Hello everyone.
I'm an aspiring author that's making a medieval fantasy and for the types of stories I'll be writing, its gonna be very important that I have my world figured out so I am working on that. However, I've had trouble understand the Middle Ages better.
Most titles confuse the hell out of me, even after trying to research them. And I still have trouble grasping how the politics were, how people lived, the economy, all those sorts of things. I've tried researching online and while its helped a bit, at the same time it confuses me more, Are there any particular websites or books perhaps that you would recommend to help me better understand the Middle Ages?
Thank you very much in advance.
2 Answers 2019-01-02
1 Answers 2019-01-02
Europe has numerous towns - like Dinkelsbühl, Germany - that are preserved in roughly the same state they were in at the time of building. In Brazil, Ouro Preto and Mariana are similarly preserved.
The United States has some areas that bring back memories of colonial towns. Many of them try to recreate the experience of colonial America, like Colonial Williamsburg and parts of Plymouth, but as far as I know there isn’t an example of a preserved colonial town in the United States, let alone one where people live normally and don’t exist to recreate the actual experiences of colonists. Why is this?
1 Answers 2019-01-02
Much is made of how impressive the roads, aqueducts, building materials are, but who actually designed them? And as a followup, who mandated their construction?
1 Answers 2019-01-02
Russia annexet Crimea because "it used to be Russian". China is threatening Taiwan because they see it as part of China. The Falkland islands have been disputed for some time, and even invaded by Argentina and then taken back by the UK. Meanwhile Sweden isn't trying to reclaim parts of Estonia nor does Sweden try to retake Finland and Norway. And Denmark isn't trying to reclaim the south of Sweden despite it historically being German. Is there a historical reason to why some countries seem to obsessed by historical borders whereas others are not?
1 Answers 2019-01-02
[deleted]
1 Answers 2019-01-02
If you look at a picture of Babylon today, it is abandoned and in ruin, no one lives there, but why? Babylon has been inhabited for centuries, was one of the first megalopolises, and is even mentioned in the Bible. The city itself has been the capital of two major empires and stayed a major city in other empires. It wouldn't make sense for people to just leave the city, especially when it is so well known that most in the Western World have at least heard of the city. So, why do people not live in the city of Babylon?
1 Answers 2019-01-02
From my understanding the units that the Soviets pulled from the Far East were key to the Soviet counter offensive against the Wehrmacht. The Japanese weren’t yet at war with the Americans and early in the war it appeared that the soviets wouldn’t last long against the Germans. So why didn’t they invade? I could see them easily trying to make a land grab to try and get some or more of the land they lost to the soviets in 39’
2 Answers 2019-01-02
Please Be Aware: We expect everyone to read the rules and guidelines of this thread. Mods will remove questions which we deem to be too involved for the theme in place here. We will remove answers which don't include a source. These removals will be without notice. Please follow the rules.
Some questions people have just don't require depth. This thread is a recurring feature intended to provide a space for those simple, straight forward questions that are otherwise unsuited for the format of the subreddit.
Here are the ground rules:
Top Level Posts should be questions in their own right.
Questions should be clear and specific in the information that they are asking for.
Questions which ask about broader concepts may be removed at the discretion of the Mod Team and redirected to post as a standalone question.
We realize that in some cases, users may pose questions that they don't realize are more complicated than they think. In these cases, we will suggest reposting as a stand-alone question.
Answers MUST be properly sourced to respectable literature. Unlike regular questions in the sub where sources are only required upon request, the lack of a source will result in removal of the answer.
Academic secondary sources are prefered. Tertiary sources are acceptable if they are of academic rigor (such as a book from the 'Oxford Companion' series, or a reference work from an academic press).
The only rule being relaxed here is with regard to depth, insofar as the anticipated questions are ones which do not require it. All other rules of the subreddit are in force.
32 Answers 2019-01-02
Did the crews for the nuclear bombings understand their payload?
