Style [Inspiration] Medieval life (ported from the old forums)

[Emileld]

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These ideas aim to help us all creating an immersive world. These are no rules. Each bulletpoint should be considered critically depending on the context. (i.e. If you're build is in Dorne, extensive gardens or veggie patches are nonsense). Use these with common sense and in stark moderation.

Check this homepage for inspiriation and to learn exactly how structures were supported and mechanisms worked:
http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/life.htm

Small Villages and Hamlets:
- Stalls, troughs, paddocks for livestock
- barns
- sheds (tools, dry elevated storage for food, etc.), chicken or rabbit coops
- chopped wood blocks (wood piles) below roof overhangs + chopping block with the axe nearby
- fruit trees, bushes, "wild vegetation" (not big & organized orchards), but several small ones around /near the village.
- Vegetable Patches, Gardens, Small stone walls or hedges or fences to mark property
- Compost heaps
- A laundry place outside the buildings (water barrel if no stream is nearby, and a simple cloth line)
- Depending on the profession: Beehives, Barrels of ale, Sand on the ground as flour, etc.
- Cesspit, Gongfarmers
- Carpenter + woodsaw
- Logging camp + sawpit
- Mill (water, wind, tide, animal, manual)

Fields:
- Haystacks
- Yoke, Till, Carts
- Wheelbarrows


Castles:
- Lord's Hall
- Bower (the Lady's private drawing room)
- Wardrobe (dressing room, storage for valuables)
- Bath Room (attached to wardrobe)
- Knitting Room
- Feast Hall
- Minstrel's Gallery
- Throne Room (later addition to castles)
- Privies, Chamberpots, Garderobes (the latrine type) [Sorry for the german wiki here but the english one is devoid of relevant info and pics.], Dansker
- Brattices, Machicolation, Arrowslits, Murderholes
- Laundry Room
- Meat Storage (salted, dried, smoked, cold) , vegetable vellar, whine cellar
- Cells, Dungeons, Torture rooms, shackles.
- Stocks, pillory, gallows, chopping block, Cages.
- Kitchen
- Buttery (storage for ale/beverage)
- Bottlery (storage for wine/expensive provisions)
- Pantry (storage for perishable foods - no ice for 'refridgeration')
- Sept
- Oratory (private chapel)
- Dresser
- Stables
- Granary
- Kennels
- Cistern, well, artesian well
- Training Yard, Arrow range, Jousting lanes, Dummies for all of those.
- Armory, Guardposts, Head of the Guard chamber, Barracks.
- Dungeon
- Maester's Chamber, Rookery, Herbgarden, [Glas gardens], medical supplies, leeching room.
- Bathhouse
- Gatehouse
- Bailey


Mods please feel free to just edit more stuff in or regroup my ramblings. Builders feel free to post more ideas, please refrain from discussion and keep this informative.

There is good evidence to suggest that castle barracks didn't exist in the 16th century and before. While Romans had temporary barracks for military campaigns, castles didn't have large standing armies where they would need to house military men for long periods of time. Knights and peasant infantry would have their own homes, while professional soldiers would sleep in the guard towers near their posts or with the other servants in the great hall after the evening meal was served and the trestle tables were removed.

http://www.answers.com/topic/barracks-2
http://www.castlewales.com/life.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barracks
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101219090134AARvAA0
http://www.ancientfortresses.org/medieval-great-hall.htm

In general, these sites have tons of interesting information about medieval castles and medieval life:
http://www.ancientfortresses.org/rooms-in-a-medieval-castle.htm
http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/architecture.htm
http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-castles/index.htm
http://www.ancientfortresses.org/
http://www.castlewales.com/life.html

Along this topic, I know I might be a broken record, but I have more info for us to consider on glassmakers:
glass production was not reserved just for ports, beaches and other sandy places, Forest glass is late medieval, and the workshops were commonly located within forests, near riverbeds where the sand would be sourced from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_glass
These forest glass houses most commonly used beech wood, and were usually located in forests belonging to the Church. The glasshouses needed to be located in forests to source the huge amount of wood needed . The woodlands were managed - but sometimes the glass houses needed to move.

