A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This week we're going to start a three-part (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc) look at the role of the pre-modern general or army commander, particularly in the context of a pitched battle. This is of course a vast topic, but we are going to focus not on tactical or strategic questions but on a lot … Continue reading Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part I: Reports
This week, we're going to be a bit silly and talk about the recently released Royal Court, a DLC expansion for Paradox's medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, because I think it is attempting something fairly interesting that relatively few strategy games do. This isn't going to be a review - there are a … Continue reading Miscellanea: Thoughts on CKIII: Royal Court
This is the second of a three part (I, II, III) series tackling the complicated and still very much debated question of 'how bad was the fall of Rome (in the West)?' In the last part, we looked at 'words' - culture, literature, language and religion. What we found is that in these aspects, signs … Continue reading Collections: Rome: Decline and Fall? Part II: Institutions
This is the third part of a five part (I, II, III, IV, V) series covering some of the basics of fortifications, from city walls to field fortifications, from the ancient world through to the modern period. Last week, we used the Romans as an example to see how the needs of a given fortification … Continue reading Collections: Fortification, Part III: Castling
Note from the Editor: I'm excited that I have our first (hopefully of many!) guest post to share with you and it is a fascinating topic to start with. The history of medicine (and the history of science more generally) is a captivating and important sub-field and a frequent reader-request, but also a place where … Continue reading Meet a Historian: Robin S. Reich on Making Sense of Medieval Medicine: Humors, Weird Animal Parts, and Experiential Knowledge
This post is also available in audio form, thanks to the efforts of our volunteer narrator. This is the third part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles, particularly wool and linen, in the pre-modern world. Last time, we processed our raw fibers, removing extraneous material and … Continue reading Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part III: Spin Me Right Round…
This post is also available in audio form, thanks to the efforts of our volunteer narrator. This week we are starting the first of a four (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) part look at pre-modern textile production. As with our series on farming and iron, we are going to follow the sequence of production from … Continue reading Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part I: High Fiber
We're going to be a bit silly this week (in part because the ending of this compressed semester has left me with little time) and talk about the recently released historical action-RPG computer (and console) game, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, set in 9th century Norway and England. And, as with the last time we did this, … Continue reading Collections: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications
This week we are starting a four-part look (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) at pre-modern iron and steel production. As with our series on farming, we are going to follow the train of iron production from the mine to a finished object, be that a tool, a piece of armor, a simple nail, a … Continue reading Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining
Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! As the third part (I, II, III, IV, A) of our look at the basic structure of food production in the pre-modern world (particularly farming grain to make bread) we're going to finally look at how one actually … Continue reading Collections: Bread, How Did they Make it? Part III: Actually Farming