Your research holy grails

furzepig · Mar 4, 2016

Have you ever tried to find out some historical detail, only to find it just out of your reach, no matter how you tried? That's what I'm talking about here. What was one thing you went above and beyond to find out, only to eventually throw in the towel and muddle through as best you could? Perhaps we can unexpectedly answer each other's research questions, or perhaps we can only buy each other virtual beers and commiserate.

I finally gave up trying to find a definitive answer to the following question: "In an early seventeenth century London townhouse owned by a wealthy and fashionable member of the gentry, who would answer the door, assuming the visitor is not important enough to rate the householder herself opening it?"

I have some solid information on who would open the door in a big aristocratic country house, or in a town house a hundred years later than my period, but essentially nothing for the precise situation I'm writing about. Anyway, I went with a maid. Why not? It seems to work.

draosz · Mar 7, 2016

I haven't entertained the idea of writing historical fiction yet. I've studied Art History and Archaeology, so I know how much research I'd have to do. It's certainly fun, but for now I want to do something else. Too much work.

I'm writing to say that, yes, it's perfectly feasible that a maid servant would answer the door. Even the less wealthy had a servant or two in those days. Also, we have an image of gentry being far above doing such lowly tasks, perhaps influenced by late 18th century Jane Austen? For the most part, I don't think this has ever been the case. The master of the household might always have an interest in who visits his house and might want to see to it himself, or he might not.

In any case, since you seem to be interested in the subject, here's a book I read and can recommend:

Author: Bruce W. Young
Title: Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare

chompers · Mar 7, 2016

If I know it's something I need to research, I'll keep trying. Otherwise I'll try to rework the scene so it doesn't include that information I need. I don't like it when authors don't properly research and/or make assumptions. Sometimes an author doesn't realize what they wrote is factually wrong, and I'm okay with those, but you can tell if that's the case and not just sloppy research.

angeliz2k · Mar 7, 2016

furzepig said:
Have you ever tried to find out some historical detail, only to find it just out of your reach, no matter how you tried? That's what I'm talking about here. What was one thing you went above and beyond to find out, only to eventually throw in the towel and muddle through as best you could? Perhaps we can unexpectedly answer each other's research questions, or perhaps we can only buy each other virtual beers and commiserate.

I finally gave up trying to find a definitive answer to the following question: "In an early seventeenth century London townhouse owned by a wealthy and fashionable member of the gentry, who would answer the door, assuming the visitor is not important enough to rate the householder herself opening it?"

I have some solid information on who would open the door in a big aristocratic country house, or in a town house a hundred years later than my period, but essentially nothing for the precise situation I'm writing about. Anyway, I went with a maid. Why not? It seems to work.

My question is, how would they know how important the visitor is before opening the door? Are they peering out a window and assessing based on dress? You could always have the housekeeper open the door and then think, "If I'd know it was this lowly personage, I would have never come to the door myself!" (And I don't think I've ever heard of the housekeeper being too important to at least answer the door for any visitor.) Also, a lowlier visitor would know to use the back door, right? In which case it would probably be someone below the housekeeper in the pecking order answering the door. Right?

I did have some difficulty finding the price of a bale of cotton in the 1830's but finally stumbled upon it. That was fun.

Maxx · Mar 8, 2016

I had the following question: what did an army of the French Republic in 1794 look like if it was attacking you? After Fleurus and the end of the Terror the Republican armies had about 6 months of being invincible on the attack. What did that look like?

I did find an eye-witness (Austrian) source that said it looked like an immense chessboard of ever-shifting squares of fast-moving men, ever forming and reforming at great speed. Generally people ran before it got within musket shot. Not what I expected to hear, but there you have it.

The other account I had said more or less the same, but since the French had just captured a travelling theatre, they were all in theatrical costume, though they looked so well-disciplined that the Prussians suggested sitting down to drink rather than having a battle. So drinking ensued and no fighting. Not what I expected, but there you have it.

CWatts · Mar 8, 2016

Maxx said:
I had the following question: what did an army of the French Republic in 1794 look like if it was attacking you? After Fleurus and the end of the Terror the Republican armies had about 6 months of being invincible on the attack. What did that look like?

I forget the source but I remember reading somewhere that the French Revolutionary soldiers were really into growing out their facial hair. There was a sketch of several guys who looked more likely to be riding Harleys than toting muskets. Given 18th cent. grooming standards they probably looked a barbarian horde.

Maxx said:
I did find an eye-witness (Austrian) source that said it looked like an immense chessboard of ever-shifting squares of fast-moving men, ever forming and reforming at great speed. Generally people ran before it got within musket shot. Not what I expected to hear, but there you have it.

