Medieval Morons: Difference between revisions
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** Medieval peasants would certainly have looked like idiots to many of us because they were, kind of, [[Fridge Logic|not urban.]] And certainly not twenty-first-century city dwellers. On the other hand they knew plenty of things most people are not called upon for today, such as predicting weather, keeping vermin off their crops, getting a harvest without agricultural machinery, etc. Not to mention how to cache goods when a passing army or just a rent collector is too near. They did not have what we would call quality education or even what a Medieval Scholar would call such (which by the way, wasn't to bad though sometimes a little impractical). They did know how to survive in their environment, at least [[HAD to Be Sharp|the ones that did so.]] |
** Medieval peasants would certainly have looked like idiots to many of us because they were, kind of, [[Fridge Logic|not urban.]] And certainly not twenty-first-century city dwellers. On the other hand they knew plenty of things most people are not called upon for today, such as predicting weather, keeping vermin off their crops, getting a harvest without agricultural machinery, etc. Not to mention how to cache goods when a passing army or just a rent collector is too near. They did not have what we would call quality education or even what a Medieval Scholar would call such (which by the way, wasn't to bad though sometimes a little impractical). They did know how to survive in their environment, at least [[HAD to Be Sharp|the ones that did so.]] |
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**Likewise Medieval Nobles were good at [[Game of Thrones]] style [[The Chessmaster|chessmastery.]] Knights were pretty good at single combat though their tactical skill in large battles was mildly off. Strategy was actually better than tactics because communications and organization were often poor whereas getting a handle on where to march, when, and why was a complex matter but fundamentally based on understanding geography and politics better than the other guy and a rather simple army could be used in sophisticated ways. Merchants knew how to predict prices somewhere where they [[You Should Know This Already|did not have real time intelligence]], how to move goods hither and yon. And how to think of elaborate schemes of organization and corporate law. Craftsfolk would have known how to turn out products by hand tools without availing themselves of standardized mass production (though even the precursors to that were known in places like the Venetian navy yard). |
**Likewise Medieval Nobles were good at [[Game of Thrones]] style [[The Chessmaster|chessmastery.]] Knights were pretty good at single combat though their tactical skill in large battles was mildly off. Strategy was actually better than tactics because communications and organization were often poor whereas getting a handle on where to march, when, and why was a complex matter but fundamentally based on understanding geography and politics better than the other guy and a rather simple army could be used in sophisticated ways. Merchants knew how to predict prices somewhere where they [[You Should Know This Already|did not have real time intelligence]], how to move goods hither and yon. And how to think of elaborate schemes of organization and corporate law. Craftsfolk would have known how to turn out products by hand tools without availing themselves of standardized mass production (though even the precursors to that were known in places like the Venetian navy yard). |
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* One [[Subversion]] you have to watch for is that sometimes examples of "Medieval Moronry" are just them having a different goal than you are thinking. An example is maps which are inaccurate. Obviously there were inaccurate guides for travel. But some of the maps you see are works of art and not meant to be used for navigation. Likewise bestiarys are not biological textbooks and so when they give folklore about this species or that you cannot tell whether they believed it because the most important part was that they did not really care; they were more interested in an entertaining or didactic yarn. |
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