WANT!

[msmcknittington]

I really want this book: Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe by Richard W. Kaeuper.

The only problem is that it's $150. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS! For a single book? At least the shipping is free!

Oh, wait. That's the hardcover. The paperback is only $60. That's more reasonable. According to the paperback page, 76-percent of customers go on to buy the hardcover edition. Uh-huh. I totally believe that.

Anybody want to buy it for me? I can offer you . . . three rutabagas, grown by yours truly with lots of love. They are all the size of softballs. And they were grown with love.

You can read a lot of it on Google Books. I scrolled all the way down to page 80 without hitting a break. It's a very pleasant read, too.

ETA: OMG! Brainstorm! In reading the above Google book, I was reminded that knights didn't have to be from different countries to wage war. What if in my NaNo novel, instead of having it set against the Welsh wars, I just have it be about two families duking it out? I would lose a plotline I was thinking about -- how to communicate when you don't speak the other's language? -- but I think I can deal with it. Hmmm.

Comments

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

"...I just have it be about two families duking it out? I would lose a plotline I was thinking about -- how to communicate when you don't speak the other's language? -- but I think I can deal with it. Hmmm."

Not necessarily. Normans are French speaking but the indigenous "English" (read: mish mash of Anglo Saxon "English"; Welsh etc) are speaking their languages. Possibly also a smattering of Latin still very much around after the Romans.

The real question is how you would deal with the differences in languages being "spoken" within the narrative - Tolkien worked it very well, but its not easy to pull off.

edit: I've been watching your discussions on this topic - I'd LOVE to be able to read a book in Medieval England which shows the minutiae of life!

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

I was planning on setting it in the 13th century, during the reign of Edward I. Mostly because my initial plot was set during the Welsh wars, but if I cut out the Welsh angle, then I can really set it Anytime Medieval. But I really need to do research on . . . everything.

I've been watching your discussions on this topic - I'd LOVE to be able to read a book in Medieval England which shows the minutiae of life!

I know! It's my prime motivation in writing this. I picked up one of the medieval romances I own today, and read the first chapter, and I had to put it down. The Norman knight in it, outfitted for war and presumably covered from head to foot in chainmail, is like leaping on and off his horse and running around like an Olympic sprinter. At one point, he picks up one of his men, who has fallen headfirst into a moat, by the ankle, and "with a flick of his wrist" flings him one-handed back onto land.

Oh, it hurt me to read that. Who is this guy? The Incredible Hulk?

Have you read the Catherine Levendeur novels by Sharan Newman? They're mysteries set in 12th-century France, and they are so good. Catherine is a student at Heloise's . . . um, thingy. Brain is not working right now. Anyway, the series has Heloise and Abelard, and their impossibly named son Astrolabe, and the books appear to be about medieval people in a medieval setting.

Sharan Newman is an actual medieval scholar, with degrees in it. She wrote "The Real History Behind the Da Vinci Code" which was sort of a godsend amongst all that hoopla.

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

Ooo - haven't read those books, so will add them to my Christmas wishlist which definitely seems to be VERY book based this year!

edmndclotworthy got SO annoyed with the whole "Da Vinci" thing. Mostly as he is half Italian he got very het up with the title. "Da Vinci" means "From (or) Of Vinci". It wasn't Leonardo's surname at all! And then E read the book as he is a closet cryptographer (in WWII - he would have been one of the boffins cracking codes, or in Queen Elizabeth's time, working for Francis Walsingham!). However, he said a child could have cracked all the so called "puzzles" and "Codes" in the Vinci Code book!

And anyway, the book was trying to copy a much earlier one which was far better a story.

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

She even has an errata page for the first book. And a cool fallacies about the Middle Ages page. She loves the history so much!

My absolute favorite scene in the Catherine Levendeur books is in the second or third book, when a character's husband watches her strain the spices out of her ale with the sleeve of her dress, and he's thinking, "So gauche! But I love her anyway." It's just a little touch that's human and authentic and that went click! when I read it.

The Da Vinci Code made me angry because a really poorly written book, to the point where I couldn't read it. I never even got to any of the codes, because I only made it to page 30.

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

Just found a MUCH cheaper version of this book:

Go to Abebooks and do a search on his name and title.

I have done so and the first two in the list are just $25.

First one in the list here.

And its hardback!

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

Oh, fantastic! Now to wait until my next paycheck.

[snowywolfowl.livejournal.com]

Hi, SnowyWolfOwl here. I wandered over from Myladyswardrobe and Sarahbellem's friendpages.*

A lot of the stories I'm working on right now have the "I don't speak his gibberish." issue as a problem. Truth be told, I haven't really found it too much of a problem for the most part. Some solutions I've used have included:

1. If its just one guy surrounded by people who don't speak his language, then just have the guy not want to talk. This only works in a few, fairly specific scenarios, but when it suits the character, it really works.

2. Use a translator. This can make arguments even more fun, especially if the translator is under pressure not to insult either of their "betters". For an example of an author I like who did that consider checking out George RR Martin. I think it was in "A Clash of Kings" where one of Dany's servants had to do that, but I'm not sure. I don't have the book here in India.

Mariko, in James Clavell's "Shogun" also fills this type of role for the protagonist as well.

3. My final suggestion? Let your people be multilingual. I'm working as a trainer for a company here in India, and I'm only fluent in one language. Most of my trainees are fluent in anywhere from two to five languages. When you consider that Urdu, Hindi, English and Tamil all come from different linguistic traditions that is some achievement. Sure, I can see a peasant who's never walked more than twenty miles being unilingual, but a family that has some commercial, familial or political dealings outside of their lands could be expected to have a few people speak a second language.

Anyway, hope this helps a bit. Good luck!




*It's Diwali here in India, and due to the volume of explosions outside I'm staying inside, wandering the internet while I take a break from getting ready for NaNoWriMo.

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

Actually, my research in recent days has shown me that bilingualism is a definite possibility, as there was intermarriage back and forth across the Welsh border. So it's completely plausible for one or both of the characters to speak at least some of the other person's language, and probably to have been familiar with it from birth. I just wasn't sure if that was a widespread thing before, or if it never ever happened.

Now I need to figure out if people in England though that all Welsh people were "witches" or slightly afraid of their other-ness, or if it was more "these people, who we are fighting, are pissing me off!" Like in Henry IV, Part 1, Glyndwr (Or Glendower or however you want to spell it) promises Hostpur he'll teach him to consort with the devil and says that the earth shook when he was born. He's a very mystical character. But I don't know if that portrayal is common to the 13th century, because Shakespeare wrote the play nearly two centuries later, and he's not really a source for accurate history.

[snowywolfowl.livejournal.com]

No, I agree. Much as I like Shake'n'Bake' he's not a history source. I've always actually been a bit surprised that he made a Welsh character a villain, since if memory serves the Tudor dynasty came from Wales. Either he rode a very fine line with the authorities, or the authorities didn't see anything potentially seditious in it.

For me the question of "Do they *really* think this, or are they just pissed off?" can be handled on a case by case basis. You could have some people really buying into the whole "the Welsh are Witch people!" argument, while others don't. Some could even manipulate it to serve their own purposes. The nice thing is depending on how deep you want to go with this you could find some interesting points. For the record, I do this a bit in my stories, and I like where some of my characters go because of it.