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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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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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Wiggy Marie posted:This is more related to the culture: how much of a role did superstitions and folklore actually play in medieval life? There's a perception that diseases = possessions/demons/spirits, etc., and of course there's tons of documents with "monsters" (large fish) and such from the time. Is there any way of knowing how much stock was put into these? For the layperson in the era, beliefs that we'd call superstitions were extremely real. Demons stalked your children, illness was the result of a displeased god or an angry agent of satan, people were miraculously healed by relics, so on and so on. Faith healing and what might be called witchcraft (pagan healing rituals usually practiced by midwives) were extremely common. It should be said that a lot of the things that the midwives and other healers did were based on observation and results (honey for wound care, for instance), but they were still a ways away from anything scientific. The issue really is how one defines "superstition". If we use the wiki definition it implies that it is a belief that contradicts scientific results, so given that there wasn't a great deal of scientific understanding at the time it is tough to say exactly what was and wasn't superstitious. In other words, the "active" god, imps and demons and monsters, the protective and healing power of grace, so on and so on, was thought of as a matter of fact, not as a possibility.
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Feb 14, 2013 01:48
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Xiahou Dun posted:Any good resources on non-ecclesiastical Medieval music? I do a little, but most of it's really late. Terry Jones' Medieval Lives did a great thing on minstrels/jongleurs/troubadors. The "Song of Roland" that the guy performs is probably very close to what the real thing sounded like. Actually now that I think about it "Medieval Lives" should just be mandatory viewing for anyone reading this thread.
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Feb 14, 2013 18:52
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Vivoviparous posted:What do you think about Bernard Cornwall? The only things I've read of his were Agincourt and all of the Saxon Stories and I've loved them all. The Saxon Stories in particular I really respect both as a literary work and as a really plausible take on England during that time period. Granted I'm pretty partial to that time and place history (my master's thesis was on Alfred the Great) but it is pretty rare for an historical novel to ring that true.
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Feb 20, 2013 04:18
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Scionix posted:are you familiar with the medieval, total war games? If so, are they historically sound, generally? The tactical battles generally had accurate representations of what various kinds of soldiers did and are probably a reasonable interpretation of battles from the era, just very, very time compressed. The economics and politics really don't have much basis in reality and are just a game mechanism. I think the only game I've ever seen that is even close to being an accurate interpretation of medieval politics and economy is Crusader Kings 2.
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Mar 2, 2013 17:54
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Dirty Sanchez posted:Earlier there was talk about grains being preserved in the form of beer. What other methods were used to store perishables? There were a bunch of different ways that they preserved food, and pretty much all of them are still in widespread use today. - Salt, either solid or in a brine, was probably the most common. Salt fish was by far the most common protein in coastal areas, and everything imaginable was pickled or brined. I can't find the source now but I recall reading that salt consumption for certain groups during the period was even higher than our ridiculous levels today. To that end, a LOT of medieval cooking principles were designed to counterbalance the excess salt. - Smoking, particularly for fish. For some reason they didn't develop a great love of smoking meat. Plenty of salt was used here too. - Fermentation. Alcoholic beverages were the most common obviously, but they also fermented several kinds of vegetables (beans and of course cabbage being the most common) and plenty of cheese. - Confit. This was probably the most effective method (and easily the most delicious), but it was also the most expensive: fat cost many times what lean meat cost so this was only available to the wealthy. - Honey or sugar. Sugar was hideously expensive but honey was available in most parts of Europe, so preserving fruits in it was very common. Also regarding sword sharpness, how much of a factor was cost? I'm referencing the American Civil War, where nearly all swords made were shipped unsharpened as a cost saving measure, then subsequently (in large part) not sharpened by the soldiers they were issued to 1) because they were not used much and 2) because the regiments didn't want to foot the bill to sharpen them in the field. I'd imagine sharpening all of the edged weapons for a medieval army would be a huge logistical undertaking. bewbies fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Mar 14, 2013 |
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Mar 14, 2013 05:16
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junidog posted:If I walked up to a dude in plate armor and swung a baseball bat as hard as I could at his chest, what would the result be? Would he fell it enough to throw him off? Would it not budge and I'd eff up my wrists? Later period armor, right in the center of the chest, I think you'd probably just break the bat or drop it depending on how strong your hands are. That's the strongest point of the armor, usually with a thick ridge running right where you're striking, and plenty of padding behind to absorb the energy. He might get pushed backwards a little bit but he'd otherwise be fine. If I remember right the average person can generate about 200J with something like a bat, and that is all blunt force generated with a tool that has some give in it. Depending on the thickness and quality of the steel it might be enough energy to put an arrow or pointed weapon through the armor, but not enough to do anything with something like a bat.
