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| Posted By : cussedness - 9/19/2005 6:44 AM | A lot of us here are writing about the Medieval or psuedo-Medieval in our works and I wanted to rec three that I have found most interesting lately.
Two by Joseph and Frances Gies
Life in a Medieval Village
Life in a Medival City
And
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner. It isn't so much a history of the spice trade as of the pyschological and social aspects of spice, as condiment, aphrodisiac, medicinal, magical, and other uses that people from the earliest times attributed to it. An absolutely fascinating book and very easy to read.
Janrae Frank
Blood Rites http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
http://www.janraefrank.com |
| Posted By : Jeff Stehman - 9/22/2005 5:25 AM | I highly recommend the Gies books, as well as others by them in the same vein. They tend to be easy reads and very informative.
--Jeff Stehman |
| Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 9/28/2005 8:23 AM | The Time Life Book series WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE is great for writing resources as well. Great pictures of archeological finds, historical info, literature tie-ins. Just a great source of information for many time periods.
http://www.angelinehawkes-craig.com
The Swan Road
http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.asp?ISBN=1-55404-239-9 |
| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 9/28/2005 9:27 AM | Thanks for the tip. Let's take the evil out of Medieval :)
"Voice of the Spoiler" The Sword Review--- Coming Soon!
"Oathbreaker" Mythica Vault
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net |
| Posted By : Angeline Hawkes - 9/29/2005 4:11 AM | lol!!! No emoticons!
http://www.angelinehawkes-craig.com
The Swan Road
http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.asp?ISBN=1-55404-239-9 |
| Posted By : cussedness - 10/8/2005 7:32 AM | excellent suggestions, folks.
In addition, I'm currently reading The Prince by Machiavelli. It's a very interesting read.
Janrae Frank
Blood Rites http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
http://www.janraefrank.com |
| Posted By : darkbow - 10/23/2005 1:39 PM | | The Gies books now come in a collected format (with lots more color and pictures than earlier editions I've seen). Sorry, can't remember the title of the collection. I just bought it a couple of weeks ago and haven't gotten around to it yet. |
| Posted By : Jeff Stehman - 10/24/2005 5:10 AM | I'm not finding it. Please post the title when you get a chance. On the plus side, that'd be a great set to have. On the down side, I've spent the last couple of years piecing together my Gies collection via used book stores.
--Jeff Stehman |
| Posted By : darkbow - 11/30/2005 8:45 PM | | Sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread. The title of the collection is "Daily Life in the Middle Ages." It's an illustrated collection of the three Gies Middle Ages books. The book I have is a Barnes & Noble Book, so I'm guessing you can only find it there. Hope this helps. |
| Posted By : Jeff Stehman - 12/1/2005 8:18 AM | Many thanks. Looks like I put it on my Amazon wish list a few weeks ago.
--Jeff Stehman |
| Posted By : Frank - 1/2/2006 11:25 AM | | I've seen a whole bunch of really attractively illustrated coffee table books on the subject but by far the most informative text I've ever read on the middle ages is a little book called The Medieval Machine by Jean Gimpel. It is a short little book with no illustrations and is quite a dry read but it's packed with interesting information, more so than you'd expect from a 300 page trade paperback. It reads a bit like a thesis and probably was but I don't think you'll find a more informative text easily or for less money. |
| Posted By : Paul Marlowe - 11/21/2007 9:14 PM | I was just about to recommend The Medieval Machine when I saw the post above! So, here's another one: Donald Hill's A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times. Covers civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and things like clocks and instruments.
Paul Marlowe
www.PaulMarlowe.com |
| Posted By : tchernabyelo - 11/22/2007 6:52 AM | I have Hill's book, very informative.
I'll have to go and check my bookshelf for the precise details, but I have books on mediaeval travel, crime, and industry which are all very useful for background information. I'll try and remember to get the details up here in the next few days
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2 (forthcoming)
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"When Winter Came" - ASIM#32 (forthcoming)
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming) |
| Posted By : RHFay - 11/23/2007 10:45 AM | I have those two books by Joseph and Frances Gies, as well as Life in a Medieval Castle. I also have The Knight in History by Frances Gies. I have always found books by this husband and wife writing team to be informative, but still enjoyable. They can be good introductions to the social history of the middle ages.
These books are definitely a good resource for someone writing a medieval-styled tale.
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.
|
| Posted By : tchernabyelo - 11/26/2007 8:30 AM | OK, here's some of the bookshelf, as promised...