The other account I had said more or less the same, but since the French had just captured a travelling theatre, they were all in theatrical costume, though they looked so well-disciplined that the Prussians suggested sitting down to drink rather than having a battle. So drinking ensued and no fighting. Not what I expected, but there you have it.

That is fantastic! I love the detail about the costumes.

Maxx · Mar 8, 2016

CWatts said:
I forget the source but I remember reading somewhere that the French Revolutionary soldiers were really into growing out their facial hair. There was a sketch of several guys who looked more likely to be riding Harleys than toting muskets. Given 18th cent. grooming standards they probably looked a barbarian horde.

That is fantastic! I love the detail about the costumes.

Yep. I had to get that into the novel. Another odd thing was that the republican French were fairly apologetic about killing Princes of the Empire. They sent over a nice note about how sorry they were that they had killed Prince X. The Austrians (with some Imperial troops) replied that these things happened and that they had known about it the week before because they got the Paris newspapers and those had the latest news via the republican French semaphore telegraph system. Hmmmm. I had to fit that in too, though it was more difficult.

snafu1056 · Mar 8, 2016

Maxx said:
I had the following question: what did an army of the French Republic in 1794 look like if it was attacking you? After Fleurus and the end of the Terror the Republican armies had about 6 months of being invincible on the attack. What did that look like?

I did find an eye-witness (Austrian) source that said it looked like an immense chessboard of ever-shifting squares of fast-moving men, ever forming and reforming at great speed. Generally people ran before it got within musket shot. Not what I expected to hear, but there you have it.

That's definitely a hole in most peoples' knowledge because movie/TV armies tend to move in the simplest ways possible (ie shoot at that other group of soldiers), so most of us have never really seen historical military maneuvers in action. Well, unless youre one of those military re-enactors.

Sunflowerrei · Mar 8, 2016

I remember when I started taking a story apart to rewrite it into Pearl, that the fact that the British abolition movement just kind of stopped in the late 1790s up to the a few years into the nineteenth century was kind of frustrating.There wasn't anything out there about what a recently freed slave or a recent arrival into England from one of its West Indian colonies would do to socialize, acclimatize, find family.

Maxx · Mar 9, 2016

snafu1056 said:
That's definitely a hole in most peoples' knowledge because movie/TV armies tend to move in the simplest ways possible (ie shoot at that other group of soldiers), so most of us have never really seen historical military maneuvers in action. Well, unless youre one of those military re-enactors.

What's odd about the last six months of 1794 is that none of the clichés about the Armies of the First French Republic seem to hold up at all. It's true that a lot of the massive French successes of that period (eg. not having to fight Prussia again for 12 years or Spain for 14 years, never really facing the Imperial troops again, taking all of the low countries etc.) have a lot to do with the final partition of Poland, but the Republican armies seem to have changed. They still had little cavalry, but they adapted by getting up before sunrise and going into defensive camps midafternoon while moving fast from before sunrise to midafternoon. The dawn attack out of the autumn mist seems to have been a favored tactic...etc. But they also had superior communications, good logistics and lots of captured stuff. As logistics improved, discipline improved and they were always very aggressive tactically.
Anyway, its a difficult period to pin down.

Flicka · Mar 25, 2016

Hmmm.... Gentry? I'm slightly better at aristocracy but in general, female servants didn't really feature in wealthier houses in the early 17th century. A townhouse quite often had a porter at the gate. Either way, I'd assume it'd be some sort of yeoman/usher/male servant who would receive a visitor, not a maid. Female servants in the early 17th century were still – in wealthier households with social pretentions – mainly confined to the kitchen and ladies' rooms. If you were received by a maid, I think that would signal middling or maybe even lower middling class rather than "a wealthy and fashionable member of the gentry". And the householder in that sort of house would never, ever, ever open the door him/herself in the Jacobean period as far as I know.

ETA: I'm so anal I've designed the household my 1628 WIP is set in in every little detail, right down to the turnspits, laundry maids and "two men to carry wood for the fires".

I did read quite a lot on larger households in the late 16th and early 17th century, but as I said, I mainly focused on aristocratic households.

AW Admin · Mar 25, 2016

furzepig said:
Have you ever tried to find out some historical detail, only to find it just out of your reach, no matter how you tried? That's what I'm talking about here. What was one thing you went above and beyond to find out, only to eventually throw in the towel and muddle through as best you could? Perhaps we can unexpectedly answer each other's research questions, or perhaps we can only buy each other virtual beers and commiserate.

I finally gave up trying to find a definitive answer to the following question: "In an early seventeenth century London townhouse owned by a wealthy and fashionable member of the gentry, who would answer the door, assuming the visitor is not important enough to rate the householder herself opening it?"

