I'm most interested in England around 1300-1500, but I totally welcome any comments about any place or time close-ish to that. My understanding from the sources I have is that taverns were wine-serving establishments for the better to do, while alehouses were for the lower classes, served ale, sometimes served cheap food, and were rowdier. If I'm wrong about that, I'm sorry.
I've worked multiple jobs in modern restaurants, and I know how they work. I'm trying to do creative writing about a fictitious character working in an alehouse, but I don't know how things worked in alehouses.
I'd like to know what sort of dirty/difficult tasks would be given to the lowest person on the totem pole (the "lowly cabin boy" if you will, someone who's no better off than a serf), and what title would be given to that person. But also what sort of other people would work there that they would need to interact with.
For example, in a modern restaurant, you are greeted by a host/hostess. They seat you at a table with menus and silverware. A server (waiter/waitress) comes to your table, gets you drinks, and takes your order. If the restaurant is busy a food-runner brings the food to the table on plates using a tray (food-runners are servers but they don't have a section of tables that night). You eat, you pay at the table, and here in the US you (generally speaking) leave a tip. Bussers and servers take away the dirty dishes, and they are washed by the dish room staff.
I know they didn't really have forks back then and often used hard pieces of bread as plates, but that's about it. Some specific things I'm interested in: (if any of these fall under "well it varied a lot" do you have any ideas why it did? Totally ok if you don't.)
If they were just like modern bars, can you please elaborate? While one restaurant I've worked at had a bar section, I've only been to about 1 modern bar, and it was all loud music, sticky floors, and light effects. Ok sticky floors I could see being a thing in medieval times, but there weren't DJ booths.
1 Answers 2019-06-18
I just learned of how a gallon was equal to a casket. A quart is half a gallon. An inch is a thumbs width. etc. etc. But what about ounce and pounds. I cant find anything about it. All I know it was standardized by respective government but where did the governments get the units from?
1 Answers 2019-06-18
We hear a lot about Japan's interactions with "Western" nations during this period, especially the rapid industrialization & militarization along European/American lines, but was there a sizable Korean population in Japan during this period? How were they affected by the rising tide of Japanese nationalism?
1 Answers 2019-06-18
Like many Americans, I have a fascination with royalty. I’ve watched all the royal weddings. I also have an interest in royalty in the early modern period in my own reading.
When and how did we start having such an interest in royalty?
1 Answers 2019-06-18
I'm reading These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore. When discussing William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes Trial, Lepore says:
"Bryan’s difficulty was that he saw no difference between Darwinism and social Darwinism, but it was social Darwinism that he attacked, the brutality of a political philosophy that seemed to believe in nothing more than the survival of the fittest, or what Bryan called 'the law of hate —the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill the weak.'”
Previous books I have read that referenced the trial said that William Jennings Bryan opposed evolution for religious reasons. This book claims it was Bryan's dislike for social Darwinism that caused his dislike of evolution. Also, I have read that Bryan refused to disavow the KKK, a group that promoted social Darwinism.
Why did William Jennings Bryan oppose evolution? If it was due to social Darwinism, why did Bryan refuse to disavow the KKK? Was Bryan a racist?
1 Answers 2019-06-18
I'm working on a novel in a fictional land, and in this world their is an amalgamation of the Catholic church. Specifically similar to the Holy Roman Empire and how they endorsed various religious leaders and gave them validation of power. But my question is this, are there any notable royal figures which the Church specifically targeted? Such as strong propaganda against them, assassination attempts, or even military uprisings against ruling groups that opposed them. I'm aware of Henry the VIII, as well as the actions against perceived heretics (the Inquisition, and Templar Order come to mind first). It would be much appreciated if I could read up on more examples of this type of political/religious conflict and the results of this clash between religion and state. Thank you in advance for any replies
1 Answers 2019-06-17
1 Answers 2019-06-17
After the defeat by the Cimbri, during the Marian Reforms, three of the four animal standards were discarded (Minotaur, wolf and boar) and only the Aquila left.
