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tweekinator posted:
In the Icelandic Commonwealth the ruling class were chieftains known as gošar. The country was split into four regions and each regions had about 9 gošar and each goši had his "gošorš" which is a bit like a fiefdom except not quite. The title of goši was usually inherited but it could also be sold or given. Some gošar maintained temples and holy sites and held blóts. Each goši had his žingmenn, men who followed him to assemblies, supported him in conflicts in exchange for his protection and mediation in feuds. Since any free land owning man could choose which goši to follow the gošorš of each goši wasn't really based on geography. It's however likely that people usually choose the goši that lived closest to them out of convenience since medieval Iceland was very rural without any villages and with long distances between most farms following a goši that lived several weeks travel away might be a hassle and not sit well with the goši that lived closer. Every goši was a member of the alžing, a yearly national assembly that was both a parliament and a supreme court. The descendants of Ingólfur Arnarsson, the first permanent settler, held the title of Allsherjargoši which despite the fancier title didn't have any more power than anyone else but would sanctify the alžing each year. The highest title that anyone could hold was that of lögsögumašur (lawspeaker). Every three years the alžing would appoint a lawspeaker who would recite one third of the law each year and act as the chairman of the court. Below the free land owning farmers were farm workers and basically everyone that didn't own land and below them were ómagar (vagrants and invalids) and below them were žręlar (slaves. Mostly from Scotland and Ireland) and outlaws. Slavery slowly faded away after the Christianization. Serfdom didn't really become the law until 1490 when anyone who didn't own or rent land was required to become a farm worker and not allowed to marry or travel freely.
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May 25, 2014 23:10
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Usually crimes were resolved by having the perpetrator paying the victim reparations. More serious crimes could warrant a person being sentanced to fjörbaugsgaršur which meant the person had to leave the country for three years and if he didn't he could be killed by anyone without fear of punishment. The most serious punishment was skógganga which was like fjörbaugsgaršur except permanent. For example if someone killed one of your lifestock or slaves, stole from you or slandered your name you would have to take it up with the alžing and try to reparations. If you were both žingmenn under the same goši he would probably mediate and it wouldn't have to go any further. However if someone assaulted you,attempted to kill you or killed someone close to you and you managed to get him banished but he didn't leave the country when he was supposed to it would be up to you, and your friends and family, to kill him or be considered cowardly and dishonourable for allowing him to get away with it. Sometimes this sort of thing could erupt into blood feuds which is basically what every other saga is about.
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May 25, 2014 23:47
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I should clarify that the commonwealth lasted from 930 to 1264. By the early 13 century the goĆ°orĆ° were all in the hands of six powerful families and had become more bound by geography. In the 1220's these clans started fighting for power and after 40 years of bloody civil war a vassal of the king of Norway won the war and the country became a part of Norway with alĆ¾ingi becoming more of a court and less of a parliament. When Norway merged with Denmark Iceland became a Danish colony (or province depending on who you ask). For a long time most historians views on this era was that the sinister had Norwegians taken advantage of the chaos to conquer Iceland, this is a product of the 19th century nationalist view of history that was closely related to the independence movement. Nowadays most historians agree that after 40 years of bloodshed most people saw the Norwegian king as a stabilizing force and supported a foreign takeover. It should also be noted that many of the sagas were written in this era. Slavery started to become less common in the 11th century since keeping fellow Catholics as slaves was probably frowned upon by the church. The move towards serfdom was a consequence of the richest farmers wanting to have a steady supply of workers and if the unlanded poor were free to move around they might start forming villages by the sea which would also attract the poor peasants who rented farms from the rich. There was also some moral panic that if left unchecked the poor might start fornicating all over the place. Serfdom didn't really come to an end until the late 19th century when the poor actually started forming villages by the sea. The nationalist historians mostly managed to overlook this and proclaimed that Iceland had been a classless society of farmers from day one and that any and all problems were result of the Danish being dicks. This is still a oddly common view and was even spouted by the prime minister lately. I should mention that the middle ages aren't my field so I might be oversimplifying a bit. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 12:01 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 11:42
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Randarkman posted:Are you sure this was serfdom as practiced in continental Europe? For instance I don't think Norway ever really had serfdom, though renters (called 'husmenn' meaning house-men) were very common up until the 20th century (alot of renters immigrated to America and receive free land via the Homestead Act), where people basically rented land on a larger farm for their use and worked on the main farm as payment, though there was never really any permanent legal status binding them to the land. I should have been more clear that this was all in Iceland which was a bit strange and didn't really fit in with the rest of Europe possibly due to it being a really isolated barely habitable wasteland. For a long time it was faster to take a boat from eastern Iceland to Copenhagen and then another from Copenhagen to western Iceland than to try to travel by land.