"The Medieval Traveller", Norbert Ohler, ISBN 9780851154909 - invaluable information from contemporary accounts about what getting from place to place was actually like.
"Crime In Medieval Europe", Trevor Dean, ISBN 9780582326767 - again, with a wealth of detail from contemporary material which may give a much better insight into the nature of crime, the methods of solving it, and the judicial process (including the level of corruption prevalent - plus ca change...)
"Making A Living In The Middle Ages", Christopher Dyer, ISBN 9780300090604 - invaluable for convincing world-building ni terms of the economic lives of everyday folk, shoudl yo ucare for such a thing
"Power And Profit: The Merchant In Medieval Europe", Peter Spufford, ISBN 9780500251188 - details the rise of mercantilism and the market for luxury and one-of-akind goods among the aristocratic houses of Europe that spurred on much exploration and opening of new trade routes.
"Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine", Nancy G Siraisi, ISBN 9780226761305 - if your characters are ver going to get sick or injured, then this one's a must...
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2 (forthcoming)
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"When Winter Came" - ASIM#32 (forthcoming)
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming) |
| Posted By : cussedness - Today 10:14 AM | Another Gies title, Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
Blood Rites
www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
www.janraefrank.com/Vanilla.1.0.1/ |
| Posted By : Steven the Git - Today 11:01 PM | I have a book called the Age of Arthur, which deals with Britain with the ending of the Romans and the coming of the Saxons. Covers the era in many ways.
If you want the Renaissance, then April Blood is fantastic. The Medici are those Machiavelli learned from. |
| Posted By : tchernabyelo - 12/6/2007 7:37 AM | Yes, April Blood is well worth reading, though a touch dry in parts (I suspect translation issues). For a while I had a scene near the climax of a story where the MC and the villain fight at the top of a bell-tower, but I had no reason for them to BE up the bell-tower. April Blood provided me with a reason - the severed heads of traitors to the city were put up in prominent places and often left there for years. Since the MC was fighting to clear the name of a wronged family and reveal the true traitors, I figured it made perfect sense for him to go up there and remove the old heads, replacing them with ones from the real bad guys. Perfect! It is that sort of telling detail that makes many of these books well worthwhile.
For travel by sea and contacts with foreign lands, J H Parry's "The Age Of Reconnaissance" and the accompanying book of extracts from actual contemporary documents is invaluable.
One thing I really need to know a lot more about is how communication actually worked on those voyages - when the ships came across a people who spoke no language in common, how did they enter into trade negotiations? How quickly did people learn langauges? There are lots of historical records indicating that some people could speak several langauges fluently, and I'm wondering if people found it "easier" to do that because, frankly, there wasn't all the other wealth of information that we now have to deal with cluttering up their brains? It's been said that until the 17th or 18th century it was, in effect, possible for someone to know "everything" (hence the final flowering of true polymath geniuses around that time). Anyway, if anyone has some sources on that I would love to know about it.
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2 (forthcoming)
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"When Winter Came" - ASIM#32 (forthcoming)
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming)
"Call Centre" - Necrotic Tissue (forthcoming) |
| Posted By : cussedness - 12/6/2007 1:33 PM | I imagine that extensive use of sign language would have been part of the communication. As for knowing many languages, languages with a shared root can be figured out and learned easier. For instance, certain words in English are similar to Dutch and German. It is a bigger challenge to learn Japanese, for instance, because we have no shared linguistic roots.
I have ordered some books on medieval children. However, I am taking them with a grain of salt when I get them in case the authors have an agenda. It is always good to cross reference your reading. You will often find that there are contradictory facts that put an odd shading on the material.
One book I did read tried to put a set of rose colored glasses on medieval childhood, and yet if you read a book on crime and punishment of the middle ages, you find children as young as seven going to the gallows for crimes that today would earn them a slap on the hand.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
Blood Rites
www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
www.janraefrank.com/Vanilla.1.0.1/ |
| Posted By : Steven the Git - 12/7/2007 12:30 PM | Certain the author of April Blood was Italian, so yes, could be issues there. Pretty certain I had problems too.
But the bodies hanging on walls still stands out in my mind. That's a good idea.
Interesting point about the multinational crews. Have to imagine most picked up the language of the main nationality. If you're surrounded by that speech in a work environment then it could be easier to pick up.
As for kids, they had it bad enough in the Victorian era, so before that...
To be honest, most times and places it is a struggle to grow up. Hence large families. |
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