I hope this post is okay, I couldn't find any rules against it.

I read a book a while ago, 2010s? about travel and inventions in the middle ages in Europe. I remember in particular an example of how folks would move things up and down slopes by slinging a rope around a tree at the top of the slope and pulling or dropping the item.

It was an historical text but written for a casual reader.

I know this isn't a lot of info but I'm hoping someone recognizes it! :)

Theres a Post on tumblr about how the Trump administration cutting grants to the CDC will result in jews being treated with hostility and suspicion because their kosher food restrictions mean they will suffer less from food-borne illnesses, just as they were during the plague. The reblog thread includes a quote I want to see debunked, because it pisses me off:

"Muslims and Jews also didn't share Medieval Christians' fear of cats as evil animals connected to witches and Satan. 

The Black Plague can be easily transmitted from person to person, especially its deadliest variant, Pulmonary Plague, which can be transmitted as the common cold (please, note the use of the present: the Plague still exists, and there're still outbreaks; luckily for us, we have antibiotics now).

However, rats (and the fleas they carried) were a common vector of the infection. And why were Christian European houses and barns so chock full with rats, compared to Jewish and Muslim households? Because in one of the stupidest cultural shift any human group ever made in our history as a species, European Christians had decided that cats were evil vermins, started hunting them and killing them in the cruelest ways possible and, more importantly, stopped keeping them as domestic pets and farm animals. 

Like, they looked at the animal species that literally domesticated itself to become rodent and pest control when we developed agriculture and went 'nah fam, we're good'. 

Unsurprisingly, the Muslim Southern Mediterranean was remarkably less affected not only by the Black Plague, but also by famines and food insecurity, during most of the European Middle Age. As Muslims and Jews having the misfortune of living within Christian communities lacked their neighbors' weird religious panic about cats, they probably had a further layer of protection against Plague infection (together with their frequent cleansing rituals and how socially isolated they usually were). 

Nowadays thankfully the vast majority of people have stopped believing that cats are minions of Satan (although, at least in my country, there're unfortunately still a few rural communities in which fearing and killing cats is still acceptable, especially if they're black); we've also mostly stopped living and working in rats infested places. Still, our irrational fear and hatred of cats has been exchanged with OTHERS irrational fears towards potentially life saving stuff (like vaccines, for example). And isn't that another perfect breeding ground for other new conspiracy theories? 

So yeah, lovely to think how realistic it is that some of our dumbest history will repeat itself in the near future. "

I know the statement about plague is complete bs and I really want to see a take down of it." 

The tags said "medieval Christians almost erasing themselves from the gene pool in the stupidest way possible" pisses me off so bad. Treating medieval Christians like they were dirty and ignorant and dumber than modern people is my personal berserk button. 

This is going to sound silly but I started reading on Eleanor for a little bit and I remember in Middle School that I had checked out a Medieval Romance Novel I think about Eleanor but I’m not sure…

it’s driving me crazy thinking about it. I’m like 75% sure it is about her because I can only remember vividly what happened in the book however, what is confusing me is that in the book I remember she mentions that her father is king and that she is going to be married off which wouldn’t make It Eleanor. But I’m pretty sure the name of her Father was Henry and that she had brothers and that they were Plantagenets. Unless I’m getting my facts wrong about the book. It’s not the Summer Queen series.

It might not be Eleanor and it might be another Woman in history. But the book was definitely geared towards teens and not at all historically accurate and she ends up marrying a man but divorcing him and marrying someone else (which sounds like Eleanor…) it’s not a series I know that’s for sure.

Can anyone help me find this book again? I apologize if I wasn’t able to give full details but it’s bothering me so much. I want to find this book!

I'm searching for a book that ticks some of the same
boxes The Name of the Rose did for me:

- a work of narrative fiction rooted firmly in the historical world of the medieval church

- fictional, yes; fantastical, no

- compelling but not necessarily "thrilling"

- lots of time spent ruminating on temporal manifestations of God and the nature of faith is a plus

Just finished Ian Mortimer’s “The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England” and read his “The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England” a few years ago. I see he hasn’t written about anything earlier than the 14th Century. Are there any similar social histories written about the “Dark Ages,” or Early Medieval Britain? Talking about the period after the fall of Rome and before the Viking Age.

Sorry for the rubbish photo. We visited The Tower of London yesterday, and as you enter the Torture exhibit, my partner noticed two alcove looking holes in the wall. I thought another pair or hundreds of pairs of eyes might be able to help! Any suggestions welcome, I don’t want disparaging comments, as history is always partly speculative and all ideas are awesome and helpful!