1 Answers 2019-01-02
Guess I'm mostly thinking about women's suffrage in the United States, but I'm curious if there were any women that opposed the idea of women gaining the right to vote - and why - and how people came around to the idea.
1 Answers 2019-01-02
2 Answers 2019-01-02
There is a lot of hearsay and rumour online about why Prince Albert penis piercings were named after Prince Albert. Is there any evidence to support these claims? If not, then how did rumours become so widespread that the piercing was named after him?
1 Answers 2019-01-02
2 Answers 2019-01-02
1 Answers 2019-01-02
1 Answers 2019-01-02
During the Spanish Civil War, Nazi Germany provided extensive support to Franco's Spain in the form of the Condor Legions, as well as encouraging Italy to submit volunteers. Ideologically, Spain was quite similar to the other Axis powers. So why didn't they choose to join the Axis powers in the Second World War like other fascist countries such as Romania?
2 Answers 2019-01-02
1 Answers 2019-01-02
The rest of the world doesn’t seem to like it as much as us. We already had a national sport in baseball. But then, some way some how, tackle football became this huge phenomenon. I mean, Super Bowl Sunday is basically a national holiday. This even extended to our colleges so that football became even more important than education. It’s the most popular high school sport throughout the country. How did this develop, and what’s prevented it from gaining this much popularity around the world?
1 Answers 2019-01-02
looking over some BB designs in ww2 you'll notice that several were designed not in the ab/xy forward and aft configuration but in a very unique ab(x) all forward.
namely the hms Nelson and Dunkerque of the French Navy but also paper ships with the ijn izumo and apparently the Russian navy Lenin classes.
what made naval designers consider this design? what were the drawbacks and advantages?
2 Answers 2019-01-02
I'm reading this book called "Medieval Warfare: A History" and in the introduction, called "Warfare and the Middle Ages", the author, Michael Keen, states the following:
True, the military model of feudalism, which has been widely used in order to explain relations in the upper echelons of medieval society in terms of a hierarchic structure of contracts, based on grants of land by superior lords to lesser men in return for military service, is now looked at askance by many scholars.
English is my second language and I learned what "askance" means, which is already pretty good. I should probably just keep reading, but I'm annoyed that he didn't add a footnote to explain this point. This is basically what I've been taught in school so I'm curious as to why it's controversial.
edit: typo
1 Answers 2019-01-02
My understanding of heavy cavalry in this time period is that its effectiveness revolved around using the sheer mass and momentum of the charging horses to crash through and shatter enemy infantry formations.
What happened when 1000 mounted knights squared off against 1000 mounted enemy knights though? Would they just couch their lances and ride directly into each other in close formation?
There doesn't really seem to be much discussion of this that I can find online, so I am curious if anyone knows how a situation like this would actually play out.
2 Answers 2019-01-02
1 Answers 2019-01-02
I'm writing a story about a murderer who kills people who support local law and its corruption throughout the kingdom. Now at first I thought this would be pretty simple, I know a fair bit about corruption and tyranny studying Nazi Germany and the USSR. But I don't know as much as I should about the middle ages and I'd like some advice. I'm trying to find three equivalencies of what used to happen in the USSR where children would rat on their own parents, examples in Poland where police would shoot innocent people out of compassion for not wanting their comrades to have to bear all the burden, and the third being a similar case to the Marvin Heemeyer incident in the USA.
I thought maybe the children selling out their parents and sibling to a inquisitor so he could inherit the farm, or even just to gain favor with a local lord. A soldier working for the local guard killing suspects in their witchhunt when he knows they're most likely innocent, and the local government isolating a peasant individual and executing them to safe guard a local lord from having certain secrets come to light. I know I'm going to have things wrong here, and I'm sure there's more accurate ways of representing these stories. Any help is appreciated.
Edit: Also feel free to tell me that none of my examples makes sense or even just link or name material for me to read related to the topic, I'm not here to fight you guys, you're experts here and my knowledge on the middle ages and even modern history is pretty limited. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to answer!
1 Answers 2019-01-02