Medieval question

Rizzo · Jan 21, 2008

Does anyone know of where I can get my hands on a list of objects, ranging from furniture, to tools, of what was used in everyday life in medieval times, and possibly when they were invented and what they were called? I'm going through the second draft of my book and have only recently discovered that there were no carriages, and desks were called writing tables and lords used scribes 0.o, luckily those didn't require huge changes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Deleted member 42 · Jan 21, 2008

Rizzo said:
Does anyone know of where I can get my hands on a list of objects, ranging from furniture, to tools, of what was used in everyday life in medieval times, and possibly when they were invented and what they were called? I'm going through the second draft of my book and have only recently discovered that there were no carriages, and desks were called writing tables and lords used scribes 0.o, luckily those didn't require huge changes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Urp. Medieval times encompasses well over a thousand years. You need to narrow it down and pick an area.

You might look for kids books from D.K. Kindersley on life in the middle ages--yeah, I know, they're for kids, but they're well researched and have pictures.

You might also look for past threads here on this same topic.

Rizzo · Jan 21, 2008

eheh, sorry, I forgot about that whole medieval times is over a thousand years, but children's books sounds like a good place to start, thanks

HeronW · Jan 21, 2008

The items would also depend on who's using them--those who had wealth had more items of metal and glass: weapons, ornaments, mirrors, farm equipment, castle fortifications, etc.

Appalachian Writer · Jan 21, 2008

While still an undergraduate, I took a class in Medieval Lit from an excellent professor with whom I developed an excellent relationship. Although he's now retired, if you give me some items you're looking for, I'll contact him and get the info. He did his doctoral work at UC Berkley on (forgive the yuk!) Chaucer.

If I can be of help, just let me know.
Appalachian Writer

johnnysannie · Jan 21, 2008

You might want to pick up a copy of "The Writer's Guide To Every Day Life in the Middle Ages", one of several volumes in the "Every Day Life" series. It is available in many places, including here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0898796636/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

I think it will have a lot of what you are looking for!

Rizzo · Jan 21, 2008

Appalachian Writer: That is so nice of you, thanks a lot

and so far I'm not looking for anything specific, yet, I'm just trying to make everything look clearer, and to make sure I didn't write anything into my book that didn't exist yet, like when I mentioned the desk and the horse carriages. Someone told me that in the thirteen hundreds mules were packed to move valuables and furniture, and right now I'm trying to find out if carts were used and what they looked like. I have only one book on everyday life in a medieval castle, and one more on historical clothes, but for the time period I'm looking at there is only one page on the clothes they wore. I'll have to think of a few things to ask and take you up on your offer

Thanks again

HeronW: you make a pretty good point with that, and because of you and Medievalist I'm going to check out the kids section of my library tomorrow to see if I can find some books that can be useful in finding out what went were.

Johnnysannie: That sounds like a great book, I had trouble finding books like that so I'll check out the link you gave, thanks a lot!

Histry Nerd · Jan 21, 2008

Hey, Rizzo -

Daily Life In the Middle Ages by Paul B. Newman is pretty good in a variety of areas (food, clothing, construction, and others), although it's focused mostly on England. I don't recall it having much on transportation, except a few pages on roads, but I found it a helpful source.

Second Medievalist's recommendation of the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness books: kids' books, but well-researched and full of good pictures to help you visualize things. I have three on my shelf from the library right now: Medieval Life, Castle, and Knight.

You might also try a method that works pretty well for me: search Amazon for promising titles, then take your Amazon list to your local library to see what you can find and/or order on Interlibrary Loan. That way you're not out anything if a book turns out to be less useful than you needed.

Hope it helps.
HN

Deleted member 42 · Jan 21, 2008

Rizzo said:
Someone told me that in the thirteen hundreds mules were packed to move valuables and furniture, and right now I'm trying to find out if carts were used and what they looked like. I have only one book on everyday life in a medieval castle, and one more on historical clothes, but for the time period I'm looking at there is only one page on the clothes they wore. I'll have to think of a few things to ask and take you up on your offer Thanks again

You might also look at the Paston letters; largely from the fifteenth and very early sixteenth century; actual letters about a family, and their lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paston_Letters

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PasLett.html

Rizzo · Jan 21, 2008

Hey History nerd, I checked out that book from your link and put it on my wish list as right now I have zero dollars

, but it definitely looks worth checking out, usually the expensive ones are -_-; and I'm heading to the library tomorrow to search for those kids books, hopefully they won't think I'm weird for being in that section even though I have no kids.

Medievalist, those letters are so cool, I have trouble reading them mind you but that is very cool nonetheless

at least with those I can get their speech patterns right

Rizzo · Jan 22, 2008

Got a lot more books than I thought I would get, kids books on castles, knights, and even the history of books and the invention of the alphabet and paper, thanks everyone for the suggestions!

waylander · Jan 22, 2008

Mules were preferred to carts for transport over any kind of distance as the roads were so bad. You can get a mule to many more places than you can get a cart.

Robin Bayne · Jan 22, 2008

johnnysannie said:
You might want to pick up a copy of "The Writer's Guide To Every Day Life in the Middle Ages", one of several volumes in the "Every Day Life" series. It is available in many places, including here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0898796636/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

I think it will have a lot of what you are looking for!

That would be my suggestion too--not an overwhelming amount of info but it should get you started.

