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May 1, 2017 03:19
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 03:17 |
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"Do not miss my lovely bowl lest your children be born simple" "Oh yes that is very good babies" (nsfw)
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May 1, 2017 04:21
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May 1, 2017 07:13
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Slightly obscure question for this thread: are there any surviving 1st hand accounts of what it actually felt like to be a soldier in the middle ages? There's a million accounts of fighting but it's all stuff like: "And Sir Joe Bloggs rode out with 300 spears and presently coming upon a great company of his enemies, he did set about them with great vigour and violence and they defended themselves likewise until, their hearts failing them, they did turn to flee. And then gallant Sir Bloggs and his men did do terrible slaughter amongst them, so that it is said not one man escaped either the blade or the ransom." These sort of passages are interesting in their own way but you never get to see beneath the surface with them. What did it really feel like to be a soldier in a garrisoned fortress looking out over a much larger besieging force? Or a cold and hungry man at arms on the plain below, gazing up at the walls that he'd soon be assulting? Basically, if anyone knows of a Diary of an Ordinary Grunt in King Edward III's Army, I'd love to hear about it.
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May 3, 2017 22:39
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I'd imagine it would have been very boring and uncomfortable but the occasional raping and pillaging really made up for the rest. Most dudes probably would have been too busy trying not to starve to death to want to write even if they could.
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May 4, 2017 01:19
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Pistol_Pete posted:Slightly obscure question for this thread: are there any surviving 1st hand accounts of what it actually felt like to be a soldier in the middle ages? There's a million accounts of fighting but it's all stuff like: Not really though? Even someone like Orderic Vitalis who has a very wide scope gives a lot more tactical information than that, but battle is a relatively infrequent feature of medieval warfare. quote:Basically, if anyone knows of a Diary of an Ordinary Grunt in King Edward III's Army, I'd love to hear about it. Because writing was not normal education for commoners, and hiring a scribe isn't cheap, there are more knightly accounts of warfare. However, we do have at least two, maybe 3 examples from commoners that I can think of off the top of my head: Ramon Muntaner's Crónica, the Luzerner Schilling, and (arguably) Gutierrez Diaz de Gamez's El Victorial (Gamez is a man-at-arms so not poor but also non-noble). For noble accounts the Scalacronica and Jean de Joinville's account of St. Louis's crusade come to mind. Edit: the letter from Alfonso VIII of Castile to the pope after the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa is also of interest. http://deremilitari.org/2014/11/three-sources-on-the-battle-of-las-novas-de-tolosa-in-1212/ He refers to himself as Emperor here which is a title occasionally used in the middle ages by Castilian and Leonese monarchs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperator_totius_Hispaniae Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 11:58 on May 4, 2017 |
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May 4, 2017 03:15
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Last year I shot this thing on a stick in a medieval castle in central Europe. Any guesses? http://imgur.com/BIO6elt I suppose it was just used to clear the moat.
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May 8, 2017 21:26
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lllllllllllllllllll posted:Last year I shot this thing on a stick in a medieval castle in central Europe. Any guesses? Uh... was it metal? Could be some sort of scoop for hotshot or something.
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May 9, 2017 01:32
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LingcodKilla posted:Uh... was it metal? Could be some sort of scoop for hotshot or something.
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May 9, 2017 07:01
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Lacrosse Stick or Pool Skimmer
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May 9, 2017 12:40
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unsure about that wire--it could be 19th century
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May 9, 2017 22:13
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It's a medieval tennis racquet back from when tennis was still played with burning Saracen heads.
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May 12, 2017 01:53
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FreudianSlippers posted:It's a medieval tennis racquet back from when tennis was still played with burning Saracen heads. AKA - The Good 'Ole Days
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May 12, 2017 16:56
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DandyLion posted:AKA - The Good 'Ole Days Welcome to the
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May 13, 2017 01:31
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I was recently reminded of the story of Pietro Querini, who sailed on a ship from Crete in late 1431 intending to go to Bruges, but was caught in a storm and shipwrecked in Northern Norway. The fact that a ship would sail directly from the Eastern Mediterranean to the North Sea in the 1400s made me wonder: would ships from other states in that region ever make the trip to Flandres or even further east, like the Baltic? Is there any evidence of Ottoman, Mamluk or even Byzantine trade ships showing up in Northern Europe in the later middle ages, let's say the 1300-1500 period?
