How did seafaring technology in 1300 compare to the state of the art achieved by the Roman empire? Had the medievals forged ahead in nautical tech by 1300 or were they then still catching up in technology lost during the fall of the Roman empire?

How was the steel for medieval crossbow prods made? Was it always pure steel or did smiths ever experiment with alloys that included other metals?

How did steel crossbows in the middle ages compare to crossbows made of horn and sinew composites?

When did it become acceptable for women to learn reading/writing? Were women allowed to read/learn when they were menstruating, or was that considered 'dangerous'?

Do historians in general view this period as the beginning of capitalism, starting with the Italian city-states and seeing a road from them to Lisbon & Antwerp then to Amsterdam and London much later? I'm trying to remember Braudel correctly (but could be wrong) but he seems to have placed the foundation for European capitalist domination in this era.

Also, how extensive was the Jewish merchant presence inside of Europe (or outside) at this time?

What were the most important innovations in agriculture that happened during this period? What were their consequences?

What were medieval doctors actually pretty good at treating?

A bunch of questions about books and scribes:

• When someone was paying for a book to be copied, who provided the original that the scribe would be working from? Would the client usually borrow or rent the book for someone else, give it to the scribe(s), and then return it afterwards? Would they tell the scribe which book they wanted, and then the scribe would do that? Would they have to depend on the scribe or scribes already having a copy of the book in their possession?

• Say I'm a medieval author. How would I promote my book, and encourage people to copy it (and read it)?

• What sort of materials would scribes-in-training have practiced on in the era before cheap paper?

• Do we know anything about medieval filing systems? How would, say, charters or legal documents be organized in a medieval archive? What about books in a library?

• Speaking of libraries, one major focus of libraries today is conservation, and some late medieval libraries would have had texts dating back to the early medieval period. Would they have taken any special measures to protect them from damage, or restore damage due to age?

• For books of the Bible that weren't used in liturgy, what were they mainly used for? Like, the Gospels and Psalms would get read out in church a lot, and ditto the Torah for Jews in Synagogue, but what about the Apocrypha or something like the Book of Esther? If someone told a scribe "We need a copy of the Book of Judith, so we can ______" what would most likely go in that blank? Interested for both Jewish and Christian communities.

• What was the social class level of the people paying for whole books to be copied? I know they would be part of the elite, but how elite? Owning a city? Owning a nice house? Somewhere in between?

Finally, I'm a layman with an interest in Paleography. What would you recommend I read? Is there a standard text on the subject I should start with?

I have a few questions:

1. At the time of the creation of the French standing army, at the end of the Hundred Years' War, how many states in Europe had standing armies? How large were they? What did the French reform that enabled them to afford to maintain a standing army of about 18000 men?

2. How did the French turn the Hundred Years' War around, after losses at Agincourt and Verneuil? How was Charles VII able to raise more men? What changed tactically to allow the French to beat the English several times in the last decades of the conflict while they had recorded very few victories against them in the previous decades?

3. How efficient was the siege artillery used during the last phase of The Hundred Years' War? I believe Kelly DeVries makes a case that it wasn't very efficient.

What was the source for the metal of coinage during this time? How much specie was in circulation in Europe before the discovery of the Americas, and how did it flow through the economies of Christendom?

For everybody, how were "Marches" characterized in the High Medieval period (ie, when there was not something like the Saxon frontier of the early Middle Ages)? My general perception of the term is a bit like "frontier" as areas of low state power, shifting loyalties, etc, but given that there were also Marches between, say France and the Aquitaine, and Imperial Italy and the rest of Italy, is this still true, or does it really just mean "border"?

/u/Enrico_Dandalo: What lead Tuscany to become such an economic powerhouse in the Late Medieval and Renaissance world? Or I suppose the secondary question, was it actually, or did Florence's later cultural prominence lead to Tuscany's vibrancy being overemphasized compared to, say, the Po Valley or Naples?