some images:
http://glassian.org/Making/Diderot/crown_glasshouse.html
http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Unknown9.jpeg
http://www.uh.edu/engines/glass.jpg

https://flic.kr/p/2894841276

and a couple really nice pdfs:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/iha-glassworks/M_and_EPM_Glassworks_IHA_final.pdf
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/glassworkingguidelines/glassworking-guidelines.pdf

hought I'd post these:
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Feudalism_and_Medieval_life.htm#Manors
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Townlife.htm

Here's a huge repository of information:
http://the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/towns/towns.html

Though unfortunately many of the links are broken. A bunch still work though.

http://www2.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/markport/lit/introlit/ms.htm

Simple, well explained guide concerning medieval manuscript making. I based my Street of Gold house off of this in LP, but I suppose it will be useful for Oldtown, when we cross that road.

Hi, recently I've been addicted to building inns and manors on the server. And after a few (and doing research on how they looked) I would like to share these two links that I love to use for ideas. (sorry for not putting them up earlier). The first link is a pdf that solely focuses on medieval Inns, tavern, or alehouses (which ever one you prefer). The second link brings you to the inn/tavern/alehouse page, however to the left its chock full of more useful links, to other things you might find in a caste, town, or a certain building. Also before I stop rambling here, some also have some "schematics" (however you'd depict a schematic to look like) Hope these two links are useful as they were to me!


PDF: http://cwoodlibrary.weebly.com/uploads/5/2/8/9/5289432/inns_and_taverns_in_the_middle_ages.pdf

Chock full of Stuff: http://www.buildinghistory.org/buildings/churchhouses.shtml

About castle life: http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/life.htm

So here's 3 nice videos to educate yourselves some more on castle building. They give you great knowledge on how fortified walls were in the medieval times, and what materials were used where. Also in the second video the narrator kinda talks about how much each person would get paid. Something to help show how poor people were actually back then. (think it'll help with making houses more realistic to the jobs they are assigned to) Its also filled with chock full of other fun educating facts about castles (how expensive they cost, defenses, and more that I'm not gonna say cause you'll have to watch ;-) )

Video #1:

Video #2:

Video #3:

Enjoy the videos! (would really like it if you put it in the Inspirational Guide thread)

Here's two links for sites with great examples of English and French castles. Both show the castles as they would have looked in their prime, an invaluable perspective as most intact castles today are either 19th century reconstructions or ruined hulks. Hopefully these will inspire some ultra-realistic castles on the server.

http://www.heritage-explorer.co.uk/web/he/search.aspx?crit=reconstruction castle&rt=0
* this one I have just searched for reconstruction images of castles, there are loads of other images throughout the site.

http://www.lostincastles.com/
*Really in-depth 3d models

TIL: Many older farm houses had the residency directly attached to the animal barn, because the heat given off by the animals would help heat the house a little bit.
http://themiddleagesjpf.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/5/6/19564697/8001565.jpg[/quote]

Here's a site with an artist's drawings of castle reconstructions throughout Germany. Its all in German, but its easy enough to figure out.

http://burgrekonstruktion.de/main.php
Just pick a region and there's a whole bunch of drawings. I think maybe around 200.

I see some of these as ideal for the Stormlands. Too bad the Vale is relatively complete.

 

[Emileld]

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I found a site here with some lovely maps of the English Countryside following the manorial system. Would love to see it implemented more in the Reach.

http://www.aedificium.org/Maps/LocalMaps.html

I recently noticed the JSTOR database that I use for my school research has tons of useful academic journals regarding the planning and characteristics of medieval towns and villages. Tham suggested I post some of the good ones here, so I attached them to this comment. Some basic info on each journal can be found below.

