socioeconomic groups. Root vegetables were most critical: carrots, beets, onions, garlic. A huge variety of lentils and other bean-like things were also widely consumed. Cabbage was incredibly important, particularly in Germany, as it could be stored forever and was almost impossible not to grow if you wanted to. Fruits that generally resemble what we have today were common all over the Mediterranean, and they could be sent north after being preserved (usually in honey) at great cost. Medieval people ate pretty well all things considered. The rural peasant diet in particular was actually quite healthy: lots of legumes, lots of root vegetables, whole grain breads, good healthy beer, lean meat parts without much fat (fat was incredibly expensive) and plenty of fish and fowl. Famine and disease were always right around the corner, but the diet itself was really quite excellent when the food was available. Nobles, on the other hand, ate very unhealthy diets. We speculate that, between the meats, heavy ale and wine and the refined bread the average nobleman consumed 4k+ calories a day, and this was for people much smaller on average than we are. This was great when they were young and active, but since many or most were rendered sedentary by injury and age by their late 30s/early 40s, obesity followed them quickly after that. The fattest of the fat were the members of the monastic orders, who enjoyed consistent top quality food and loads of heavy ale and wine while living largely sedentary lifestyles. As an aside, I've been fascinated by this stuff for a long time and I've prepared many "medieval" (or at least...sort of medieval) dishes and drinks. As a general rule, it is a lot more bland than what we eat today, and of course far more labor intensive, but it isn't all that different from your average steak dinner or stew or fish/fowl dish that we eat today. The beer is different but still tasty, the wine is delicious. It is certainly worth taking the time to do in my opinion if it is something that interests you, particularly the beer. bewbies fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Feb 1, 2013 |
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Feb 1, 2013 01:02
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bewbies posted:(forks were not common until very late in the era)  ) because the fork only became widely adopted very late, possible only after their war of independence. Forks were basically seen as an effeminate Italian affectation, or even worse, an affront to God. ("Son, God gave you two fine hands, don't disrespect him by using that Italian cutlery!")
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Feb 1, 2013 01:15
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A Buttery Pastry posted:To be fair, 1100's to Henry V is a considerable time difference, and the geographic difference could also matter a lot. Not to mention King Henry V maybe just not giving a gently caress, he just wanted some drat mustard on his sausages. I doubt anyone would tell him he was acting like a poor person by preferring it. EDITED - I kept reading this and feeling I had not properly expressed what I meant to. Exactly. The class boundaries tend not to be rigid, you find lots of areas of overlap, despite the sumptuary laws. In fact, to me, sumptuary laws are normally a sign of overlap - why forbid people from doing something if they'll never have chance to do it? The different attitudes towards foods and social class were also not set in stone during the time. I certainly see the flamboyant and extravagant diets as a late-period phenominon, gradually growing towards the end. bewbies posted:As an aside, I've been fascinated by this stuff for a long time and I've prepared many "medieval" (or at least...sort of medieval) dishes and drinks. As a general rule, it is a lot more bland than what we eat today, and of course far more labor intensive, but it isn't all that different from your average steak dinner or stew or fish/fowl dish that we eat today. The beer is different but still tasty, the wine is delicious. It is certainly worth taking the time to do in my opinion if it is something that interests you, particularly the beer. Overall an excellent post, but you're making me hungry. Railtus fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Feb 2, 2013 |
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Feb 1, 2013 02:19
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This series is pretty great for diets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk07gA2z6Ho&t=15s (warning for cock munching), not quite Medieval era(earliest episode covers 16th century or so) but it's good stuff. Well, the food looks loving disgusting but the show us entertaining & educational enough (if you can understand Swedish) 
Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 1, 2013 |
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Feb 1, 2013 19:41
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A Buttery Pastry posted:As to spices, that series linked earlier seemed to state that trade had declined severely before the Mongols reestablished it, which if true would probably indicate some variation between different periods. Fever exotic spices coming to Europe might mean that simply being nobility wouldn't be enough, you had to be high nobility or royalty to actually get access to it on a regular basis. That would really make some of the nobility nothing more than rich peasants, in terms of diet. I got curious about the part about the Mongols and decided to look into it. It seems like the Silk Road was relatively sporadic and unreliable; it's about 1270 before it seems like a solid trade network, then it starts falling apart in the 1340s when the Black Death struck and the Ming Dynasty took over. Fractured groups in the area disrupt trade, then the Ottomans obstruct trade between Europe and Asia in 1453. It seems like there were periods when the trade was steady and periods when the trade was reduced to a trickle, which is a further complication.
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Feb 2, 2013 01:36
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Railtus posted:I got curious about the part about the Mongols and decided to look into it. It seems like the Silk Road was relatively sporadic and unreliable; it's about 1270 before it seems like a solid trade network, then it starts falling apart in the 1340s when the Black Death struck and the Ming Dynasty took over. Fractured groups in the area disrupt trade, then the Ottomans obstruct trade between Europe and Asia in 1453. It seems like there were periods when the trade was steady and periods when the trade was reduced to a trickle, which is a further complication. One of the main routes for the spice trade was from India to the Red Sea ports, and then overland to Egypt. The Venetians would then distribute it to the Europeans. Obviously, with so many middlemen, the price was pretty hefty, but that route was pretty well established by about 1100-1200 or so. It lasted until the Portuguese destroyed the Indian Sea trading fleets in 1500 or so. This was a real double-whammy for the Venetians, since the Black Sea trade was cut off in 1453, and then the Indian spice trade was cut off in 1500.
