Hello! I'm a designer/artist on a small indie game dev studio- and recently I was given the very exciting opportunity to be the lead designer of a video game!
I've had an idea in mind for months where you play as a medieval wise woman in a rural village, foraging for local medicinal plants and creating remedies for your community members, but I need to do a lot of research before I can make something even slightly accurate, but I have no idea where to start, or what references are respectable or not. I would love a point in the right direction
So my question is, what are some good books/recourses on early medieval wise women or midwives in western Europe- or recourses on general life in rural western Europe during the early medieval period?
Here's some more details about the project if anyone has other recourses that could help me during my research!
-Will take place roughly 7th to 11th century.
-Will most likely take place in England or Wales
-Will have a large emphasis on rural life
-Will have a large focus on medicinal herbs/folk remedies
-Will be illustrated in a style similar to illuminated manuscripts/woodblock prints- so art knowledge of that time would be great
-There is an emphasis on spiritual beliefs, so I would like to research how Christianity spread/interacted with paganism at this time, as well as the pagan beliefs themselves, or any other beliefs that might have been around then.
-I would also greatly appreciate recourses on accurate clothing to that time/place.
I will gladly take anything even slightly related, so please, I would love to learn!! Thank you so much for reading!!
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your creative project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists and the like, based on past experience: some people working on creative projects have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.
For more general advice about doing research to inform a creative project, please check out our Monday Methods post on the subject.