Also, Machiavelli has a substantial section in the Florentine Histories about one Niccolo di Lorenzo or Cola di Rienzi, who apparently overthrew the traditional nobles of Rome and attempted to establish a restored Roman Republic. I have had a lot of difficulty finding any concrete information on him, so what is the deal with him anyway?

What shapes would jugs tend to have been? Were roundy ones and kind of tubes with bulges in the middle (baluster?) particularly popular in Europe?

How are jug shapes categorised?

I'm interested in Islamic as well as Christendom, if anyone covers that.

Maybe for /u/itsalrightwithme

What was the social role and function of knightly orders in Spain and Portugal and how did it change towards 1525? For example Order of Santiago, Order of Christ, Order of Aviz?

My reading about Portuguese explorations make it difficult to understand what was the exact nature of them. Early on, the orders seem to be distinct military, financial, landowning organisations. While later, at about 1500s, it seems they are more prestigious, ceremonial titles to award distinct noblemen?

How was the paper making industry developed? Were there enterprising businessmen who supplied paper to multiple monasteries and later to multiple printers? How big did the paper making and selling business get over the centuries?

This is a question for anyone/everyone on the panel...

I'm interested in common family life, after the fields are plowed, the tools mended, and the work was done for the day. What would common families do during the evening? Was there a storytelling tradition, or singing accompanied by instruments, or games? Would they visit neighbors, or stay with the close family? How did this family life change over time?

Thanks!

Did medieval knights wear head crests and extravagant clothing in combination with their battle armour or was that only reserved for effigies/jousting/parade? ( heraldic crest helmets, gilded helmets, painted armour, baggy sleeves, robes, etc.)

feathers http://i.imgur.com/eTb8SnL.jpg

head pieces http://i.imgur.com/U9NhTAq.jpg

iconic head pieces http://i.imgur.com/baokryW.jpg

What dyes were available, especially in Ireland?

I presume woad, madder and weld were fairly standard across all of Europe. Would kermes have been available by this time?

I believe there was whelk dying in prehistoric Ireland, for purple. Did that continue?

How did people keep time? If it was through church bells, did someone manually ring them every hour? If so, how did that person keep time?

What are, in your opinion, the most interesting developments in technology/society/culture in this period of time?

Were there any prominent businesswomen during this period?

Are there surviving personal memoirs of peasants or ordinary, non-religious folk from this period? Written by them, not by say the Inquisition transcribing court proceedings. What do these tell us about the daily lives of ordinary people?

Why didn't Portugal become part of Spain, like the rest of the Iberian kingdoms?

English banking seems to be more of an early modern development than a late medieval one, but the early modern English cloth and wool trade's early expansion took place during the time period covered in this AMA. Where did English merchants get funding? Were there domestic lending institutions of a sort? Or was there a significant presence of foreign lenders/bankers in England?

What sort of beads would have been used in rosary beads/paternosters? Would there have been differences between them and purely decorative beads?

Is this era really called the Age of Thrones, or was that just a reference to the TV series, which you specifically mention? If so, how did this name come about, since the rule of monarchs in Europe extends for centuries before and after this period?

Here's a question mostly for /u/kittydentures :

I remember being in an art history class ages ago where it was stated (probably hugely oversimplistically) that around 1200-1300 and maybe a bit beyond, the ideal of feminine beauty was fecundity, so you'd see lots of paintings of ladies with bellies and hips showing under their body-covering garments, kind of mock-pregnant, in a way.

1. Is this right?

2. Was this something clothing - and, I suppose, especially underwear - would have been designed to emphasize?

3. Were medieval undergarments meant to be seen? It's difficult to look at a Victoria's Secret catalogue (very, very difficult, let me tell you...) and not conclude that these things are there to be looked at moreso than to do anything, um, practical or functional with the body. Except maybe some of the flannel pajamas, which do seem comfy. Anyway - was lingerie a thing in any level of Age-of-Thrones-ish-era society?

I asked this a couple weeks ago but never saw a response. I'm hoping /u/itsalrightwithme can answer this.