This seems like an oddly superficial change for reforms which otherwise seem very practical. Was this a case of unity to one symbol or is there a definitive purpose?
Anybody able to clarify this point for me? Thanks!
1 Answers 2019-06-17
I asked this over on /r/AskHistory but I was looking for more scholarly answers. So I thought I'd post the question here.
I'm reading through the fictional series The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell, which is a take on the Arthurian mythology with a more realistic bent. It takes place during the 6th century and has an interesting take on the tensions between Paganism (Britannic druids) and Christianity during the post-Roman period.
In it the Christians are pretty militant in demanding that there is only one god (their god) while the pagans openly accept polytheism. This got me thinking about when and how Christianity became so militant against other religions.
So when did Christianity become focused on conversion and the denial of other gods & religions? Did this come from Judaism? Or was this a Roman influenced phenomenon?
1 Answers 2019-06-17
I need a few decent facts about this group, I have done research but I would figure you guys would no more
1 Answers 2019-06-17
According to the Jameses, a number of murders in the period which were assumed by local police to be one-off incidents were actually committed by a single person, probably Mueller, based on certain similarities among these crimes. These similarities include being within a few hundred feet of a railroad junction (thus the book's title); the slaughter of entire families in small towns with little or no police force; the families having a barn where the killer was believed to have hidden to observe the families; the families having no dog to warn of an intruder; the killer using the blunt edge of an axe as a murder weapon; the killer leaving the axe in plain sight; the killer covering victims with sheets or blankets prior to the murders (probably to prevent blood spatter); the killer moving or stacking bodies after the murders; the killer covering windows from inside the house with sheets or towels; and the absence of robbery
1 Answers 2019-06-17
My great-grand-father's surname who lived somewhere in what is now Ukraine was Golod, which means hunger in Russian.
After doing Aliyah to Palestine in the 1920s he changed it to a more Hebrew sounding name.
The story I'm told is that his surname was antisemitic in nature, given to his family by the powers-that-be I imagine.
I was also given the example of Dreyfus (three feet/three legs) and a couple other names I can't remember, supposedly derogatory in nature.
Do these claims have any validity? Were some people forced to wear derogatory family names and pass them down to their descendants?
3 Answers 2019-06-17
I can only seem to find very limited information on the tribes, namely the various Bedouin groups, sometimes making peace with the invading Franks. I wanted to learn more about how the crusaders may have disrupted their lives, or at least some sources as to where I could learn more about the tribes that lived during this period.
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I know the principle of nuclear fission had been widely understood for a decade or more by the scientific community, but the idea of a nuclear bomb was presumably a much more theoretical concept in the minds of most nuclear scientists.
What was the initial Japanese reaction to the bombs from a scientific perspective? Did they more or less immediately realise they were atomic? Did the US give any indication? Were Japan aware of the long-term consequences of nuclear fallout once the initial explosions had ended?
1 Answers 2019-06-17
Hello everyone!
Recently, we finished discussing the history of Rome in school, but one question I didn’t get an answer to stuck in my head.
I can’t help but wonder, do you well knowledgeable historians think that Rome was better off as part of an empire or as a republic? Why do you think so? Educate me!
2 Answers 2019-06-17
Would it not have been easier to attack enemy trenches through a series of tunnels rather than going “over the top”, making themselves easier targets? The same thing with everything in the trenches, why not build underground like the Japanese did in WWII and VC did during the Vietnam War?
1 Answers 2019-06-17
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46 Answers 2019-06-17
I know this answer must vary with geography but is there such a thing? If I remember my history lesson correctly europes history is littered with people coming from somewhere else and the only people I can think of not coming from outside Europe is the celts (the Basque?) and the Sapmi peoples.
Is european people from outside Europe?
1 Answers 2019-06-17
After an argument with my dad I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find out if what he claimed about Greeks influencing/building the terracotta was true. I wasn't able to find something definitive or understand if there was a scientific consensus on the matter. I'd love to know where historians stand on this. Thank you in advance.
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