posted
I want to learn more about the sailing, boating, or just seamanship of the middle-ages through renaissance era for a novel I'm intending to write.
Also, any good books on horsehandling and caregiving, for around these periods, would be great too.
I realize that these are pretty specific, but if any of you know any good books out there, I'd be glad to hear them.
There's a book called (I think) "Brendan's Voyage," about an Irish monk, St. Brendan, who supposedly crossed the ocean to North America in (I think) the 6th century, so it may be a little early for what you're looking for, but it has a lot of details of what such a voyage might have been like, based on a reconstruction of the leather coracle that would have been used, etc. Probably not helpful, but just in case.
In all honesty, the best advice is to join a sailing club and learn to horseride [if you can].
Seriously - I learned to canter just for the realism for my own writing, even though I was so broke I could only afford a £10 lesson every fortnight.
Sailing may be harder if you're deep in the US - but are they're any rivers and lakes with clubs nearby?
The investment is sound, not simply with regards to personal experience - you can also quiz people as resources and gather their experiences - and gain some incredible anecdotes.
posted
I completely agree with you; that is perfectly sound advice.
I have done both, actually. It was those things that made me want to write a story that involved them. Actually, I was more or less interested in the differences between boating and horsemanship from now and back then.
I imagine lots of the technology was different, including construction tools and whatnot.
posted
I bet Horsemanship has only changed in the area of time spent with the horses. (I own several.) Horses haven't changed enough to make their handling any different. Only our culture has changed. Some of the Amish villages might give you a feel for what it was like. They were man's best friend back then. So much depended on your horse. Necessities like: transportation, tilling the fields, harvesting, hauling firewood for the winter, and in some cultures milk and meat. The list is endless, depending upon the climate as well.
1.17 times the square root of your height of eye = Distance to the horizon in nautical miles
Note that this formula is flexible. If the structure of your boat puts your eye 16 feet above the water, you can see a horizon that is 1.17 * 4 = 4.68 nautical miles away. But suppose a ship 16 feet tall is over that horizon. How close would it have to be for you to see the top of it?
Obviously, if you can see the same horizon that it can see, then you can start to see each other. So you could see something that is 16 feet tall if it is 4.68 nautical miles beyond your horizon, or 9.36 nautical miles from you.
These examples involved small ships to make tha math easy. Most ships are much taller and can see (and be seen) at much greater distances.
posted
Obviously the above example assumes your world is not flat. Indeed, it needs to be the same size as the Earth. If the world is larger, the horizon will be farther away and your characters will be able to see farther.
Posts: 976 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
On horses: there was a major innovation during the Middle Ages that made a big difference on how horses could be ridden and how they could be used in battle--the stirrup.
Without stirrups, they could ride the horse to the battleground, but then they had to get off and fight on foot (no leverage for a good sword swing or lance push without stirrups).
So, you might want to look up stirrups and see if your time frame includes them, and write accordingly.
posted
Time frame and geography and culture, the Chinese had true stirrups by 322, probably a logical development of the mounting stirrups (a single, short stirrup on one side of the saddle, only useful for mounting up) they had been using for some decades.
The Indians had stirrups (of a sort) even earlier, but it was only a loop of leather to tuck the foot into, not a support system by any means.
And of course, there were probably a number of barbarian clans that invented the stirrup and kept it as a closely guarded military secret even before that. It's amazing the knowledge that people used to let die out because they had no direct descendent. Knowledge used to be valued for its secrecy even more than for its truth, and still is in most cultures (including most contemporary American cultures).
posted
I don't think there's a pat answer for those questions. Too many variables -
such as terrain, duration of journey, food/water sources, how loaded down you and your horse are and what size wagon carrying what? What sort of horse are we talking? Some are built for speed, some for distance, some for strength -
In terms of the "covered wagon" pioneer era, oxen were the most often used to haul wagons and 10-12 miles per day in good weather and flat terrain was considered excellent speed.
posted
Yes, questions of load weight heavily (I couldn't resist, I really couldn't)
If you had several remounts and switched them out, you could actually maintain a run for most of the day (there better be a stable with some experienced hands at the end of it, though, or your fine steeds will be broken down nags in the morning). Not a flat out gallop, but a hundred miles wouldn't be impossible. I'd think that two hundred would kill your horses, with or without the stable, and more than that is probably impossible.
Without remounts, I don't think you could go even a hundred miles before killing the horse...and much more than 75 would wipe the beasty out for a good long time.
Being harnessed to a wagon with a team, each horse wastes a fair amount of energy, so at best a team (or a single horse pulling a ]light chariot) will not perform astonishingly better than a horse with a rider, though with a well designed and rigged harness the advantage can be substantial.
Please note that this assumes all kinds of ideal conditions, level terrain, moderate temperatures, grain rather than grass, watering holes in all the right places, etc. In real life the ranges would probably be half at most. In fact, given that a very healthy long distance runner can run up to fifty or sixty miles in a single day (again, ideal), a horse rider doesn't have a huge advantage. Also please note that I really have no idea, I'm just making these numbers up out of my head
If you really want to know, you could ask the doctor, meaning Dr. Nancy Deuel at [url]horse-science.com[/ur]. I also found a writer that has collected some historical examples of horses going the distance and what happened to them as a result. Her site is www.juliaross.net. Keep in mind that the examples that she cites are all of exceptional performances, and the modern competitive examples are under very ideal conditions.
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(I couldn't resist, I really couldn't)
