Medieval Travelers' Guide- need your input

[themantheycallcris]

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't been on much in the last month or so. We moved from WA to OR and had all kinds of stuff happen.

Anyway, I'm hoping you guys can provide some input for me. I'm doing a book for someone, it's a Travelers' Guide to Elizabethan England. It's meant to be an informative book with a creative writing style.

My client's target audience is more Renaissance Fair fans, but since this subject is of interest to Fantasy authors as well, I thought I'd see what you guys have to say.

I'm trying to find out what kind of subjects people would like to know about for that time/place in history. If you can, please reply back and let me know what you would like to learn about in a book like that.

Thanks everyone!

[dizzyjam]

How about the best way of going about making the protection the soldiers wear. I believe it's called chain mail, but if it's not that just proves my own ignorance.

Also you could include information on the best fields that produced wine back then. A soldier has to drink his wine after the victory after all.

Sword and shield making would be interesting too.

Hope this helps some.

[mongoose]

Not that tourism was a "thing" back then, but for those rich enough to consider it they'd want to know where the hot spots were. Today it would be the best clubs and theatres. Back then it would have been the best palaces and castles hosting parties for the elites and nobles. Really, it was more about the names and personalities than it was about the locations or architecture.

If you're really focused on mideaval times rather than the high middle ages to Renaissance, all of the military forces were bound to one individual warlord or another. The armor and weapons were made in-house by whichever smith was bound to that Lord. Each Lord, in turn, was bound to a higher ranking noble, on up to the king (this is more in europe, but also in England around the time of William the Conqueror.) This feudal system remained in place for several generations before everything was truly centralized or nationalized.

You may recall in the stories of Robin Hood, how the whole conflict was over Robin's land. He was a noble bound to King Edward the Lion Heart, as I recall (more or less tightly bound, depending on which account you read.) When both Robin and Edward were away from the land, or otherwise were unable to defend it, another Norman or British lord came in and annexed the land for himself. He, in turn, hoped to gain favor with his liege lord, whom he hoped would take the throne of England away from King Edward.

In the ensuing conflict, Robin remained a noble, and as such had the knights loyal to him (his merry men) and he remained in liege to King Edward, ultimately returning the service of the land, and of his knights and himself, to King Edward upon the King's return. The King, in exchange, rewarded Robin for his loyalty in keeping the land from his intended usurper.

So no one really owned land except for the high king, but the high king had very little to do with most of the land, leaving its management up to his vassals, who were the lords of any given parcel of land that was under their control, and of everything and everyone on that land. Kind of the original trickle down theory.

The high king, of course, had his own personal guard, some troops loyal directly to him, and those who served him in his castle. But those soldiers would not be enough to win any kind of a conflict, only to guard the royal family and perhaps defend the castle if it came down to a siege. Instead, if the King chose to go to war he would call all his vassals to him, and each of them would bring their own private army of indentured knights with them. Thus you'd have all these different banners within one army, and each banner, or vassal with his knights, would play their own part in the ensuing battles.

Fortunately for some of the lords, the knights were indentured servants, and not mercenaries available for hire. When knights decided they could be free, or that they served whomever paid them, it would play havoc with the security and thus the power and prestige of whomever had been their liege lord. So the lords had to do whatever they could to maintain the loyalty of their knights.

A guide book might describe the politics of the individual lords that the tourist might visit.

[Christian Soldier]

You also might want to consider the various things that the Renaissance Fairs have in them and add more detail. For instance, most 'fairs have blacksmiths, so you might want to include more details as to what a blacksmith does.

[Jeff Gerke]

There have been a number of books written about this, Cris.

One I have in my library is The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages (www.amazon.com/Everyday-Life-Middle-Ages-British/dp/1582970017/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233667943&sr=1-3).

You might check a few of these to see what categories they typically cover--and what things you can cover that they've overlooked.

Jeff

[themantheycallcris]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

[themantheycallcris]

I finished the book and the client I wrote it for now has it for sale at www.Elizabethslondonguide.com !

I don't have any rights or get any royalties, but she allowed me to keep my name on it as the author and copyrighted it as such. Please check it out (and buy a copy if it's your cup of tea). Also, if you know any Ren-Faire fans please tell them about it! They are the core of the target audience.

Thanks everyone!