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Mar 17, 2013 19:21
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Related to this, what do you medieval folks think of Pillars of the Earth? I've only seen the TV show. It is one of my all time favorite books. I think I've read the thing half a dozen times cover to cover. I think it is one of the better examples out there of winding a really engaging and believable plot line within an historical context. The treatment/description of the Anarchy was just magnificent Follett also does a pretty amazing job painting a picture of some interesting medieval lives: monk, builder, trader, etc. The historical accuracy on the smaller stuff very meticulous too, outside of a couple of unimportant anachronisms (hops being a thing for beer is one I remember, irrelevant stuff like that). The detail he goes into for building is pretty amazing. Some of the characters (Aliena are VERY modern in their thinking also, but that's not really a complaint. Also as in all of Follett's books pubic hair is mentioned regularly. Personally I did not like the TV show much at all. It rather missed a couple of the major themes, and the ending for Waleran was just ridiculous. The book is far better, so don't let the TV show preclude you from reading the book. Also I just started listening to the "World Without End" audiobook. If you're needing to blow 40+ hours on an audiobook (as I do as I have a hideous commute) it doesn't get much better than Follett's stuff on audio, particularly because the guy who reads them (John Lee) is easily the best book reader on the planet. bewbies fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Mar 24, 2013 |
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Mar 24, 2013 16:43
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Loomer posted:Do we have any examples of the Fyrd levies proving useful, or do they mostly seem to have been a 'oh poo poo, we need men! OH CHRIST THE DANES ARE HERE!' thing? Alfred got a massive amount of utility out of the fyrds. They provided the vast majority of the manpower for his burghal system, which essentially ended large-scale Viking raids into Wessex. For all their fantastic martial reputation, Vikings were really not terribly interested in fighting trained and equipped armies (duh), and in fact, they were not terribly good at it. They were at their best conducting deep raids against soft targets, massacring the local defense, then egressing long before any substantive resistance could be put together. These raids were amazing military operations, but they depended largely on freedom of maneuver and incredible speed (for the time). On the occasions when their raiding parties were caught by trained and equipped forces, they didn't do all that well (particularly if they were all laden with plunder). The burghs made moving in and around Wessex a very hazardous venture. You had to pass within a few miles of one in most places, and it provided a virtually impregnable point of assembly for raised fyrds. After a while Alfred's power over the local nobility was such that he could raise a full-time garrison (by alternating two fyrds) that made it virtually impossible for the Vikings to get into Wessex without having to fight a capable opponent.
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Aug 16, 2013 15:39
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End Of Worlds posted:This might be a little early for the timeframe of this thread, but what would the arms and armor of the British forces in the Early Middle Ages (5th-6th centuries specifically) have looked like? Was there much continuity in terms of Roman weapons, armor and tactics, or was there a resurgence of things like the Celtic longsword? Even top quality armor won't last that long in an uncontrolled/field environment, so most of the high quality Roman stuff was on the scrap heap by the time you're talking about. The stuff during this era was made by mediocre craftsmen using mediocre metal, much worse in quality than what the Romans were fielding at their peak (though similar to what they fielded, in large part, towards the end of the empire). We're talking about Anglo-Saxons here I assume? Basically, for a relatively wealthy/powerful guy, he'd wear a mail shirt over a thick leather or hide jacket plus a banded metal or leather helmet. Legs might get a bit of metal but nothing like proper greaves, but more more likely it was just leather boots. Small round shield completed the ensemble.
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Dec 15, 2013 16:26
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Baldbeard posted:The idea of being on a horse in combat seems like an obvious and intuitive advantage, but it also seems like it would be very easy to lose your weapon, get thrown off of the horse, or be pulled down from it in direct combat. I wonder if a bigger part of the use of mounted units was to control the position of the enemy and break formation, rather than to just kill more people than if on foot. I mean, the same thing can be said of modern cavalry (armor); all it takes is one guy with a good position and a high quality missile or a particularly big IED to take down a tank. Actually succeeding in doing this however is very difficult and very risky. That being said, the main thing that mounted soldiers have always brought to battle is mobility. Horses (and vehicles, subsequently) are typically so much faster than men on foot that they offer a distinct advantage in maneuver (that is, positioning yourself in an advantageous position relative to your opponent). Being big and mean and armored gives you a benefit when close combat occurs, but the main advantages you've gained was prior to any contact taking place.