Ideal and Reality in English Episcopal Medieval Town Planning
Author: T. R. Slater
Source: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1987), pp. 191-203
Published by: Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

Crafts, Guilds and the Negotiation of Work in the Medieval Town
Author: Gervase Rosser
Source: Past & Present, No. 154 (Feb., 1997), pp. 3-31
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Past and Present Society

Medieval Market Towns and Simple Commodity Production
Author: R. H. Hilton
Source: Past & Present, No. 109 (Nov., 1985), pp. 3-23
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Past and Present Society

Medieval Towns
Author: Leopold Arnaud
Source: Journal of the American Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 3, No. 1/2, The History of City Planning (Jan. - Apr., 1943), pp. 30-35
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural

Study of a Typical Medieval Village
Author: W. Warde Fowler
Source: The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Jan., 1895), pp. 151-174
Published by: Oxford University Press

The Analysis of Burgage Patterns in Medieval Towns
Author: T. R. Slater
Source: Area, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1981), pp. 211-216
Published by: Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)

The Morphology of the Medieval German Town
Author(s): Robert E. Dickinson
Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1945), pp. 74-97
Published by: American Geographical Society

The Origins and Early Development of Medieval Towns in Northern Europe
Author: Adriaan Verhulst
Source: The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 47, No. 2 (May, 1994), pp. 362-373
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History Society

Urban Identity in Medieval English Towns
Author: Lorraine Attreed
Source: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 32, No. 4, The Productivity of Urban Space in Northern Europe (Spring, 2002), pp. 571-592
Published by: MIT Press

I'm not sure if this counts as inspirational, but I've found a long paper about the spiral staircases in medieval castles. Long story short: castles didn't make staircases spiral clockwise for defensive purposes; contrary to what I and many others have claimed before.

Here's the article: http://www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk/CSGJournal2011-12X5stairs.pdf

Here's the article's source, which is itself a treasure trove of information: http://www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk/

Maps from Stoop:
http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000000337
http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000043514&page=1
http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000015403
https://www.kb.nl/bladerboek/stedenboekflash/browse/book.html

http://www.historyextra.com/article/premium/how-build-medieval-castle
http://www.castellscatalans.cat/documents/The_medieval_city.pdf

There is a a good subreddit I found for maps with cool town maps.
https://www.reddit.com/r/papertowns
Lots of cool 16th century maps with interesting details.
.
A few I liked:
http://xweb123-001-site8.gtempurl.com/test4/dz.html?dd=37
http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/germany/wurzburg/maps/munster_ger_1550_wurzburg_b.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...tegrond_van_Den_Haag,_Jacob_de_Gheyn_(II).jpg

[/quote]

Found this video a while back. And now that we're beginning to build more and more cities and towns its becoming relevant.
While it focusses on how to "fix" hideous cities nowadays lots of the aspects discussed are applicable to our towns, specifically the plotting or the design of the houses (e.g. variety and order at 1:58).

Here's hoping this will inspire our ever growing number of town/city-builders out there

I'd like to share something with you regarding the planning of areas surrounding settlements, towns, and especially larger cities like Oldtown. In University we talked about Johann Heinrich von Thünen, who did research on the most effective and historically most common use of the area around a city, organizing it in so called "Thünen rings". While parts of it may have been realized here and there, this historical acurate model was to my knowledge not used by us so far. It would be a great to see it finding application in current/upcoming builds though.

Easy version:

The black dot represents a city
1 (white) dairy and market gardening
2 (green) forest for fuel
3 (yellow) grains and field crops
4 (red) ranching; the outer, dark green area represents wilderness where agriculture is not profitable

One should keep in mind that in reality this model would have to be adjusted to the terrain and climatic conditions, as it is displayed in this more complex model:

I hope that this is taken into consideration on pending and upcoming land plans.

Stoop's collection: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B8iiqbBBz00gZlJaVW4tMnhoTDQ

Hey all,

In medieval times, pigeons were not only used for carrying messages but were also bred for food and for their excrement, pigeon guano, which was considered to be one of the finest fertilizer around. The owning of dovecotes was a feudal right only restricted to lords and were built on manors and castles. It would make sense for some dovecotes to be built in the Reach in rich manors next to vineyards or just in castles for food. Just and idea, do what you will!

http://www.pigeoncontrolresourcecentre.org/html/dovecotes-pigeon-houses-columbaria.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovecote#France
a french link: http://pigeonniers-de-france.chez-alice.fr/accueil_529.htm

 

[Thamus_Knoward]

I think each entry of the Kingdom Come: Deliverance codex is very relevant and well-researched!

https://kingdomcomedeliverance.gamepedia.com/Category:Codex_general_entries