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May 26, 2017 19:01
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Pistol_Pete posted:Slightly obscure question for this thread: are there any surviving 1st hand accounts of what it actually felt like to be a soldier in the middle ages? There's a million accounts of fighting but it's all stuff like: "And Sir Joe Bloggs rode out with 300 spears and presently coming upon a great company of his enemies, he did set about them with great vigour and violence and they defended themselves likewise until, their hearts failing them, they did turn to flee. And then gallant Sir Bloggs and his men did do terrible slaughter amongst them, so that it is said not one man escaped either the blade or the ransom." These sort of passages are interesting in their own way but you never get to see beneath the surface with them. What did it really feel like to be a soldier in a garrisoned fortress looking out over a much larger besieging force? Or a cold and hungry man at arms on the plain below, gazing up at the walls that he'd soon be assulting? Dan Carlin kinda talks about this in his Hardcore History episode(s?) on WW1. Lots and lots of boredom and marching without ever really seeing the enemy, with the occasional high-intensity battle, but even then it was a lot of waiting. He contrasted it with the trench warfare experience of WW1 where you're basically a few hundred yards from the enemy at all times, under constant fire and pressure. Not sure what his sources were for ancient battles, though. There's this description by Geoffroi de Charny, who was a French knight: "In this profession one has to endure heat, hunger and hard work, to sleep little and often to keep watch. And to be exhausted and to sleep uncomfortably on the ground only to be abruptly awakened. And you will be powerless to change the situation. You will often be afraid when you see your enemies coming towards you with lowered lances to run you through and with drawn swords to cut you down. Bolts and arrows come at you and you do not know how best to protect yourself. You see people killing each other, fleeing, dying and being taken prisoner and you see the bodies of your dead friends lying before you. But your horse is not dead, and by its vigorous speed you can escape in dishonour. But if you stay, you will win eternal honour. Is he not a great martyr, who puts himself to such work?" also, "And one should take pleasure in hearing about, listening to, and recounting the good deeds, the great feats, and the admirable utterances of such people who are thus striving to achieve, have achieved, and have perfected themselves in such knightly qualities, both those who have now departed from this world and those who are still living. We therefore learn from the good knights and men-at-arms whose great achievements and honorable deeds of prowess and of valor have been related, described and told above and which they have accomplished through suffering great hardship, making strenuous efforts, and enduring fearful physical perils and the loss of friends whose deaths they have witnessed in many great battles in which hey have taken part; these experiences have often filled their hearts with great distress and strong emotion."
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May 26, 2017 20:53
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So I've finally finished reading the entirety of this thread, but I'm still confused by one thing that wasn't really addressed. How the hell did travelers communicate with one another? I get that "travel" as we think of it would be largely exclusive to pilgrimages made by the wealthy and you could presumably get by with some latin at any monasteries you happen to stop at, but what about every village, town, or city in between? There are tons of languages and dialects you can run across when traveling today and that's after centuries of language consolidation thanks to colonialism, mass media, centralized governments, and a number of other influences. I would imagine regional dialects would be much more common in this era and make communication incredibly difficult the further away from home you got. How did trade even work? I understand a linga franca was eventually established in the Levant, but was there some precursor to that? The silk road had been active for centuries, and I understand that the goods changed hands several times in shorter hops, as opposed to one guy driving a wagon train the entire length of it, but surely there were at least some people that made much longer trips and I'm curious how they handled that. Do you somehow hire a translator for the trip or purchase a slave local to your destination that will serve that function? Was there a group that specialized in this task and trained for it? These all seem like expensive options for the rich, what did regular people do? Just some guy that got swept up in a crusade and found himself halfway across the world, what would he do to talk to locals when the army stopped? Or did they not, instead spending all their time with their own in crusader camps? What did sailors do when they reached their destinations? Surely they didn't spend all their time aboard the ship patiently awaiting the next lading? Mondian fucked around with this message at 03:38 on May 29, 2017 |
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May 29, 2017 03:34
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You find trade languages throughout history. Phoenecian was popular at one point later a dialect of Greek and so on. Arabic was popular as gently caress from west Africa to SE Asia. You also don't need one dominant lingua Franca. Most times you aren't having one dude take a sack of silk from China to Egypt, it traded hands s bunch of times. Really it's enough for e everyone to have a trade-functional grasp of what the neighbors are speaking.
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May 29, 2017 03:39
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the imperial army in the 17th century was a bunch of germans and slavs speaking italian to spanish people the dudes spoke a german that was like...one third other languages. ironically it's easier for me than modern german because english is like that too when the guys i study throw down, sometimes they insult one another in several different languages at once they also seem to have picked languages up faster than we do, probably because if you can't read or write you have no choice but 100% immersion in the language you're trying to learn, whereas no matter what language i'm studying the internet is still in english
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May 29, 2017 03:52
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I remember reading that in Roman times the brothels would have paintings on the walls of various sex positions. You simply walked in, pointed at what you want, paid the madam and got down to business. Probably not much different in Medieval times. Every traveler needs a bed for the night, booze, food, and maybe a whore. Not hard to get by with pointing and gesturing and waving money about. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 04:18 on May 29, 2017 |
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May 29, 2017 04:15
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Uhhh 1) It's called Lingua Franca for a reason 2) I'm guessing you're an American with like 2 years of high school Spanish or whatever, but language learning is a complicated thing and the vast majority of people are/were multilingual throughout ever. 3) Depending on trade routes, pidgin languages exist hey. 4) Hi I'm a historical linguist AMA.
