And how did sexual taboos, in general become, taboo?

This seems like a simple enough question but I can't seem to find any answers for it. I know that on Lewis and Clark's journey that they went on the rivers, and I'm sure it rained during their trip so I'm wondering how they would keep their essential and easily damaged items like paper from getting wet since they didn't have materials like plastic. That goes with camping too, of course there were times in the old west where people would be out 'camping' for one reason or another, how did they keep from getting wet? I thought of this while playing Red Dead Redemption 2, it is just a game but I noticed that some of the tents look like a fabric of some sort which water could seep through, that prompted me to wonder how they actually did stop from getting wet back then.

Thanks in advance if anyone knows.

I’m especially interested in Britain. :)

So hey, I'm writing something involving a bounty hunter during a medieval period, were there any bounty letters or wanted posters depicting criminals around at that point? Or anything similar? Thanks.

I know that mountainous and insular geography played a strong role in the prominence of city states in Greece, but 1,500 different ones?! How was it that these cities maintained even partial independence and a sense of their own identity? This seems like an insane level of division compared to other societies, ancient and modern. Wouldn't city states unifying into one political body to combine their populations and resources give them an edge over competing city states? Isn't this why we see so many much larger sociopolitical bodies in history? Thank you for any clarification!

What was the proportion of knights (nobility) and men-at-arms, compared to mercenaries, compared to peasant levies? Were the levies really mostly poor farmers and the like? The period I'm interested in is between the 10th to 12th century. (Something like William The Conqueror's army in the Battle of Hastings) Thanks in advance.

Google said it was Benjamin Franklin but there are some questions that say "Who invented electricity Edison or Tesla?". I thought Tesla only invented the lightbulb.

When divulging into Frankish and French history, I learned that the names Clovis and Louis both etymologically derive from the same name: Chlodovech/Chlodwig/Hlodovik (however you want to spell it) which only diverged into their current forms centuries later. In historical records there are four kings named Clovis and 18 kings named Louis. If the two modern names were the same name back then, then why is this the case? Why is it that King Louis I is not considered to be King Louis V if there were 4 people with the name before him? Was it due to the Carolingians not recognising the legitimacy of the Merovingians like the Normans did with the Anglo-Saxons? If so, why did it not change after the ascension of the Capetians, especially if the Capetians claimed descent from Clovis I?

I’m looking some books that go over the general history of the Klan from its inception. Books that focus on specific period are also welcomed. Thanks for everything in advance!

This is an uncited claim in Art & Money by Marc Shell, and I can't find anything else about it online.

While I was documenting a grandmaster of the Hospitallers, Bertrand de Comps (1236-1239), I found some info that he was reprimanded by the Pope because the Hospitallers under his command were collaborating with the Hashashin against other Franks in the Holy Lands, particularly against Bohemond of Antioch.

But info was very scarce (one mention in French wikipedia) so I came here to look for other sources. Thank you!

How did average medieval people view the ancient times or something like the Roman Empire? Did they consider that they lived in The Dark Ages themselves or feel that there had been better times and more advanced civilizations? Or did they believe they were living in a better time or did they conceptualize past times with greater detail at all?

Did this vary between people in different cultures and with different sociological status?

It seems like elections recently (as far as I have been following them... I'm in my late 20s) are very much "that's my guy, I'm voting for him" or voting along party lines. I know this wasn't supposed to happen, and that Washington warned against partisanship and parties, etc. But has there EVER been an election in the United States that people didn't primarily vote based on party loyalty? Was there ever an election where it seemed like, no matter your background, both candidates seemed to have some appeal and it really came down to a hard look at individual policies, etc, before just jumping on the party bandwagon?

I've looked at the previous answers relating to this topic, but they all mostly deal with the wealthy and nobles. How often did poor people in medieval Europe bathe or wash themselves?

The Italian peninsula was fragmented into a series of small states which could have easily been gobbled up by the Ottomans.

Were the little city states of Venice and Genoa really that powerful? I know they held territory outside their cities but their territorial scope still paled in comparison to that of the Ottoman Empire. Not to mention the close proximity of the Italian peninsula to Ottoman lands.

Was it the threat of all of Catholic Europe descending on the Ottomans? That doesn’t seem plausible given that none of Orthodox Europe including Russia descended on the Ottomans, nor did any other Christian nation. And by 1453 (year of Constantinople’s conquest), the Rus’ principalities were free of Mongol dominion and could threaten war on the Ottomans but they never did.

Also, why didn’t the Ottomans ever conquer Slovenia?

I'm watching The Last Dance and the suits the players wear are HUGE.

Growing up in the '90s, it felt like everyone wore baggy pants, baggy shirts, and generally baggy clothes. Why? How did this become the trend among most people?

Especially for the lower class people or working girls who wouldn't have the resources and riches of the nobles?