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

[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.