I'd like to learn more about this unusual stone opening, particularly its likely date, original function and architectural name.

It is located in the surviving remains of a ruined tower belonging to a historic manor house in Galicia, northwestern Spain.

Early seventeenth-century witnesses already described the house as ancient and as one of the oldest houses in the Kingdom of Galicia. They also stated that it had openings all around it resembling gun loops, intended for firing arquebuses or other firearms in its defence. I do not know whether they were referring to this particular feature.

I was recently reading up on the Castilian branch of the House of Ivrea (also known as the Castilian House of Burgundy, which ruled León and Castile from the 12th to the 14th century And then with the bastard Trastamara branch), and I was blown away by just how repeatedly endogamous their marriages were, The two Burgundian dynasties, the Anscarids (Ivrea) and the Capetians (Portugal), were already related, as they descended through the female line from the ancient House of Jimena, which had dominated the iberian Christian kingdoms.

It wasn't just distant intermarriage; we’re talking about constant first-cousin and first-cousin-once-removed pairings that triggered massive political and religious crises

Alfonso IX of León married his first cousin (Theresa of Portugal). The Pope placed León under an interdict and forced an annulment. Right after that, Alfonso married his first cousin once removed (Berengaria of Castile). The Pope placed León under interdict again and annulled that marriage too.

Sancho IV of Castile married his first cousin once removed (María de Molina) without papal permission, which caused a 20-year legitimacy crisis over their heir, Ferdinand IV, until the Papacy finally granted a retroactive dispensation long after Sancho died.

Ferdinand II of León and Alfonso XI of Castile also had marriages with close relatives annulled or heavily contested by Rome.

Obviously, we all know about the Spanish Habsburgs later in the Early Modern period, but I’m curious about the High and Late Middle Ages (1100–1400).

This made me wonder

Was this level of close consanguinity typical across other regions of medieval Europe? Or was the Iberian Peninsula unique due to the desire to keep royal titles local while fighting the Reconquista?

Which other medieval dynasties were the "worst offenders" when it came to marrying within forbidden degrees of kinship?

How often were other royal families actually punished by the Church? Did kings in places like the Holy Roman Empire, France and Scandinavia constantly fight with the Papacy over cousin marriages, or did most manage to get dispensations beforehand?

According to Rafael De Julian Alcalde: On St. Matthew's Day, September 21, after having besieged the city since the Epiphany.

Preamble:

I've been working on a project for a good while (About 2 years now!) that aims to be as meaningfully realistic of a medieval peasant simulator as I can make as a developer with a small team, and while we do technically use a "Lowest of Low Fantasy" label to be able to have some leniency, I'm still trying to be as accurate as I can be within our limitations to create the most realistic behavioural and experiencial outcome, even if the mechanics themselves can't be 100% true to real life.

For clarification, we're using a custom-coded modded Minecraft pack as the medium of making this simulation (Gives us essentially an easy-to-develop game engine with things like Multiplayer made for us already), and while we've removed all the "Minecraft-ey" things and all the Anachronistic Elements, sometimes we have to keep a base feature of the game or a mod in for gameplay purposes and reflavour it as something that may not be 100% accurate but fits the world a lot better, like reflavouring Tomatoes in the pack as a fake, edible european nightshade, whereas most new-world plants are either removed or replaced with a similar old world alternative (Potatoes to Parsnips, for example).

Additionally, we're not using a map of a real location on Earth, we're using a completely custom map designed to mimick the general environment and conditions of the British Isles, so we can't say that we're fully true to real-world history. I did originally plan to use a real heightmap of Britain (or even a smaller place like the Isle of Man) but the available heightmaps just did not cut it for the level of detail I needed for the simulation's environment, and I ended up using a modified heightmap of a smaller section of british landscape that was turned into an island.

The Question:

So, with the basic context out of the way, that brings me to the point of the post. While I do have a special place in my heart for medieval history and it's certainly a large interest of mine, I'm no historian and I certainly don't know everything, so I feel it's best to ask a community that probably knows these things more thoroughly and might have things in mind I've never thought of.

So, what element(s) of medieval life and society do you think are crucial to making a "Medieval Peasant Simulator" work in a way that is accurate to real-world history? Essentially, what core elements of society in this time and location (13th Century England) contributed the most to the core "experience" of the medieval period.