How did the election process for the Holy Roman Emperor come about? How did the idea for the seven electors occur and the process to become Holy Roman Emperor happen?

This period saw the rise of the urban workers, trades and the guilds.

How rigid was the guild system in the end? Both in the sense of outsiders getting into the guilds by apprentice schemes, but also from the point of a person already in a guild. Is there any documented mobility from one guild to another? How is the workshop inheritance done when a master dies?

How was someone working in a trade outside of a guild policed? Was it something the guilds did themselves or whose responsibility was it? What were the sanctions and were they carried against the manufacturer only, but could the sellers or middlemen also get into trouble?

One fool can ask more than thousand wise minds can answer...

Hopefully I'm not too late for all the medieval-y goodness!

My question is another one about economic history, more specifically the 'commercial revolution'. I'm less interested in it as a 'cradle of capitalism' and more in its effects on the time. If we move away from the teleological 'feudalism-to-capitalism' narrative, is there really any revolution left? Did this revolution cause a lift-off in trade (and, more specifically, inter-regional bulk trade)? (I'm looking for the opposite of what happened with the collapse of the roman economy.) Did your average peasant or urban laborer see a big difference in their living standards or in the material culture surrounding them? I suppose, the crux of the question, is was it really such a big deal at all?

What were the differences between the French and English succession structures that allowed ruling Queens in one but not in the other?

Was there any drug use (besides alcohol) at this time?

What can you tell us about alchemy? How did that overlap with other fields of science? Did it have applications in medicine?

What did nuns wear? Is it true that Hildegard let her nuns wear jewels? If so, where would these jewels come from? Did they cut diamonds? If so, how?

Is it likely that when they performed a morality play, they would wear costumes?

What does "Carmina Burana" (the text, not the music) tell us about medieval society? What was the intended audience? How similar was it to other medieval works?

What were the practices around childbirth like? Or other things to do with women's health?

I tried to post this question in the sub a few weeks ago but never got a response.

As far as I can gather from what I have read, liquor began to be distilled and was discovered around the 12th Century from this thread from three years ago.

That thread's top comment has some information that helped me a bit, but it was from three years ago and is poorly cited. So I had a few questions to add to this. During the late middle ages, how available was liquor to people? Was it more of a luxury item for royalty or could a common person easily purchase some? Were there any big distilleries of the time or was it mainly done small scale? Are there any techniques that were discovered then that we still use today when we distill liquor?

Thanks in advance for the response!

For /u/gothwalk, probably.

Do we have any idea what apple varieties were grown?

I saw somewhere that strawberries were wild, not garden grown. Is there any evidence for that, or is it just the type of strawberry, rather than where it grew/whether it was gardened?

What kind of "odd jobs" would people do around this time that aren't as prevalent or seem out of place today? Or jobs with a similar theme that functioned vastly different from today (e.g. a peasant dung farmer vs a sewage man today).

I hope this isn't too broad!

Are there any records of naval combat outside the Mediterranean during this period? How was it conducted?

Was the Reformation(s) as it(they) occurred inevitable or are other options such as multiple national churches e.g. the Ultraquists possible? If so which possibility do you feel most likely?

More pottery questions: What sort of glazes would have been typical of the time?

And kilns and firing temperatures?

What was a Late Medieval Burgundian or French Ordonnance lance? Were these lances just a way of making sure that the armies got the desired composition? I.e., the King of France / Duke of Burgundy / whatever didn't want to end up with too many crossbowmen and not enough pikemen or whatever, so if a compagnie d'ordonnance had, say, 100 lances consisting of 100 men-at-arms, 100 coustilliers, 300 mounted archers, 100 pages, 100 pikemen, 100 crossbowmen, and 100 handgunners, then that was a properly constituted compagnie, but you couldn't say that, say, Jean-Pierre the man-at-arms and Charles the piker were in one lance, while Gerard the handgunner was in a different lance?

