NK - Fwd: Life in the 1500s - interesting (fwd)

[merle at webzone.net]

><merle at webzone.net>
>>If you want to read something that is "more" accurate try
>>A Compendium of Common Knowledge 1558-1604. It is intended
>>for the renfaire crowd but is certainly good enough for
>>the SCA. You can download it in PDF form and print it off.
>>http://renaissance.dm.net/compendium/home.html
>
>Just be warned that it's 105 pages long and really only applicable
>for the 16th century English.  If you are portraying a 12th century
>Russian, it's interesting, but I'm not sure it's going to be particularly
>helpful.

Yeah, that file is pretty big. The whole book is webbed and you need
only view the sections that interest you. It really is only applicable
to late 16th century English.

>I don't mean to sound negative, Kostia.  Yes, the Elizabethan thing is more

>accurate, and thank you for pointing it out.  I can think of some people who

>might find it useful if they haven't seen it already.

>The problem is that "The Middle Ages" isn't one time or place where we
>can say "they did it this way".  It might be more interesting if people were

>to look at these sorts of things and actually look and see if they are valid

>for their own personas (of course, that's why I teach that medieval mindset

>class :) )

I would love to see more Compendium's of Common Knowledge. They would, of
course, have to be narrow in scope. Either a small geographic area and or
a short period of time. It would depend on how much source material is
available. For instance we know a great deal about the daily lives of
inhabitants of Novgorod from 11th to 15th century. We have hundreds of
birch bark documents written by common folk, and leather goods, wooden
artifacts (musical instruments, bowls, tools), and even a few scraps
of cloth.

Perhaps these books should be titled "So You Want to be a Viking,"
"So You Want to be a Crusader," or "So You Want to be a Moor."
You can sort of use the Osprey military historical books for that.
They are good enough for governme.. er ah SCA work.

And if "Life in the 1500's" was posted as humor as opposed to being
humorous factoids I missed it. I saw another post on the sca-archery
list about the origin of a phrase and gesture that was also humor
but passed off as a factoid. Do a search for "Pluck Yew" and you
will find many pages listing this joke. Or go to

http://www.darkhorserealm.com/finger.html

Kostia