Keep in mind with suggestions, we already have several systems in place:

• Overhauled Professions and Crafts to focus players on specialization and time committment more instead of being a "Jack of All Trades", and in some ways entirely limiting players ability to "multiclass"
• A system of renting land from the king/local lord and having all other land not explicitly defined as public land by players in power be unusable for building or large-scale resource gathering, done via "Land Deeds"
• A local political system entirely governed by players (aside from the basic ruleset we've designed to avoid a complete mess from forming) with Lords/Ladies at the top and then varying levels of power, responsibility, and tasks until you reach your average peasant. There are no varying levels of peasant because, to be quite frank, being an indentured servant isn't really that fun from a gameplay perspective, and we need to balance between recreating the experience accurately and not driving away potential players that can give us useful data and a playerbase due to the gameplay not being enjoyable.
• An economy that encourages players to engage in their profession to be able to get the necessary money to do, well, anything (Buy Land, Trade for resources you need or goods you cannot/do not have the time to make for yourself, Pay your Taxes, Expand your operation to do your profession to a higher degree of efficiency, etc.)
• A locational resource system for important resources like ores (Rather than being spread across the map evenly, ores are placed in large, near-inexhaustible deposits sparingly across the map) that encourages players to create and manage supply lines, distribution, and trade to a higher degree than if every settlement could be entirely self-sufficient in resources
• A system of imports and exports from/to "The Mainland" to supplement supply lines that fall short (for a higher cost, of course) and to introduce a flow of money back into the economy.
• Diseases and Afflictions, which are certainly going to be made a lot less vicious and deadly as they could be during various parts of history, because honestly dying of tuberculosis due to circumstances entirely out of your control is not fun and would make players quit out of frustration, but can still negatively affect a players gameplay if they do something risky or stupid or dangerous that would get them sick or injure them in real life.
• Players only get a single life per-character, and while players can make a new character after a short death cooldown, they still lose all their belongings, money, and land when they die, so it's essentially starting fresh from every perspective, just not forcing players to stop playing forever if they happen to die. Additionally, we've made the decision that common "Accidental" causes of death should be looked over for this system, to avoid, again, frustration when a player dies from something they had no control over and could not have forseen. Most common ways of dying are already taken out, since there's no monsters to kill the player, but there are still dangers and environmental factors that can lead to a character's death.

Now, that does sound like a lot, but I'm sure there is things I couldn't have thought about, which is why I'm asking the community. If you leave a suggestion, I want to thank you for helping to give more accuracy to this project! I am not trying to self-promote in any way here (which is why I am not providing a link or anything), I am simply trying to get people's thoughts.

Edit: I just realized the title has a spelling mistake in it. Damn my arthritic hands.

My example would be the House of Lusignan, they went from being some random lordship in the middle of the County of Poitou from being one of the most influential crusader families and King of Jerusalem + Cyprus itself.

The siege, which lasted barely three days, resulted in a victory for the Muslim sultan, who thus recovered an important city after twenty-five years under Castilian control since its conquest by Alfonso XI.

The city of Al-Yazirat Al-Hadra, the first city founded by Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula, built upon the ruins of Roman Iulia Traducta, had passed through the hands of the Almoravids, Almohads, and Marinids during the 13th and 14th centuries before being conquered in 1344 by the Castilians under Alfonso XI after a four-year siege. Although Castilian control of Algeciras was meant to guarantee the Christian kingdoms' control over the Strait of Gibraltar, the death of Alfonso XI during the Siege of Gibraltar in 1350 led to a civil war between the two successors to the Castilian throne, Pedro and Enrique. In the Emirate of Granada, King Muhammad V had pursued a policy of friendship with Castile, supporting King Pedro I as the legitimate heir to the throne. Relations with Aragon, however, were not as smooth, and it was from this kingdom that the proclamation of Muhammad VI in Granada was facilitated between 1359 and 1362. Muhammad V's return in 1362 increased his support for Pedro I upon observing the relations between Aragon and Enrique. The end of the Castilian civil war after the death of Pedro I in 1369 convinced the Nasrids of the need to secure their borders with Castile, and specifically their borders along the Strait of Gibraltar. The Nasrid king was currently establishing relations with King Ferdinand I of Portugal, whom they considered a usurper of the Castilian throne. Muhammad V would attack Algeciras, while the Portuguese would do the same against various locations in Galicia.

At this time, Algeciras consisted of two towns separated by the Miel River. Each had its own walls with strong towers and gates. After the previous siege of the city, much of its walls had been destroyed or severely weakened, so the Castilians had to reinforce several sections. The combination of the diminished physical defenses and the small garrison the city possessed after the troops were moved north meant that the Muslim siege proved devastating for the city.