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May 29, 2017 07:02
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Xiahou Dun posted:4) Hi I'm a historical linguist AMA.
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May 29, 2017 10:14
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Zereth posted:What's the worst language? every language with logograms or tones
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May 29, 2017 13:25
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I think that it's time for a new thread. The op has left over half a year ago. And people unfortunately think that they have to read the whole thread before posting:Mondian posted:So I've finally finished reading the entirety of this thread So how about we make a new thread with this kind of op: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3785167? With the addition that you don't have to read before posting.
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May 29, 2017 13:29
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Xiahou Dun posted:4) Hi I'm a historical linguist AMA. If there was ever a topic in here deserving of its own thread...
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May 29, 2017 17:36
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Hogge Wild posted:I think that it's time for a new thread. The op has left over half a year ago. And people unfortunately think that they have to read the whole thread before posting: I read the whole thread because I enjoyed it 
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May 29, 2017 19:05
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Mondian posted:I read the whole thread because I enjoyed it yes, this is one of my favourite threads too, but old and long threads scare people away, and we'd get more people posting with a new thread
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May 29, 2017 19:10
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Hogge Wild posted:every language with logograms or tones I specialize in Ancient Chines so ummm.... (And also, to be pedantic, no language, to my knowledge, actually uses logograms for its writing system in a way worth talking about. Like I'd have to stare into space for a long rear end time to come up with a bunch of logographic examples in Chinese. They're mostly not dumb.) Also tones are cool. MrYenko posted:If there was ever a topic in here deserving of its own thread... There's a thread in SAL about Linguistics and users a foolish pianist and Kraus (among others I'm probably forgetting) are just as good as I am so it'd be weird. If I ever started something it'd be with them at least knowing they could join in, plus I think I'd spend half the time copy and pasting my Intro to Linguistics lecture notes. (I saw you, person who asked what the hardest language is. The answer is your mom.)
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May 30, 2017 05:51
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Hogge Wild posted:I think that it's time for a new thread. The op has left over half a year ago. And people unfortunately think that they have to read the whole thread before posting: Do it then!
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May 30, 2017 13:51
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Xiahou Dun posted:(I saw you, person who asked what the hardest language is. The answer is your mom.) I didn't say hardest, I said worst.
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May 30, 2017 22:17
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Zereth posted:I didn't say hardest, I said worst. Solresol?
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May 30, 2017 22:37
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Zereth posted:I didn't say hardest, I said worst. O. Esperanto. Definitely Esperanto. It is the stupidest thing ever.
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May 30, 2017 23:28
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Xiahou Dun posted:O. Elaborate?
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May 30, 2017 23:44
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This is getting really derail-y, but : "O hey I'mma make a shiny new universal language for everyone so that everyone can communicate with each other but then hey why don't I throw grammatical gender and a bunch of irregular verbs in just because and o hi I just made Italian with the serial numbers filed off. Teehee I did such a good job." It's trying to be "universal" but it only cares about a small subset of Indo-European languages. It's super silly.
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May 31, 2017 00:01
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No gender? Vestigial cases? Super simple conjugation? Yeah the universal language is going to be English sorry nerd not-Italian.
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May 31, 2017 00:34
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It basically already is, just go to any academic conference or business deal or whatever and a lot of it's in English. Some odds that Mandarin wins out eventually but that would involve geo-political weirdness as well as the whole Chinese language standardization fuckery being resolved.
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May 31, 2017 01:12
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Cyrano4747 posted:No gender?
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May 31, 2017 01:54
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I will not rest until we bring back the thou/you distinction. And at least like another dozen cases. Ablative or bust, baby.
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May 31, 2017 03:50
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Xiahou Dun posted:I will not rest until we bring back the thou/you distinction. gently caress declining my nouns. While comedic, this is pretty spot on to how people used to learn Latin, and all the case bullshit is accurate as far as I can tell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8 ...I'd rather go full non-inflected and give up on tenses.
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May 31, 2017 04:17
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 03:17 |
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Speaking of italian, I'm looking for no-bullshit renaissance clothing. Casual stuff that can be worn for fencing or outdoors, preferably making me NOT look like a clown. Something that an italian noble would wear for sports. I'm thinking about going to the Conquest Cup in Istanbul in the next couple of years, and the dudes have a rule where you have to dress up in historical garments. Since giant codpieces will most likely cause trouble, we'll play it safe.
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May 31, 2017 10:00
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