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Dec 28, 2013 23:46
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Extremely broad question: how sharp were top quality swords?
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Jan 19, 2014 22:02
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1MCLMF posted:What has been the most bloodiest battle with one side losing minimal people. In other words: Has there been a battle where one side just completely destroyed the other with barely any loss? A really quick list off the top of my head, Sterling Bridge, Solway Moss and the Six Day War are about as one sided as you'll find. I dunno...73 Easting maybe? The whole GW1 was pretty much one sided.
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Jan 21, 2014 00:20
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Dirty Job posted:For those interested, Schola Gladiatoria (link here) is an excellent YouTube channel hosted by a rather well-known HEMA practitioner and historian. He has many different videos describing all manner of different medieval weapons, fighting styles, and historical issues regarding combat. The videos are a bit dry (it's just him talking in front of a camera), but I find them pretty interesting, and maybe others will too. Any other thoughts on this guy? I watched this stuff all afternoon (at work, mer). I really don't know much about weapons and the like and he was pretty drat engaging.
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Feb 4, 2014 02:52
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Dibujante posted:(similar to how US Army Personnel sign an agreement stating that their bodies are property of the state [please deny this if it is not true; it's something I've heard])? Uh, no, this is not accurate. And I think the answer to your question is fairly simple: slavery in medieval Europe was almost entirely either eradicated or replaced by serfdom.
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Feb 5, 2014 00:13
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icantfindaname posted:Why did the Holy Roman empire fail to become a centralized, coherent state like France did? This is a pretty good question. It is...incredibly complicated, probably past my ability to answer it comprehensively, but I'll try. So, as I'm sure we all know the end of the Carolingian basically established the vague outlines of what would eventually become France and Germany. Early on, the Kingdom of France and the HRE were actually quite similar: Hugh Capet (who you can probably call the first King of France) was actually elected. Ironically enough, the French kings were actually quite a bit less wealthy/powerful than the emperors were for several centuries. They basically ruled over the area of Paris and the immediate vicinity and were, at varying times, less powerful than the big dukes in France (Normandy, Burgundy, Aquitaine). Basically, the crown of France was a title with some moral authority and a fairly wealthy demense, but it didn't have much of the feudal fealties and the like that we think of when we think of KINGS. The Holy Roman Emperors were generally in a similar position; they were usually themselves wealthy duke-types, but their title of Emperor didn't carry a whole lot of legal weight with other nobles who were essentially their peers. The big shift occurred in the 13th century for both entities. For the French, it was the start of the centuries-long conflict between the Capetians and the Plantagenets. This provided a way for the Capetians to expand their personal demense significantly, and by the mid 13th century the French king was finally, generally speaking, the most powerful and wealthiest noble in the region. This had a lot of implications: now the dukes couldn't just do as they pleased, and gradually the territories of the great dukes fell to the French monarchy: Aquitaine and Normandy through the HYW, Burgundy and Brittany through a combination of marriages and divisions. So, by the end of the 16th century, the Kingdom of France was pretty close to what we'd recognize as France geographically today: from the Pyrenees to the Alps to the Rhine. This had the French king in an ideal position to take full advantage of the consolidation of power and wealth at the top of the political spectrum that occurred during the later middle ages and resulted in the immensely powerful absolutist monarchs that emerged throughout the period, French most of all. In the HRE however, the 13th century had the complete opposite effect: the "Great Interregnum" defined the period, where there was basically so much infighting amongst the electors that no one could decide on an emperor. The major nobles took advantage of the uncertainty to gobble up tons of wealth and power, so much so that their positions became basically unassailable. They further consolidated their roles with the Golden Bull of 1356, which more or less locked the electors lands and authorities in for the remainder of the empire and meant that the position of emperor could never really hope to accomplish any serious consolidation of territory under an imperial banner. It wasn't really until the unification of Prussia and Pomerania that there was a significant enough centralization of power in Germany to begin that process of consolidation. There are a million other factors: the effects of the Crusades and Reformation and the 30 Years War, the vast cultural and linguistic differences within the HRE that weren't necessarily as pronounced in France, the proximity of other major powers, reven stuff like climate and agriculture all had effects to varying degrees.
