A lot of this - the historical background info - is very familiar to me, the clothing info I've picked up from costume books, tons of historic fiction, and you ( ;p ), but yay for even more in-depth details and lots and lots of links.
My armchair researcher was always more interested in Roman, with some medieval interest. But my major focus in college was colonialism and early US on the side of history and LOTS of art history. And hate to break it to you - but while medieval illumination get their mention and I looked at the evolving floor plans of churches til I was sick of them, the godsend to the academic study of art was the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation (the whole 30 years war mess being another hot topic heget interest). Not to say there wasn't lots of good art in that 'dark ages to early ren' period or that the myth of artists in the Middle Ages never signing their work isn't just that.... But again, my knowledge of armor is heavily biased towards Roman laminated legionnaire (and how the Romans were basically 'let's steal whatever worked from our enemies and adapt it wholescale with our efficiency' - hence why the Hunnish trouser morphed our Roman tunics into the medieval cote and chausse) or the abbreviated cuirasses of pike and arquebus, so I'm good for gambesons and chain but full plate starts getting into terms and diagrams that make me hurt. (The stuff was flexible and light enough to cartwheels in, myth debunked- but give me lots of yew longbow men or barring the generational training time for a good corps, a few hundred winch crossbows...)
And now I'm very glad I've started writing out what will be a consolidated master version of my 'world-building guide to each part of my hood', because now I feel really inspired to go into the period clothing details. (Last night I finally made an executive descision on what groups would own what style of cat breeds- I kid you not; that's my level of crazy.) So this helps for a few of the sub-groups. ^^
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A lot of this - the historical background info - is very familiar to me, the clothing info I've picked up from costume books, tons of historic fiction, and you ( ;p ), but yay for even more in-depth details and lots and lots of links.
My armchair researcher was always more interested in Roman, with some medieval interest. But my major focus in college was colonialism and early US on the side of history and LOTS of art history. And hate to break it to you - but while medieval illumination get their mention and I looked at the evolving floor plans of churches til I was sick of them, the godsend to the academic study of art was the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation (the whole 30 years war mess being another hot topic heget interest). Not to say there wasn't lots of good art in that 'dark ages to early ren' period or that the myth of artists in the Middle Ages never signing their work isn't just that....
But again, my knowledge of armor is heavily biased towards Roman laminated legionnaire (and how the Romans were basically 'let's steal whatever worked from our enemies and adapt it wholescale with our efficiency' - hence why the Hunnish trouser morphed our Roman tunics into the medieval cote and chausse) or the abbreviated cuirasses of pike and arquebus, so I'm good for gambesons and chain but full plate starts getting into terms and diagrams that make me hurt. (The stuff was flexible and light enough to cartwheels in, myth debunked- but give me lots of yew longbow men or barring the generational training time for a good corps, a few hundred winch crossbows...)
And now I'm very glad I've started writing out what will be a consolidated master version of my 'world-building guide to each part of my hood', because now I feel really inspired to go into the period clothing details. (Last night I finally made an executive descision on what groups would own what style of cat breeds- I kid you not; that's my level of crazy.) So this helps for a few of the sub-groups. ^^
In short- fun facts to read, yay!