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The Wikipedia article on food tasters explains that human food tasters had multiple functions:
The safety of the food may be determined by observing whether or not the food taster subsequently becomes ill. However, food tasting is not effective against slow-acting poisons that take a long time to produce visible symptoms.
The food taster may also prepare ...
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As an amateur blacksmith I can 'educated guess' based on the link in the comment provided by T.E.D.
The first five illustrations appear to show how an agricultural scythe would be converted for 'military' use. The attachment of the blade needs to be converted from horizontal to vertical since the weapon will be used for thrusting and chopping. The blade ...
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I would start with a brief explanation on how I'd classify township development in the Middle Ages. I don't expect this to be exhaustive, but rather illustrative of the few lines of development that I can note where cultural reasons might cause some variance from another plan. Please note this is not 'academic' per se, but rather some of the differences I ...
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If a city was able to hold markets, settlements often grew around a central market square (replace with Suq for Islamic cities). In many european cities, this (former) market square, often in combination with a representative religious building to show the prosperity of the city, is still the center of the city.
Some factors that differentiated a city from a ...
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One might say that evidence is skewed towards those classes that really mattered. Who cares what the peasants think as long as they do not rise up into rebellion.
Some chroniclers may actually write down some words about the general mood in the population re. a king. There is also surviving political commentary outside of chronicles, e.g. (for the Holy Roman ...
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