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Sep 15, 2014 17:15
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Blue Star posted:Did people really believe in dragons, fairies, unicorns, and all that stuff? Was it just commoners or did even nobility think this? How did the concept of elves/fairies evolve over the centuries? I had a professor once who started an entire semester's worth of lectures by trying to help us all understand the mindset of the late medieval/early modern peasant (this was a course on the Reformation and the 30 years war). For some reason it has always stuck with me. Basically, things we think of as "supernatural" were very, very real for these people, as real as things like radio waves or any other thing that exists outside of the visible spectrum are for you and I. There was absolutely no doubt that demons or the devil did things to people, and there was no doubt that things like grace provided a sort of shield against these things, which is why things like indulgences and penance were treated so seriously. If you think about it, in a society that predates germ theory, the idea of invisible supernatural things causing diseases and wrecking crops doesn't seem all that ridiculous...maybe less ridiculous than the idea that these misfortunes are caused by microscopically small things that are sometimes useful and sometimes harmful and currently live on your skin and in your body by the billions. Elves, for example, caused all kinds of diseases by shooting people with magic arrows and stuff.
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Sep 22, 2014 15:03
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CoolCab posted:I understand there were periods where you had to drink beer as it was your primary calorie source and without germ theory or sanitation water was a risky proposition. I understand it's small beer which is not as strong, but would this mean that everyone had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? Wouldn't even 1 or 2% beer is going to affect the baby if it's the only safe thing to drink and where you get your energy? The thing with FAS is that nowadays we've sort of been conditioned to think that a pregnant woman even smelling alcohol will cause her to give birth to a blind limbless corpse. Alcohol in limited amounts during pregnancy won't hurt anything, but the problem is that there isn't really a good way to find out what "limited amounts" really means. So, quite rightly, the medical community at large recommends no alcohol just to be on the safe side. That being said, my girlfriend's dad, who is a rather opinionated OB/GYN, has always told his patients and his friends/family that a drink a day won't hurt anything at all. So, that being said, consuming small/table beer in normal medieval quantities wasn't going to have much of any effect on things...the total amount of alcohol you'd consume over a day of drinking small beer is about the same as a glass of modern wine. Women who drank enough to get drunk regularly would have problems of course, but without access to strong beer or wine or spirits (which most people did not have regularly) it was actually pretty hard to consume enough alcohol to cause problems. So, I'm sure that FAS was around during the period, but compared to what we saw through Europe and the US during the 18th-mid 20th centuries I'm betting it was pretty lightweight. There's a pretty good reason why FAS was first documented during the Gin Craze. Malnutrition on the other hand WAS a huge problem for medieval pregnant women. The nutrients/calories in beer and wine were pretty critical for these people and cutting it out of their diet would have been a big issue.
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Sep 23, 2014 13:59
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Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and have never had issues with PTSD personally but I've had a LOT of friends and colleagues suffer through it, so that's about my level of expertise. Broadly speaking PTSD is linked very strongly to fundamental changes in brain chemistry mainly related to adrenaline and cortisol. The reason for this is pretty easy to understand: adrenaline and cortisol (and some other things) are what drive the fight-or-flight response, and when the body is constantly under stressors that drive a FoF reaction, it can change neurological patterns in the brain pretty substantially. The effect is not unlike what alcoholics and drug addicts experience: external stimuli drive chemical changes in the nervous system that can, at any time, permanently change the chemistry of the brain. The more frequent the changes, the more likely long-term problems will result. That doesn't mean that a single incident can't cause symptoms, nor does it mean that many incidents will inevitably cause symptoms, but generally speaking, chances and severity of PTSD symptoms increase with the number and severity of FoF incidents an individual experiences. So, when comparing different eras of warfare I think you can get a pretty good idea about stress levels these guys went through and draw some limited conclusions. For the most part, through roughly the first half of the ACW, warfare was about 50% marching, 49% camping, and 1% actually fighting. The fighting sucked, and was brutal and bloody, but once the day's combat was done, you were generally pretty safe. Armies would literally bivouac within sight of one another and no one was really much concerned with the other side's presence. Contrast this with WWI, where, if your unit was on the line, you were pretty much always under some manner of threat. Or, with OIF/OEF, where there weren't even "rear" areas as such, so if you were in the country, you were under some degree of threat. So, the brain, instead of being in FoF mode a handful of times a year, is wired 24/7, with spikes almost daily. More stress = greater chances of PTSD emerging, etc. The big exception to this would, I think, be sieges, especially for the besieged. For those kind of siege actions that were constantly violent and went on for months or years I suspect the effects were very similar to what we've seen in the industrial age.
