What Happened 500 Years Ago?

[Pbartender]

So I'm beginning research for my next campaign. Here's the idea in a nutshell...

The real world, specifically Europe, circa 1504 AD, D&D-ified.

I went and checked out a bunch of books from the library, and did some web-searches, but it's a little bit tough to find anything about the Renaissance outside of Italy.

What I need, essentially, is some notes on what was going on at the time, or tips on good places to look such notes up.

 

[JackhammerJohn]

I just read a two year old Dragon magazine dealing the with same time period that you are talking about. Very good piece. Maybe issue 310 or thereabouts.

Also, I just read A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester regarding the time period. Very good read.

Read Solomon Kane for the fun of it.

I would also check out Joesph Campbell's The Power of The Myth series in book or video format.

Also, the site has some nifty stuff like all the laws of the period. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

For example, my favorite:

64. If any one destroy (another's) organ of generation, let him pay with three leud-gelds; if he pierce it through, let him make bot with six shillings; if it be pierced within, let him make bot with six shillings.

65. If a thigh be broken, let bot be made with twelve shillings; if the man become halt, then the friends must arbitrate.

66. If a rib be broken, let bot be made with three shillings.

67. If a thigh be pierced through, for each stab six shillings; if (the wound be) above an inch, a shilling; for two inches, two; above three, three shillings.

68. If a sinew be wounded, let bot be made with three shillings.

69. If a foot be cut off, let fifty shillings be paid.

70. If a great toe be cut off, let ten shillings be paid.

71. For each of the other toes, let one-half be paid, like as it is stated for the fingers.

72. If the nail of a great toe be cut off, thirty scaetts for bot; for each of the others, make bot with ten scaetts. . . .

Life in a Med. Castle? http://www.castlewales.com/life.html

Believe me, the internet is full of stuff and the bookstores are healthy with the subject. Are you really looking?

 

[Pbartender]

Also, I just read A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester regarding the time period. Very good read.

That is, actually, one of the books I checked out from my library... I haven't quite gotten to it yet.

Life in a Med. Castle? http://www.castlewales.com/life.html

I've been to that web-site before... Just a little too early for the time period, though.

Believe me, the internet is full of stuff and the bookstores are healthy with the subject. Are you really looking?

I'm finding lots of stuff, but... Like I said, the trouble I'm having is that everything I find is limited to the Italian Renaissance or simply sticks to the advances in art. I'm just having terrible luck finding anything that talks about the politics and society outside of Italy.

This... http://www.eduseek.com/navigate.php?ID=1334 ...is about the best stuff I've found so far. They even had an excellent political map... http://www.euratlas.com/big/big1500.htm

 

[green slime]

What kind of libraries do they have in the Chicago area?!?

Pick up the Encyclopedias: look up Renaissance, Christopher Colombus, Michelangelo, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Raphael, Thomas More, Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII, the list just goes on.

Read a copy of "1421: the year China discovered the world"

check out http://www.swirc.org/history/1500world.html

and

http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/education/solsites/history/world2.html

The above names and sites harnessed in less than 10 minutes of "googling". (including the time to write this message)

Unless you are wanting a minute by minute account of what happened during the year 1504, I think, you need to brush up on the Search skill.

 

[green slime]

http://www.multied.com/dates/1450ad.html

and even

http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/civil_n2/hist_5.html

english history timeline...
http://www.angelfire.com/de/BobSanders/TIME1.html
(which at least produces other things for you to search for)

 

[Pbartender]

Unless you are wanting a minute by minute account of what happened during the year 1504, I think, you need to brush up on the Search skill.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Doubting my ability to use a search engine or the quality of my local libraries does very, very little to help me. It would be much more useful if you could, perhaps, give me an example of the keywords you used in your 10-minute search. I may have missed one particularly useful keyword or combination of keywords.

My web searches contained various combinations of the following keywords...

"Renaissance", "history", "europe", "1500's", "16th century", "sixteenth century", "time line" and a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head. Most of what returned were treatises on art history.

 

[green slime]

Most of it popped up with "1500 AD", renaissance got a lot of art and italian on that, like you said. Often a key name "Thomas Moore" or "Henry VIII" (for England, for instance) will provide more insight on about what was going in that country politically.

1421 is a book I read. Details (amongst other things) what was going in China during 1400-1450. Not quite your exact time period.

 

[Pbartender]

Most of it popped up with "1500 AD", renaissance got a lot of art and italian on that, like you said. Often a key name "Thomas Moore" or "Henry VIII" (for England, for instance) will provide more insight on about what was going in that country politically.

Yeah... That's about the same sort of stuff I turned up. Anything that isn't about art or Italy gets a bit vague on the web searches. I ran across some decent stuff about the English kings, and a few bits about the Inquisition, but nothign substantial.

I might have to rely on the library books.

 

[Melkor Lord Of ALL!]

Poland, in union with Lithuania, was one of the greatest nations those days!

 

[Greylock]

Now that you mention it, I see a large gap in my history collection somewhere between Agincourt and Cromwell. Never noticed that.

Search for something or someone specific instead of the years. Try someone like Prince Henry the Navigator. That could help.