Rizzo · Jan 22, 2008

waylander said:
Mules were preferred to carts for transport over any kind of distance as the roads were so bad. You can get a mule to many more places than you can get a cart.

So then, that means that there were carts though, if someone absolutely needed one there would be one, right? Let's say for traveling short distances?

IceCreamEmpress · Jan 22, 2008

When is your story set, and where? I think that would help people recommend more useful resources.

The use of carts and wagons varies tremendously by location and era.

Rizzo · Jan 23, 2008

it's set in Hampshire in 1311, pretty far away from the war with the Scots back when Edward the first was still in charge. I know there were haycarts, but that's about it

PinkUnicorn · Jan 23, 2008

Dover Books publishes a whole series (several hundred books in the series) of medival books on varying topics ranging from clothen to craftsmens tools to furnature, etc. You can find them via their website: http://store.doverpublications.com/ or you can search for them on Amazon by useing "Dover Publications Medieval"

I searched Dover's store and this is the result they gave me: http://search.store.yahoo.com/cgi-b...ions&catalog=doverpublications&query=medieval

IceCreamEmpress · Jan 23, 2008

Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520 by Christopher Dyer might be useful to you, as would his Everyday Life in the Middle Ages.

The real go-to book is A Social History of England, 1200-1500, edited by Rosemary Horrox, but that's a giant encyclopedia that you'd probably have to get from a university library.

waylander · Jan 23, 2008

The Medieval Traveller by Norbert Ohler is another useful book which I have on my shelf.
I think it is reasonable to suppose that would have been carts available in Hampshire at that time. Whether they can be used for the journey depends on where your characters are going.
I'm from Hampshire, what journey are your characters undertaking?

Rizzo · Jan 23, 2008

There are a lot of books on that website, I'll have to check them out sometime when I get paid

and I'm not near any universities, but maybe I'll get lucky and the library here will have one of those encyclopedia's, until then I'll keep looking through the kid's books I have now, they're really very helpful, and already I've found several things that need to be changed or fix or added to show the reader more of what's around

Thanks for the help everyone, wish I'd thought to get those books earlier

job · Jan 23, 2008

Rizzo said:
, until then I'll keep looking through the kid's books I have now, they're really very helpful, and already I've found several things that need to be changed

What everyone has said about 'medieval' being a big place. Once you have a feel for the general era, try to picture your own small part of it.

Besides visiting your local library for the background books ... take a swing over to the art section and see if they have any good big fat art books with medieval paintings in them.

Then do a (google image) search for "medieval". Nothing like seeing.

Fr'instance ... the second page of the (google image) search "medieval" brings me here

You have to scroll down to the third picture to get to the dogs. (past the nice picture of women hunting, which I had never seen before.)

Anyhow -- to the dog picture.
This is your century. One picture gives us types of dogs, dog collars and mens clothing. Hats, walking stick, a couple of belt pouches -- scripts. A table.

You want a medieval cart? (google image) search "medieval" AND "cart"
Here.

Scroll down some. It's third or fifth picture down.

Have you looked into the Society for Creative Anachronism? (Just pretend I've added a whole lot of caveats,) and 'living history' sites. Google search "living history" AND "medieval".

Rizzo · Jan 24, 2008

Taking a peek at the art section is a great idea, I'll have to do that when the snow clears, luckily by then I should be finished with the books I have now

Those links you gave me were great, and yeah, the picture of the women hunting was pretty, but I never knew that women hunted or that crossbows were invented in the 1100s, shows how much more research I need to do. And those carts were old and falling apart but they were the most excellent things I've ever seen, now I can describe it properly when one gets stolen from my book.

Thank you so much for the help, I'll definitely swing by the art section of the library when I can. And congratulations on Spymaster's Lady. I went out and got the book, but I have to finish the last hundred pages of Jane Eyre before I start it, which sucks because I read the first page and it looks really good but I promised myself not to stop one book to start another like that 0.o

Thanks again!

job · Jan 24, 2008

Hi Rizzo --

Oooh. Thank you for buying the book. I hope you like it. I don't (cough) expect to compete with Jane Eyre, however.

JoB

Deleted member 42 · Jan 24, 2008

Rizzo said:
it's set in Hampshire in 1311, pretty far away from the war with the Scots back when Edward the first was still in charge. I know there were haycarts, but that's about it

What you might find helpful are the "calendar" pages for Books Of Hours; these are illustrated prayer books, tied to the Catholic calendar of feasts and holy days and saint's days, with the appropriate prayers and readings.

Google Books of Hours, and Calendar and look for images from the era you want; you'll see images of seasonal, and regional, agricultural events and pastimes for each month.

Rizzo · Jan 24, 2008

That sounds like a great idea, I'll do that right away, thanks Medievalist!

Medieval question

Rizzo

Deleted member 42

Rizzo

HeronW

Down Under Fan

Appalachian Writer

Somewhere in the hills....

johnnysannie

Rizzo

Histry Nerd

Moving Forward!

Deleted member 42

Rizzo

Rizzo

waylander

Who's going for a beer?

Robin Bayne

~writes for Him~

Rizzo

IceCreamEmpress

Hapless Virago

Rizzo

PinkUnicorn

Tossing Elves in bed with Unicorns

IceCreamEmpress

Hapless Virago

waylander

Who's going for a beer?

Rizzo

job

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

Rizzo

job

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

Deleted member 42

Rizzo