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Mar 17, 2015 02:04
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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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The stuff that is being developed for the protective elements of the TALOS suit and things like it are pretty incredible. They'll probably take the final form of three layers: a lightweight padded layer containing the environmental and electronic stuff, some sort of edge-and-point resistant fabric layer, and then segmented composite armor plating on top of that. If you couple those three things together (padding, stab/edge/point resistant fabric, and hard armor) with modern materials it'd be very, very difficult to do any serious damage with any handheld medieval weapon. If you weren't having to build such a suit to be bullet resistant you could also make it quite a bit lighter than either a steel set or armor or modern ballistic sets.
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May 19, 2015 19:39
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Tomn posted:Well, that's not a good sign. Any way I can break it down to something easier to answer? I'm mostly interested in how exactly people went about sending money to the government and how the government even figured out how much money you were supposed to send in the first place in an age before modern bureaucracies and oversight. The short answer is: they didn't, at least until very late in the period. The rest of my answer is going to pertain mostly to England, I'm honestly not sure if that extends to elsewhere in Europe. Taxation was almost always done by socioeconomic tiers. Freemen would pay taxes, usually in kind, to their manor house or sheriff, the manor/sheriff to the county, the county to the earldom, and the earldom to the king. The higher you went, the more cash replaced goods as the method of payment. These duties were usually established based on the amount of land that the individual owned or presided over. Usually a lord or community could break up his tax burden however he/they saw fit, which helped to account for differences in land quality and whatnot, but also made it very easy to take advantage of people. These tax levels didn't tend to change much over generations and were often legally bound to the land. Land taxes stayed around in various forms for a long time and I suppose still exist in the form of property taxes. Eventually the nobles got sick of the king being able to arbitrarily change tax systems and that was a big driver for the establishment of Parliament; around the same time most taxes started being taken from assessments of cash and other non-land property. Communities of various sizes were given tax burdens and it was still generally up to them how they filled them; they tried individual taxes, including income tax, at some points but as you've guessed they didn't really have the oversight to make this work efficiently until long after the medieval period. Other forms of taxation, like customs (ie, paying a portion of goods to get into a town for market), tolls, and "justice profits" (fines, ransoms, etc) were a pretty big chunk of the income for larger nobles as well. One of the largest privileges of the king was the income from crown justice matters.
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May 25, 2015 17:04
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Tomn posted:Thanks! I suppose I should have guessed that the easiest way to tax someone is to tax the land they use to grow food - it's impossible to hide land, after all. Though I imagine that land assessors or whoever went around predicting how much yield the territory of so-and-so should probably produce in a year and thus how much they could be taxed must have been corrupt as all get-out. Cities had a lot of options for raising funds. For most cities the largest source was customs taxes on merchants and other sellers who wanted to sell in the city's market. The simplest way to do this was to tax by the cartload: carts were close to standard size and it was pretty much impossible to get one into the city some other way so they'd just collect the cash from the carter as it came through the gates. They could also tax market stalls, or in the case of widely traded commodities, tax by volume (ie, wool, alcohol, wheat, etc). Later in the period guilds and licenses became a major source of income: a guild would buy a license from the town for a pretty huge sum, which would then grant the guild most of the power to regulate their specific trade within the town. There were dozens of other ways to raise money: fairs, bridge tolls, rents, sales taxes, and so on. You sometimes saw wealthy citizens donating directly to the city as you've described, though this was much more common in free cities/burghs/boroughs than in demense cities (as these citizens were basically lords who "owned" the city). More commonly they'd raise money through establishing guilds: church guilds to build/maintain a church, guilds to establish/maintain a watch or a constabulary, things like this.
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May 26, 2015 17:20
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http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CJCM6XRXugI/Su4wkDRlu3I/AAAAAAAABIg/U718CyTkymE/s280/Windows-214.jpg does anyone know of an authentic period sketch that looks like this?
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Jul 4, 2015 21:18
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I finally finished "The Last Kingdom" and loved it, a lot. I wrote my undergrad thesis on Alfred and I absolutely loved the books and all of it was just great and if you haven't seen it yet and you read this thread you should go watch it, now.
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Feb 25, 2016 05:25
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I love Vikings and TLK both; the great thing is that TLK is virtually a sequel to Vikings....Ubba and Ivar the Boneless (Ragnar's sons from Vikings) are characters in TLK.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:01
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:21 |
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how do I make pretend war violent, but not too violent?
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Jul 20, 2016 20:14
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