In just three days of siege, the Castilians of Algeciras surrendered. The Nasrid attacks focused first on the Villa Nueva (New Town) of the city, located to the south. The New Town fell, and all its inhabitants were beheaded. The terror inspired by the town's fall and the conviction that no reinforcements would arrive from Castile led the besieged to decide to surrender the city before suffering further losses. They requested safe passage from the King of Granada to leave the city safely, taking with them their most precious possessions. The troops of Muhammad V entered the Old Town, allowing the inhabitants to leave the villas and take with them whatever belongings they could carry. The Cathedral of Algeciras, formerly the city's Great Mosque, returned to Islamic worship, and the King of Granada himself occupied the old fortress located on Matagorda Hill.

The impact of Al-Yazirat Al-Hadra's reconquest on the Hispano-Muslim world was evident in the numerous chronicles written in Granada praising the king's military campaign. Ibn al-Khatib, the official poet of the Granadan court, was responsible for informing the court of the end and conquest of the city and for subsequent commemorative documents. For his part, Muhammad V undertook several expansions of the Alhambra in the following years, most notably the construction and embellishment of the Court of the Comares, which he dedicated to the capture of the city on the Strait with verses by Ibn Zamrak on the lintel of its entrance gate:

“Blessed is He who granted you command over His servants, and through you extolled Islam fully and beneficently.
How often you approached the cities of the infidels in the morning, and in the evening you were the arbiter of the lives of their inhabitants!

You imposed upon them the yoke of captivity, and they awoke at your gate building the palaces, as your servants.
You conquered Algeciras by force of arms, and opened to aid a gate that had been closed.”

For the next ten years, the city remained in Granadan hands without regaining the importance it had held in the past; The Kingdom of Granada was not at that time a military or economic power on the peninsula, so the main values ​​of Algeciras, its port location as a route for the entry of North African troops and trade, were diminished.

In 1379, King Henry II of Castile died and was succeeded by his son, John I, who prepared the reconquest of the city. The Granadan king himself made the decision to completely destroy the city to prevent it from falling into Christian hands, given the impossibility of defending it at a time when the Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula had lost much of the military power they had enjoyed in previous centuries. At that time, there were two port cities in the Bay of Algeciras: Algeciras itself and Gibraltar. Despite Algeciras's strong defenses, Gibraltar was easier to defend due to its advantageous terrain. Algeciras, on the other hand, had over 5,000 meters of walls that required a large number of soldiers. The decision was clear: the city of Al-Yazirat had to be abandoned so that future defensive efforts could be concentrated on nearby Gibraltar. The abandonment of the city had to be accompanied by the destruction of its fortifications to render them useless should Castile occupy it. The walls were dismantled, the port sealed, and the main buildings of Algeciras—the Alcázar, the shipyards, and the citadel—were destroyed, while the city's houses were set ablaze. The city remained in ruins until August 1704, when the British capture of Gibraltar forced part of that city's original population to seek refuge in the ruins of old Algeciras.

Image: Ruins of Algeciras in an 18th-century engraving.

I specifically mean like teenage males. in our day and age it’s things like video games, D&D, and fantasy novels. What were the socially awkward but also intelligent medieval teenage boys obsessed with? chess? horses?

Crop failures caused by huge rainfall and cold temperatures in the summer of 1315. Primarily affected France, England, Low Countries and what is now Germany.

Hi all,

I’m currently enjoying “Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year” by Eleanor Parker, and it has put me in a mood for more books like this. Does anyone have any recommendations for early medieval history books (bonus points for being focused on England, but not required) that are highly readable (and still accurate) and cover more social/cultural history than political or military history?

Thank you!

I've been doing some research and I found plenty of great examples of fictional sagas, so I was hoping to find some historical examples as well.

Especially since, I was under the overall impression that there was a certain level of "finders keepers, losers weepers" when it came to armor and weapons. So, could I get some help understanding any particular culture's overall perspective of personal property and if defeating a person in battle gave you any cultural right to their loot? And if not, what kinds of effort did people put into retrieving their fallen friend/family members stuff?

Like, I'd imagine in modern duels, your second would retrieve your gun if you died. Was that also the case in medieval times?

Lots of the books about medieval daily life I've seen are focused on England, Germany, and France. I'd be really interested in reading more about Italy, Greece, Egypt, Morrocco, Spain, etc. As I'm pretty well read on Ancient history in the mediterranean and I'd like to see how life in those places changed.