Or did lances have a distinctive administrative existence, so that you could definitively say that Jean-Pierre and Charles were in lance #7, but that Gerard was in lance #12? Were salaries paid through some sort of lance-based administrative system, for example?

Did it go further, and lances have a distinctive military existence? For example, did the man-at-arms have authority over the rest of the lance, and was he accountable for disciplining them?

What were the most famous mercenary companies and how would you incorporate them into a Total War game (what kind of battle gear, coat of arms, style of fighting etc. did they favor)

What would be good books to look into to aquire more information about northern European history during the 14th and 15th century?

How common was kidnapping at this time, and if or when it happened, what was the motivation?

What did censorship look like at this time?

What kind of trance rituals existed in Europe at this time? I have learned about choric dance and liturgical chant. Are there more examples? What can you tell me about these traditions and their purpose?

How did the wealthy and elite show their status?

Was there any subculture that did NOT believe in magic, religion, or mythical creatures?

Did many people live on the streets or as vagabonds? If they did, was that a dangerous life?

I have a question about judicial duels in Germany. I know that were asymmetrical duels between man and wife where the man had to fight from a hole in the ground, were there any other circumstances where one side might be given an extra advantage?

For instance, if one combatant was basically The Mountain would he be given a handicap?

Was there a lot of fear among the nobility and royalty during the black plague around continental Europe? Or did they feel like god favored and protected them, when compared to the peasantry?

As a male bastard child of the king or a powerful noble, how far up could I reasonable expect be able to climb in society?

Is inheriting my father's land and title out of the question if he has a legitimate son? What if he doesn't?

Is there any truth to the barbaric stories like the atklavida in which that guy is unknowingly fed his own son's heart, and the streets run with blood?

• What was considered fashionable dress at the time?
• Were there any fashion companies who produced RTW collections, or was most clothing sewn at home by the wearer?
• Were there multi-brand retailers, or any brick and mortar clothing stores?
• Were there alternative clothing styles that would have been perceived as punk/counterculture compared to mainstream dress?

Is it a meaningful thing to say that one country was richer, or poorer, not necessarily in a lot of gold sense but more of an actual economic output and technological level sense, or plain simply how well nourished the avereage peasant sense? If yes, is it true that Eastern Europe was not much behind Western Europe, this phenomenon that the West is much richer and more advanced did not exist yet? I

Following on from /u/boyohboyoboy's and /u/1337_Mrs_Roberts's questions and /u/sunagainstgold and /u/AshkenazeeYankee's answers:

What did tradesmen/craftsmen's families do? I presume the oldest son would learn the craft/trade, and the wife and daughters would spend a lot of time spinning, gardening, and doing other household tasks. Would the whole family help out/learn the husband's business? Would daughters be expected to marry into a similar trade? Would younger sons be expected to set up on their own, or would they apprentice to some other trade?

In particular, I've seen unsourced claims that blacksmiths' wives would forge arrowheads, as that's what blacksmiths' taxes were paid in. If true, would she knock out a couple of arrowheads while the forge was hot but the husband was doing some other task?

Would there be a tradition of at least one child taking on a religious life, like becoming a priest or nun?

how often did people become "famous" for the way they looked? It seems to me that the ideas of beauty were so extreme and it is a little weird to think that in a time without photography, a single person could be famous "throughout the land" for her beauty.

If someone was famous for being beautiful, what was likely to happen to that person? Would they be married off to someone of a higher class? Would they be presumed to be morally pure?

What kind of oral hygiene did people practice? If they ate sugar and honey they must have also had some tooth problems sometimes. Did they have toothbrushes or something similar?

What was it like being a child growing up in this era?

I've read City of Fortune, but it pretty much ends before 1550 or so, which makes sense as the book is about the rise and fall of the empire. My questions: what is life like in 1500-1700 Venice? Do they still trade? How profitable is it? What is life like? Are a majority of people becoming landowners? Lot of questions I know, but it really is fascinating.

What were some major innovations in medicine in this period? Are there medical practices from this era that have survived to today?

Did they have wizards?