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Jun 4, 2014 02:05
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Even when reading annals written long after the middle ages you occasionally come across entries about people being attacked by blood drinking ghosts or someone spotting a sea serpent when collecting driftwood by the shore in between entries about more mundane happenings. So obviously even educated men believed in the supernatural enough to document paranormal events.
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Sep 23, 2014 05:02
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Maybe a messer? Messer just means knife in German but it also a term for a certain type of sword that was primarily uses by commoners because carrying a sword around outside of battle was a noble privelidge and messers, despite being swords in everything but name, were technically considered to be a knifes or daggers so this was a sort of a loophole allowing lowborn men to carry a weapon in self defence. But I think messers were only really a thing in the late medieval era and I know almost no thing about swords so Im probably wrong.
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Oct 20, 2014 04:20
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Do keep in mind that the sagas are at best historical fiction and at worst complete fiction. The sagas are written 200-300 years after the events they depict took place. Most of the sagas take place in the late 10th or early 11th centuries but almost all of them were written in the 13th century except for a few in the 14th. So it's Christians living in a unstable Iceland, that might well be in the middle of a civil war, writing about pagans living in a recently settled but fairly stable and peaceful(aside from the odd feud). It is likely that many of the sagas are based on tales about real people and real events that were passed down verbally but even the ones that have changed the least are bound to have been embellished at least a bit through centuries of being told around the fire. But who knows, maybe people in the 10th century really were jumping their height in full armor and saying clever one liners in the heat of battle. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 00:18
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Just have it so you're not "dead" until you've fallen over or yielded.
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Feb 2, 2015 19:14
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From studying medieval artwork I've found out that medieval buildings were actually really tiny and that huge castles are a Hollywood myth. Examples:    I have therefore unlocked the secrets of medieval master builders and plan to build a bunch of really tiny castles.
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Feb 5, 2015 17:59
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JaucheCharly posted:If he can do these tricks without constantly cutting, it's fine. Shooting like that doesn't work with a heavy bow. You can't shoot them with the hand musculature like he does. You need your back muscles and form, or you'll end up with the barber surgeon. Now I'm not an expert on archery but I“ve always been under the impression that war archery usually meant that there were a lot of archers standing together and shooting their arrows in large volleys. It seems to be me that if everyone was running around like a demented acrobat and doing all sorts of tricks and spins and jumps they'd inevitably run into each other which would make it a bit harder for them to actually shoot the enemy.
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Feb 6, 2015 02:53
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Where is the boxing glove arrow?
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Feb 14, 2015 18:02
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Were medieval mercenaries mostly noblemen? You know since the nobles were the "bellatores" and you wouldn't really except many commoners to have enough training or opportunity to become professional soldiers. Am I wrong to assume that mercenary companies would have been largely made up of landless nobles and the 8th(or whatever) sons of noblemen who weren't going to inherit anything? FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 03:32
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Testikles posted:Breaking on the wheel is far lamer than I thought it was. You were either beaten with a wagon wheel or they tied you to a wheel and then beat you. How is spending hours in pure agony with your limbs totally smashed before dying of shock not horrible enough for you? If they were feeling merciful they might bash in your skull and/or chop tyour head off before breaking the bones but that isn't exactly pleasant either.
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May 25, 2015 05:14
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Yeah the breaking wheel was a very early modern thing. As were witch burnings, something a lot of people associate with medieval times.
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May 25, 2015 06:20
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A breaking wheel pole is a pretty striking image:   
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May 30, 2015 06:29
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Being a noble was really handy in war because if everything went tits up you could usually surrender and be taken prisoner because you might bring in a decent ransom. If you were some random commoner or mercenary you'd probably get killed on the spot because prisoners you can't ransom are useless.
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Jun 18, 2015 04:11
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Kassad posted:Everyone's just jealous their revolution wasn't as big as 1789 The best revolution is the Glorious Revolution of 1809 in Iceland when Lord-Protector Jørgen Jørgensen gave the Icelanders their freedom from the tyrannical Dane after the merchant ship he was on sort of took over the entire country so they could bypass trade restrictions on non-Danish merchants and sell some soap. He never really got a chance to enact most of his reforms since his reign only lasted two months before he was arrested by the British. His flag was a lot better than the one Iceland got when it actually became independent more than a century later  Compare to that dull old Nordic cross FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Feb 14, 2016 |
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Feb 14, 2016 02:59
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HEY GAL posted:Cut. Some Spanish dude brought a real weapon onto the field. I had never seen my hauptmann so angry. What else are you gonna do when you're Czech? I think being landlock just fucks with people's heads.
