Resources for Writing Historically Accurate Medieval Settings

Why?

Because I have the 🌈 tism 🌈, I have some very intense interests. These are often called 'special' or 'restricted' interests which is pathologizing, so I prefer the term spin. Anyways, medieval history and particularly medieval daily life is one of my spins.

I've been researching extensively to really give Aralise a flavor of authenticity. Over the course of this, I've encountered a lot of resources and realized that not everyone is a scholar with training and access to a university library. For that reason, I'm going to curate some of my medievalist resources here so that others can learn about medieval Europe and use these in their own work.

I absolutely hate that history often focuses on powerful men and their deeds on the scales of kingdoms. For this reason, a large portion of this list is looking at segments of medieval European society that are not discussed nearly as often: women, sex workers, the disabled, and people of lower social status in general. Resources for those upper echelons are included because they're necessary to understand the medieval mindset as a whole, but history is the result of every human that ever lived and thousands of stories in this time period were never recorded at all.

Shoutout to Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64 because I'm pretty certain that's why I have this spin.

Resources

Videos

• Modern History TV: Jason Kingsley is a medievalist as well and focused on daily life. He does a ton of hands on demonstrations of things like jousting, rushlights, and ink.

Video Games

• Crusader Kings 3: This game is basically the sims but as a medieval noble family. With a ton of attention to historical detail, this game will help you truly understand the feudal mindset.
• Age of Empires 2: With a ton of care (the farming techs even represent real innovations in Europe), this game will help you learn about the various civilizations of medieval Europe. Historical campaigns are also available.
• Kingdom Come Deliverance 2: Read up on this one before playing. Has amazing attention to detail, but there are elements of Czech nationalism among other modern anachronisms.

Books

• Life in the Middle Ages by Hans-Werner Goetz: An overview of daily life in the medieval era from 600 to 1200 CE focusing on monks, peasants, knights, and cities.
• Life in a Medieval Castle by Joseph and Frances Gies: A book dispelling the myths and romanticism about medieval castle life while trying to preserve the reader's sense of wonder.
• Dioscorides' On Medical Matters [De Materia Medica]: This is a text on herbalism that would have been used for medical treatment across medieval Europe and contains illustrations of the plants.
• Flametree Myths and Legends Series: This series of books contains folk tales from across the world. I'm not personally impressed with the editorial quality but reading them has helped me understand medieval history a bit better.

Academic Papers

I've done my best to find these papers where they can be accessed for free. If you have issues accessing a paper, let me know.

• Medieval Sex Work Studies: The State of the Field: This paper criticizes several common misconceptions about medieval European sex workers, refutes their characterization as passive victims, and provides references to a few books that explore this aspect of medieval history.
• Bread, Cheese and Genocide: Imagining the Destruction of Peoples in Medieval Western Europe: Despite the claim of many modern genocide scholars, this paper explores how medieval Europeans had a conception of ethnicity, the link between political rights and the survival of a people, and the capacity to target such a people.
• Women's Medical Practice and Health Care in Medieval Europe: This review paper deconstructs the myth that women were only midwives villainized as witches during the medieval era. Women could become full-blown physicians and were slowly excluded as licensing requirements grew in the early modern period.

Websites

• Fashion History Timeline: Ran by the State University of New York, the Fashion History Timeline is a wonderful tool to learn about what people in the West wore throughout history.
• List of Women in Post-Classical Warfare: A list of women warriors in the medieval era, dispelling the idea that women were not active participants in the struggles of the era.
• Medieval Disability Glossary: A site exploring the terms used for disabled people in the medieval era, citing their use in historical sources, and discussing their etymology.
• Early Music Shop: A place to examine and purchase instruments common during the medieval period. They have sheet music and accessories as well for the budding musician.