because my previous post made me think of some of these things

[fidelioscabinet]

There will probably be more than one of these posts, since there are a variety of different topics which all end up tied in together. The original post of twitter which started all this off was hawkwing_lb's: I'm beginning to think that writers of epic fantasy and SF should be required to learn about the anthropology of material culture.This started quite a

Comments

[liadan_m]

Not only writers, also anyone else who looks at history. I had an economics prof who said there weren't markets in medieval Europe. And children were a burden to their parents until 15. And so on.

[fidelioscabinet]

Dear ghu. The right to hold a regular market was a regular bargaining point between towns & rulers. And I suppose the Champaign Fairs were a mass hallucination of some sort.

[liadan_m]

since he was a macro modern econ guy, I assume he meant market=widespead trading of classes of goods.Still wrong (Wool! Salt! Silk! Alum!), but different emphasis.

[fidelioscabinet]

Really! The Champagne fairs were the result of international markets looking for a place to sit down, so to speak. They developed because there was already a need.

[txanne]

A professor once told me with a straight face that medieval people didn't mourn for their dead children because they had so many. Also that they didn't bother naming them until they were two.

[fidelioscabinet]

The Church had no say in that of course. No one rushed to baptize an infant. :P