Questions tagged [middle-ages]
The Middle Ages is a periodisation of European history, encompassing the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century to the Renaissance in the 15th century.
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Why were greatswords used in the Middle Ages given their downsides?
The greatsword is a type of two-handed sword that's rather large and heavy compared to it's counterparts, but delivers a more powerful swing. The greatsword doesn't seem to have significant advantages ...
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Where can I find Edward I's document that uses the term "holocaustum"? [closed]
Some time ago I viewed a medieval document written in the reign of Edward the First of England. It gave reference to the word holocaustum. I cannot find this document and have in talks debated the ...
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What was the role/duties of a "Constable of the Castle" in 1600?
I'm researching a property in Ruthin, North Wales which was originally built for the Constable of the Castle. I'd like to know more about their role. What did they do? Were they gentry? Were they ...
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When did Albertus Magnus write 'On Animals'?
When is it most likely that Albertus Magnus finished writing On Animals ?
I can't seem to find any guesses more accurate than "within his lifetime"
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Was wool packing a main task for medieval peasants?
In Europe/UK, would a main task for peasants/working classes been to pack wool? And, if so, roughly what dates would this have been please? What did the entire process involve from obtaining the ...
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How much iron ore could a medieval miner extract per day?
I am finding really hard to find an answer to this question. There are some numbers available online, but first of all the numbers range quite a lot from different sources, then they are given for a ...
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What's the source that Henry IV was the first post-Norman conquest monarch to speak English as their first language?
Okay; the oft-cited fact that "Henry IV was the first English monarch after 1066 whose first language was English".
Now, while I have no doubt it was, what I find puzzling about this is that ...
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Did courtiers of antiquity hold in their pee or did they have common commodes available in the king/queen's court?
Self-explanatory. Did any royal court in history from ancient to medieval times (of any culture) have a public restroom that people who attended court can use, or were they sort of left to their own ...
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Are there any medieval manuals relating to castle building?
I'm doing research on the medieval castle, specifically what was required to build one. I'm particularly interested in learning about this from a medieval perspective, so I wondered if there are any ...
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(How) Did criminals in the middle ages get treatment for injuries?
Were criminals in the middle ages able to get treatment for injuries, and if so, how? I mean criminals such as bandits who wouldn't be able to seek whatever medical care was normally available, even ...
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Which calendar numbering system did the Franks use?
I know by researching that Visigoths used the Spanish Era to number years, which is Anno Domini plus 38 years. Now I ask: which was the system that the Frankish people used? I was navigating a lot of ...
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Why did Henry III of England give his sons English names, other than naming them after his favourite saints?
Was the decision by King Henry III to give his two sons the very Anglo-Saxon, 'English' names of Edward and Edmund rather than any names of French derivation commented on at the time by contemporaries,...
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When did Kievan Rus' rulers become culturally Slavic?
As the title says, when did the Varangian rulers become culturally more Slavic? I presume that among the elites there was cultural borrowing from Byzantium too, so I am not claiming a Viking-Slavic ...
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Did medieval peasants work 150 days a year?
The following meme arrived in my inbox.
Peasants in the medieval era worked just 150 days a year on average. The church believed it was crucial to keep them content by making frequent required ...
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What is meant by this medieval reference to combat 'under-ground'?
I was reading The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, by William Herbert (1836), and came across an interesting turn of phrase. In a section discussing early guilds predating the ...
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What are those Russian/Turkic/Mongolian semi-conical felt caps brimmed with fur called?
What are those Russian/Turkic/Mongolian semi-conical felt caps brimmed with fur called? When and from which culture did it originate from, and when and how did it get adopted by the Slavs? Did the ...
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Did the Ottomans conquer Poland-Lithuania?
Türk Tarihi | History of Turks claims that the Ottomans took Poland-Lithuania as a vassal in the late 1570s. Where did they get this from? I searched everywhere but I couldn't find anything.
