Given the subject matter of the rant today, I think a few lines from Swinburne’s “Tristram of Lyonesse,” a long Arthurian poem, are appropriate
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7. Standards of beauty were very different. It was common, for example, for medieval women to wear their headdresses in such a way as to expose their naked foreheads. Widely-spaced teeth were supposed to indicate lustiness of disposition.
Slenderness doesn't appear to have been quite the issue with medieval people that it is with us, probably because slenderness was more common. After all, food was less available, both in quantity and in variety. A thin girl was probably undernourished, and might well prove to be too frail to do hard work or to survive childbirth. Remember that for centuries, painters and sculptors portrayed women our society would consider fat as being queens and goddesses of love.
8. There shouldn't be a lot of variety to your peasant's diet. Bread (a coarse mixture of wheat and rye, or barley and rye), pottage and ale...those were the mainstays. Cheese wasn't always available, nor were eggs, nor were beans. Meat would be too costly to buy, and would probably only be available at certain times of the year. Pork around Michaelmas was common, because that was when the pigs were slaughtered, and their meat salted, cured and brought to market. And please remember--if your peasants live in a village, it's probably a village owned by a local lord, so any hunting or fishing your peasants do constitutes poaching...a fairly serious offense.
Also, try to keep track of what is available when and where. If your medieval fantasy is set in Europe, DON'T have your peasants eating potatoes as a staple of their diet; those were discovered in America in the seventeenth century.
9. People didn't live as long. Old age was considered to begin around forty-five. Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was universally described as a beautiful woman (and who lived an exceptionally long time), was nevertheless considered to be past her best and leaving her childbearing years when she was twenty-six. And diseases were common--partly because of uncleanliness, partly from diets poor in protein, partly from the fact that people were in constant proximity and caught things from each other.
10. Medieval society contains more classes than a roleplaying game does. Consequently, your society should contain more professions than those of soldier, noble, beggar, thief, magic-user and priest/priestess. Remember that medieval society is going to need people who do the work--it's a product economy, not an information one. Your society will need farmers, fishermen, artisans such as carpenters and stonemasons, boatwrights, chandlers, coopers, brewers, vintners and blacksmiths. There should be wool merchants, dyesmiths, tailors, seamstresses, silversmiths, goldsmiths, bronzesmiths, lapidaries, traveling merchants, potters, makers of vellum and ink and quills, midwives and so on. In the country, there will be cottars (who do a bit of everything), goatherds, shepherds, swineherds. There should be variety in your world; it makes a much better story.
Very good. I especially like the bit about not having American plants in a world where America hasn't been discovered; that kind of thing annoys me when the author has tried to do research into other areas, yet somehow missed that bit.
7. Standards of beauty were very different. It was common, for example, for medieval women to wear their headdresses in such a way as to expose their naked foreheads. Widely-spaced teeth were supposed to indicate lustiness of disposition.
Slenderness doesn't appear to have been quite the issue with medieval people that it is with us, probably because slenderness was more common. After all, food was less available, both in quantity and in variety. A thin girl was probably undernourished, and might well prove to be too frail to do hard work or to survive childbirth. Remember that for centuries, painters and sculptors portrayed women our society would consider fat as being queens and goddesses of love.
8. There shouldn't be a lot of variety to your peasant's diet. Bread (a coarse mixture of wheat and rye, or barley and rye), pottage and ale...those were the mainstays. Cheese wasn't always available, nor were eggs, nor were beans. Meat would be too costly to buy, and would probably only be available at certain times of the year. Pork around Michaelmas was common, because that was when the pigs were slaughtered, and their meat salted, cured and brought to market. And please remember--if your peasants live in a village, it's probably a village owned by a local lord, so any hunting or fishing your peasants do constitutes poaching...a fairly serious offense.
Also, try to keep track of what is available when and where. If your medieval fantasy is set in Europe, DON'T have your peasants eating potatoes as a staple of their diet; those were discovered in America in the seventeenth century.
9. People didn't live as long. Old age was considered to begin around forty-five. Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was universally described as a beautiful woman (and who lived an exceptionally long time), was nevertheless considered to be past her best and leaving her childbearing years when she was twenty-six. And diseases were common--partly because of uncleanliness, partly from diets poor in protein, partly from the fact that people were in constant proximity and caught things from each other.
10. Medieval society contains more classes than a roleplaying game does. Consequently, your society should contain more professions than those of soldier, noble, beggar, thief, magic-user and priest/priestess. Remember that medieval society is going to need people who do the work--it's a product economy, not an information one. Your society will need farmers, fishermen, artisans such as carpenters and stonemasons, boatwrights, chandlers, coopers, brewers, vintners and blacksmiths. There should be wool merchants, dyesmiths, tailors, seamstresses, silversmiths, goldsmiths, bronzesmiths, lapidaries, traveling merchants, potters, makers of vellum and ink and quills, midwives and so on. In the country, there will be cottars (who do a bit of everything), goatherds, shepherds, swineherds. There should be variety in your world; it makes a much better story.
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See http://www.sirguillaume.com/Downloads/Old_Age-Height-Nutrition.pdf
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