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Feb 2, 2013 01:58
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sullat posted:One of the main routes for the spice trade was from India to the Red Sea ports, and then overland to Egypt. The Venetians would then distribute it to the Europeans. Obviously, with so many middlemen, the price was pretty hefty, but that route was pretty well established by about 1100-1200 or so. It lasted until the Portuguese destroyed the Indian Sea trading fleets in 1500 or so. This was a real double-whammy for the Venetians, since the Black Sea trade was cut off in 1453, and then the Indian spice trade was cut off in 1500. It may have been well-established even sooner. I know a Moorish cookbook from around 900-1000 mentioned Chinese cinnamon specifically, which at least assumes the reader was expected to be familiar with it. Thanks for the info!
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Feb 2, 2013 03:06
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Railtus posted:It may have been well-established even sooner. I know a Moorish cookbook from around 900-1000 mentioned Chinese cinnamon specifically, which at least assumes the reader was expected to be familiar with it. ) is preferred in Mexico, Europe and Oceania. If people can't even figure it out today, what chance did they have back then?!
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Feb 2, 2013 10:32
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The depth of knowledge represented in this thread is astounding. Thanks for making it. How were prisoners of war treated? I'm particularly interested in your average soldiers rather than knights or nobles but any info would be cool. On an unrelated note, what was up with the Children's Crusade?
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Feb 2, 2013 19:37
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cda posted:The depth of knowledge represented in this thread is astounding. Thanks for making it. Vis a vis prisoners of war, it varied greatly from war to war and time to time. Generally, the rule of thumb was high ranking dudes would be held for ransom and average shmoes would be killed. Or sold into slavery. Apparently Charlemagne made some serious money selling defeated prisoners. At Agincourt, for example, Henry ordered his dudes to kill the non-noble POWs because he was afraid that the third wave would break his lines, and didn't want to spare the men to guard the prisoners. Then there are instances like Basil the Bulgar-Slayer blinding 10,000 prisoners as a big "gently caress You" to the Bulgar king. Rare, but POWs were not treated very well. But there are also rare examples like Saladin, who was decent to his prisoners and didn't massacre anyone. Well, he didn't massacre any Crusaders, I guess, which is what counted to the Medieval chronoclers. He was less nice to the Fatamids. And Alp Arslan let Romanos Diogenes and his surviving men go after Manzikert, although that was in exchange for a huge ransom. And many times, people just didn't bother with prisoners. At the Battle of Yarmouk, the Arabs didn't take any prisoners, wiping out a huge Byzantine army. Same went for the Mongols, who only took prisoners that they thought might be useful. Everyone else got massacred, or used as human shields in the next conquest. As far as the Children's Crusade, basically, poo poo be hosed up sometimes. The theory was that only children, so pure and innocent and free from sin, would be able to reclaim the holy land. Presumably God would simply sweep the obstacles away in front of them. I don't know if there's a consensus as to how this belief began spreading across France, but apparently a few thousand children made it to Rome, where the Pope told them to go home. A bunch more ended up in Genoa and were sold into slavery. sullat fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Feb 2, 2013 |
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Feb 2, 2013 20:52
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A Buttery Pastry posted:To be fair, 1100's to Henry V is a considerable time difference, and the geographic difference could also matter a lot. Not to mention King Henry V maybe just not giving a gently caress, he just wanted some drat mustard on his sausages. I doubt anyone would tell him he was acting like a poor person by preferring it. I get the impression that no one could tell Henry V anything. Like King Charles VI was like "No, your not the King of France, don't be ridiculous - ok fine! Here's the crown and my daughter, just please stop killing people, Jesus!" What's the consensus on Henry's claims to the French throne, or just his person in general? Shakespeare's play is one of my favourites, but I doubt it's very historically accurate (except I suppose in how it reveals how well-liked Henry V was to the English). Looking at the basics of the things he did, it kinda seems like he would be in the running for "1400's Craziest rear end in a top hat". Also, any information on Shakespeare is always interesting, all things considered this playwright's influence is pretty staggering. How dumb are the theories over his reality, or is there something to them? Is the influence of his plays detrimental to popular understandings of history, like in terms of promulgating misconceptions? How do historians unpack them?
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Feb 3, 2013 02:04
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Black Bones posted:I get the impression that no one could tell Henry V anything. Like King Charles VI was like "No, your not the King of France, don't be ridiculous - ok fine! Here's the crown and my daughter, just please stop killing people, Jesus!" Edward III of England had the strongest claim to be king of France after Charles IV died back in 1328. The French didn't want an English king so they went against precedent, pulled some rules out of their rear end that a woman can't pass royal power, and gave the throne to Philip de Valois. When Henry V came along he had a legal claim, but the French monarchy had a clear de facto status as the rulers of France. The monarchs of England kept claiming to rule France until 1801.
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Feb 3, 2013 07:30
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