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Where is this map of Scandinavia (Nicolaus Germanus, 1467)
Does anybody recognise this map?
Is there a better version online?
Update: the map was apparently printed in colour, and one version might be in Warsaw. Could also be available online, but have not ...
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What kind of clothing was worn in Mahgreb states circa the high medieval period?
I'm interested in medieval clothing (I'd focus on the time period from the 9th century onwards) in north Africa especially in the Maghreb states and the other countries that surround the Sahara such ...
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How prevalent was premarital sex in Late Medieval Christendom?
A few months, I very much enjoyed a playthrough of the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is set within the borders of what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia during the Western Schism (1378 - ...
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How Norse were the Normans when they invaded England in 1066? [closed]
More than 150 years passed between Rollo & his companions settling in Normandy and the Norman invasion of England. How much of their original Norse culture still remained in 1066? What influence ...
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How did commoner children address commoner adults in the middle ages?
Imagine a peasant wanting to ask a young lass's parents (also peasants) for their daughter's hand in marriage. How would one go about addressing the woman's father and mother in order to show respect? ...
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How did knights who required glasses to see survive on the battlefield?
Googling this has been less than helpful on the history factor, and a quick look at HEMA rules and regulations says it's easier to use fencing masks instead, which isn't what I'm asking. (This was ...
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What would have been the process of arresting someone in the Middle Ages?
In the High Middle Ages (France, specifically), if someone was suspected of having committed a crime, would that person have been arrested? Would that person have been jailed somewhere until their ...
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Is Islamic law largely derivative of Catholic canon law? [closed]
My understanding is that Islamic thought got its big boost in the "Al Andalusian paradise", which essentially consisted of the Muslim conquerors having the conquered peoples translate their ...
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Who is 'Chlodebaudo/Chlodebaud' in the Merovingian-era Clovis I genealogy & Charlemagne ancestry, supposedly mentioned in a Salic Law manuscript?
In Henry H. Howorth's The Ethnology of Germany.-Part VI. The Varini, Varangians, and Franks.-Section II (1884), p.228 he writes:
We must remember also that in a genealogical table attached to an old ...
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Why were monasteries built in obscure places around Ireland?
I remember reading that monks built many monasteries around very obscure parts of medieval Ireland. Does anyone know why? Is it because they didn't want many people to know/join about their order?
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What was the political organization of small villages and towns in medieval Transylvania by the end of the 15th Century? (Both Saxon and non-Saxon)
I've been trying to find out about the political organization of small villages in medieval Transylvania during the time the region was part of the Hungarian Kingdom (more precisely during the end of ...
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In Medieval or early Renaissance times, how could England close its ports to prevent escape?
From time to time I read that in Medieval or early Renaissance times the King/Queen/Privy Council "closed the ports" to prevent someone escaping England. How could this be done effectively?
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What is the association of the 4 playing card suits and the Mamluks?
As I understand it, playing cards made their way to Europe perhaps via China (paper) but most visibly by way of the Mamluks. One legend is the Mamluks and Tibetans defeated the Chinese once in battle ...
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Are there any examples of two medieval kingdoms trying to unify but eventually failing to do so?
Recently, I started to read about history as a hobby like I used to when I was a kid. I realized that reading about "generic history" does not do it for me anymore. Instead I have some ...
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How exactly did most nobles gain wealth? [closed]
If most peasants in the medieval ages were structurally poor due to relying on subsistence farming; how could most landowning nobles become wealthy, if most taxes were only paid in produce? How could ...
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When a wattle-and-daub construction was demolished, how did they recycle or dispose of the materials?
In the medieval age, when a wattle-and-daub building had to be demolished, did they recycle the materials? Especially the logs of the frames, these seem to be prime targets for reuse.
This article ...
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Why was Maharana Kumbha killed by his own son?
Wikipedia asserts:
Kumbha was killed by his son Udaysimha (Udai Singh I), who thereafter became known as Hatyara (Murderer). Udai himself died in 1473, with the cause of death sometimes being stated ...