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Feb 18, 2016 02:21
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I'm surprised at the lack of dicks in that picture. According to my knowledge of soldier created art it's usually 99% penises.
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Feb 28, 2016 02:35
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Medieval naval warfare: Flóabardagi (Battle of the gulf) was the first, and until WW2, only naval battle to take place in the waters around Iceland.* It took place in 1244 during the Age of Sturlungs, a time of civil war when the chiefdoms had become consolidated in the hands of 6 powerful clans that fought each other for supremacy. Flóabardagi was fought between the followers of Žóršur "Kakali"* Sighvatsson of the western Sturlungar clan and Kolbeinn "The Young" Arnórsson of the northern Įsbirningar clan. Žóršur had 15 ships and 210 men but Kolbeinn 20 ships and aproxamitely 600 men. The main weapon used in the battle was rocks that the combatants would throw at the other ships along with the occasional piece of burning wood. They also rammed each other. Despite having fewer and smaller boats as well as only half the man of his opponent Žóršur managed to hold his own for most of the battle, eventually he was forced to retreat but he had done enough damage to Kolbeinn's fleet for Kolbeinn to be unable to give pursuit and suffered far fewer casualties. The battle was thus considered an uneven tie. Kolbeinn did not appreciate this humilation and once he had gotten his bearings he sailed around the west burning all ships he came across. Žóršurs clan had once reigned supreme in western Iceland but suffered a catastrophic loss in 1238 at the battle of Örlygstašir where the almost all of the leaders of the Sturlung clan, including Žóršur's father and brothers, were killed by an alliance of Kolbeinn and Gissur Žórhallsson of the Haukdęlir clan from the south. After the battle Kolbeinn conquered all of the lands owned by the Sturlungs. Meanwhile Žóršur was at the court of king Hįkon of Norway, along with his uncle the famous poet, historian and Saga writer Snorri Sturlusson. Snorri returned home in 1239, after having fallen out of favor with the king because the king did not want to let him return and Snorri supported a coup attempt against him. Snorri sought reparations for the deaths of his kin but was assassinated by Gissur at the behest of the king. In 1242 Žóršur returned home and began to wage a guerilla campaign against Kolbeinn in the west which would eventually culminate in the battle of the gulf which marked a turnaround in the war in favor of the Sturlungs. Then there was a bunch of arson and murder and stuff. *That we know of at least. **Probably "the stammerer".
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May 21, 2016 21:33
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You unscrew the pommel and throw it at your opponent:
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Jun 20, 2016 22:26
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Why bother stabbing anyone when you can point your murdertube at them and kill them with out having to do something as barbaric as pierce their flesh with a pointy piece of metal? The civilized man only has a sword for aesthetic reasons and to compliment his collection of oriental wall scrolls.
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Jun 25, 2016 02:32
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HEY GAL posted:so, people who don't actually know how to swordfight at reenactments. All these bullshit little twirls and stage fighting. I want to hurt those guys in specific, tell me how. Hit them hard just above the knee when they leave their legs exposed. If you hit the peroneal nerve just right It hurts quite a bit for several minutes and and will cause them to fall over but it is very unlikely to do any permanent damage. This is the go to method for disabling someone using for baton wielding police. At least for the last 40 or so years after someone figured out that knocking people over the head with a cosh was a very good way to smash skulls, cause internal bleeding and occasionally straight up kill them. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jul 19, 2016 |
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Jul 19, 2016 04:31
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Siivola posted:Russians invented the Battle of the Nations because there wasn't enough violence in regular re-enactment. Unless you have a actually sharp blade doing a peroneal strike isn't going to cause any lasting damage. It hurts and makes the leg basically useless for a few minutes but after that it should be fine. It's basically the safest and friendliest way of hurting someone aside from hurting their feelings. Which might actually be a better approach. Just call them names and make fun of their twirling and nobody needs to get hurt. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jul 20, 2016 |
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Jul 20, 2016 19:37
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If they're hopping around, just herd them into a moat or something.
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It is a little known fact but stabbing wasn't actually invented until the 17th century. Spears for example were primarily used to point at things. A handful of mediveal texts mention things similar to stabbing but always from a purely theoretical standpoint as the underlying concepts of stabbing just didn't exist yet.
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Jul 31, 2016 06:26
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English, and by extension British, history seems to basically be one long tug of war between the nobles/parliament and the monarchy.
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Sep 27, 2016 23:14
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It's a bit silly that all Norsemen in the Viking Age are collectively referred to as vikings when only a portion of them actually were. It'd be like if we talked about Medieval Frenchmen and Englishmen as "The Knights" and called all Japanese during and around the Sengoku Jidai as "the Samurais". Or even if we called modern Americans "Retail salespersons".