I have some solid information on who would open the door in a big aristocratic country house, or in a town house a hundred years later than my period, but essentially nothing for the precise situation I'm writing about. Anyway, I went with a maid. Why not? It seems to work.

It would be the housemaid, or possibly, a child.

You might find the online diary of Samuel Pepys of use; he died in 1703, but was born in 1633 and wrote a journal from very early on.

But there's a lot of detail about his household.

Flicka · Mar 26, 2016

AW Admin said:
It would be the housemaid, or possibly, a child.

You might find the online diary of Samuel Pepys of use; he died in 1703, but was born in 1633 and wrote a journal from very early on.

But there's a lot of detail about his household.

I suppose it all comes down to what sort of household it is. I wouldn't call Pepy's wealthy (although I am quite certain he considered himself very fashionable

) – he had a very small household and was essentially a civil servant. 'Gentry' implies someone who owns land, and would have a country estate and that, to me, would imply a very different sort of household. But just my 5 öre, obviously.

Ariella · Apr 27, 2016

If you find a cool and entertaining bit of information, you can also make some money on the side by writing it up as nonfiction and selling it to a history magazine. For a couple of years, I kept a file of references to medieval privies and bathroom humour. When I had enough of them, I turned them into an article and sold it to Renaissance Magazine.

greendragon · Aug 19, 2016

Ariella, good tip!

I've been trying to find a good word for nursery maid that is less Victorian. The woman who took care of royal babies... but in 500 BC Ireland. Nurse sounds too modern to me. Wet-nurse too specific. nursery maid sounds like nursery tale. Any ideas?

AW Admin · Aug 19, 2016

greendragon said:
Ariella, good tip!

I've been trying to find a good word for nursery maid that is less Victorian. The woman who took care of royal babies... but in 500 BC Ireland. Nurse sounds too modern to me. Wet-nurse too specific. nursery maid sounds like nursery tale. Any ideas?

One way is simply to use the character's name. You might use the Old Irish word for nurse or nanny (assuming there is one; I can't recall one).

That said, it's quite possible that the person was a slave.

A child of someone within the fine, the generational relationship to the throne, would almost certainly be fostered; fosterage could being at one, the idea being that the child was weaned at that age. It was more likely that fosterage would begin at six or seven.

greendragon · Aug 19, 2016

I do have fosterlings within the novel - but this is for newly born babies, twins. Their mother had died. It's among the Tuatha de Dannan, rather than the Milesians (historical fantasy). Nanny is at least a somewhat better word. But I'm still searching. I'm novelizing the Children of Lir tale.

Cindyt · Aug 19, 2016

I'm using "minder."

greendragon said:
Ariella, good tip!

I've been trying to find a good word for nursery maid that is less Victorian. The woman who took care of royal babies... but in 500 BC Ireland. Nurse sounds too modern to me. Wet-nurse too specific. nursery maid sounds like nursery tale. Any ideas?

Marissa D · Aug 19, 2016

greendragon said:
Ariella, good tip!

I've been trying to find a good word for nursery maid that is less Victorian. The woman who took care of royal babies... but in 500 BC Ireland. Nurse sounds too modern to me. Wet-nurse too specific. nursery maid sounds like nursery tale. Any ideas?

Well, Shakespeare used "nurse", so not all that modern...

I've been hard-pressed to find general information about the races at Epsom in the early 19th century--plenty about the actual races, the horses, and their owners, but little about the site itself and where all the people attending stayed and ate and so on (crowds of around 30-40,000 weren't uncommon in the year I'm working with), not to mention stabling. There are a few Rowlandson drawings that give a flavor, but not much else.

Cindyt · Aug 19, 2016

I thought about using that two, minder just felt right for my story. I've had many a holy grail and have most times found what I was looking for. Sometimes it's a matter of using the right keywords.

Marissa D said:
Well, Shakespeare used "nurse", so not all that modern...

I've been hard-pressed to find general information about the races at Epsom in the early 19th century--plenty about the actual races, the horses, and their owners, but little about the site itself and where all the people attending stayed and ate and so on (crowds of around 30-40,000 weren't uncommon in the year I'm working with), not to mention stabling. There are a few Rowlandson drawings that give a flavor, but not much else.

Your research holy grails

furzepig

draosz

chompers

angeliz2k

never mind the shorty

Maxx

Got the hang of it, here

CWatts

down the rabbit hole of research...

Maxx

Got the hang of it, here

snafu1056

Sunflowerrei

Maxx

Got the hang of it, here

Flicka

Dull Old Person

AW Admin

Flicka

Dull Old Person

Ariella

...

greendragon

AW Admin

greendragon

Cindyt

Gettin wiggy wit it

Marissa D

Scribe of the girls in the basement

Cindyt

Gettin wiggy wit it