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How did the Crusades change medieval Islamic culture?
Background: It's well known that the crusades initiated an east-west contact that led to an exchange between Europe and the Islamic world. Foreign goods, philosophy, sciences, flowed east to west, and ...
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What is the exact meaning of England vs. Britain before/during/after the formation of the Kingdom of England in the Middle Ages?
I have been reading for the past few hours about all the various players in Western/Northern Europe:
Celts
Gauls
Germanic People
Anglo Saxons
Britons
Iberians
Aquitani
etc.
Wikipedia says of the ...
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What are some examples that show medieval stone construction on top of older foundations?
Are there any more blatant examples that show new construction or repairs on older construction? Buildings like castles or walls With visible differences between the two construction eras? For example ...
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What kind of taxes were inns/taverns expected to pay in France and the Holy Roman Empire during the 1300-1500?
As the headline suggests, I am interested in what kind of taxes were paid from the owners of inns/taverns (since those 2 were often one and the same). The period and region I am most interested in are ...
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Why did the Vikings stop raiding Europe?
Was it because of their defeats by Alfred and the settlement of Normandy?
Were there issues at home which changed their focus?
I did search through quite a few of the questions on here, but did not ...
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How could a man be made a bishop of a place while not having received major orders?
This article on Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg, which cites this Catholic Encyclopedia article describes von Wartenberg as having been made a bishop of two different places before even being ordained a ...
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How did medieval camp followers work?
So I'm writing a medieval epic fantasy book, as one does.
I've read in a few places that armies should have camp followers, but frankly, I'm not sure what that means or how that might operate.
As I ...
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Was any belief about the nature of the soul before birth widespread enough to influence common people's lives?
Medieval (European Christian 5-15th century) theologians used to argue between a few ideas about the origin of the soul (creationism, traducianism & pre-existence). However, was any belief about ...
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What have warriors that would typically bear a coat of arms done to their heraldic achievements to indicate they have deserted or defected?
What, historically, have warriors that would typically bear a coat of arms done to their heraldic achievements (on shields, banners, surcoats and such) to indicate they have deserted or defected, if ...
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Has the concept of "annulment" of a putative marriage changed over time in the Roman Catholic Church?
I'm confused about the details of how the concepts of "putative marriage", "valid marriage", and "invalid marriage" are related in the context of Roman Catholic canon law ...
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What was "primitive labor rent" or "mains mortales"?
In this quote from Hellie, R. (1971) Enserfment and military change in Muscovy, Chicago, USA, page 14 (archive.org):
B. D. Grekov, in periodizing peasant history, offered the following three forms of ...
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Marriage for executioners in Medieval times
I recently heard from a city guide in Franconia, Germany, that executioners were well-paid but outcast from the Medieval society. Apparently, it was quite hard for them to get a wife because nobody ...
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Was the quality of Roman armor really worse than the armor of knights of the XII-XIV centuries?
When I was studying the metallurgy of ancient Rome, I saw a rather controversial study done by Michael Fulford, David Sim and Alistair Doig called "The production of Roman ferrous armour:a ...
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What was a "census" (some sort of compensation) in early medieval Europe?
White (1962):
By about 745 both monasteries and bishoprics were receiving a census in partial compensation for lost estates.
Brown (2021):
The formula represents a gift of property to a monastery, ...
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What is the meaning of the medieval word 'bliant', used to describe a fabric?
There are a number of references to "bliant" in The Mabinogion, but I cannot track the word down using my trusty Webster's Unabridged or Google (I get baby names, etc). Can anyone help?
For ...
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What were the alleged crimes that Conradin, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, was accused of?
Conrad V or Conradin, (1252-1268) was King of Sicily, King of Jerusalem, and Duke of Swabia.
The throne of Sicily was usurped by his uncle Manfred in 1258, who in turn was overthrown and usurped by ...
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