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Oct 1, 2016 19:06
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Though I prefer Norwomen I'd probably gently caress a Norman. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Oct 14, 2016 |
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Oct 14, 2016 23:32
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The penultimate strip is relevant
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Oct 15, 2016 18:10
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Give England back to the Welsh and the Cornish, I say. These loving Anglo-Saxon bastards refuse to speak a single word of Common Brittonic. Instead they strut about like they own the plac speaking their Germanic moonspeak. Bastards should gently caress off home to Saxony or Jutland or wherever the hell they came from.
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Oct 16, 2016 03:21
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The people living in Brittany, France.
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Oct 17, 2016 04:11
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Does the Khazar Khaganate count as being in Europe? They controlled most of Crimea which I guess is sorta kinda in Europe.
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Oct 19, 2016 19:27
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From what I've read about the crusades they were usually accompanied by pogroms of Jewish populations at home as the religious fervor grew. The Peasants' Crusade of 1096 being the prime example. They nearly wiped out a lot of Jewish communities on their way to the Holy Land. The church of course condemned all of this and threatened the peasant crusaders with excommuncation but no one listened to them because obviously anyone who didn't want you to kill Jews had been bribed to say it. The crusaders where then utterly crushed by the Turks before they even got to the Holy Land. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Oct 19, 2016 |
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Oct 19, 2016 19:40
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Turks have been all over the place for like 1500 years. Those guys got around.
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Oct 20, 2016 12:51
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Broken Mind posted:. Also curious about the costs involved in raising troops, just raising resources for taxes and stuff. It cost a shitload.
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Oct 21, 2016 22:39
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Re: AlthingFreudianSlippers posted:In the Icelandic Commonwealth the ruling class were chieftains known as gošar. The country was split into four regions and each regions had about 9 gošar and each goši had his "gošorš" which is a bit like a fiefdom except not quite. The title of goši was usually inherited but it could also be sold or given. Some gošar maintained temples and holy sites and held blóts. Each goši had his žingmenn, men who followed him to assemblies, supported him in conflicts in exchange for his protection and mediation in feuds. Since any free land owning man could choose which goši to follow the gošorš of each goši wasn't really based on geography. It's however likely that people usually choose the goši that lived closest to them out of convenience since medieval Iceland was very rural without any villages and with long distances between most farms following a goši that lived several weeks travel away might be a hassle and not sit well with the goši that lived closer. Every goši was a member of the alžing, a yearly national assembly that was both a parliament and a supreme court. The descendants of Ingólfur Arnarsson, the first permanent settler, held the title of Allsherjargoši which despite the fancier title didn't have any more power than anyone else but would sanctify the alžing each year. The highest title that anyone could hold was that of lögsögumašur (lawspeaker). Every three years the alžing would appoint a lawspeaker who would recite one third of the law each year and act as the chairman of the court. However in this case most of the writing about the instituion wasn't done until the 13th century in the so called "Sturling era" when power had been consolidated in the hands of a few powerful clans which began to fight each other for power and the althing was basically just a tool in that conflict. Two of the clans eventually reached a stalemate and since both of them were vassals of the king of Norway the country became a part of the kingdom of Norway and the althing was eventually reduced to little more than a court of law deciding on disputes and criminal cases in accordance to the king's law. This is how it stayed until 1843 when the king granted Iceland a degree of self rule but it didn't have any real power and only had a advisory role. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century the althing was slowly granted more and more power and the power of the king to influence laws was limited. By 1918 Iceland was fully independent but still had a Danish king as head of state and in 1944, making use of the war, became a republic and replaced the role of the king with a similarly powerless president that could still veto laws but wasn't really supposed to. FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Oct 22, 2016 |
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Oct 22, 2016 22:01
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For Ivar the Boneless no one is really sure what exactly it refers to. One theory is that he had some sort of disability like brittle bone disease or deformed legs that prevented him from walking. Other theories include him being really flexible and limber, that the name is comparing him to a snake, or that it is a ironic nickname of some sort. Yet another theory is that he was impotent and the bone in question is his dilz. Of course in the Sagas he literally has no bones because of a curse but those weren't written until centuries after he supposedly lived so they are basically just historical fiction loosely based on actual events and people.
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Oct 31, 2016 01:39
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Being king Jeb the Fat, baron Dwayne the Cripple, or hetman Bob the Disfigured is all fine and good because that's just describing the way you are but something implying you were a coward or liar or a heretic or whatever would be more insulting.
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Nov 5, 2016 14:21
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Hey guys could you tell me about the funeral traditions in the Viking world, specifically Sicily in the 30 Years War.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:59
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In some cases these bodies were older than feudalism.
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Mar 9, 2017 02:26
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