Medieval Psychology

[HimekawaMiyako]

That's pathetic.

[Sorontar]

The noble knight kneels before his lady, accepting her cloth, but not touching her hand because she is so sensitive. With sincerity, he raises his face to her from below:

‘My Lady. I will protect you with my life.’ He takes his sword and stands to protect innocence, and his brave men join him.

All these rumored stories about chanting poets had to come from somewhere.

Yeah, but sometimes the concept of Courtly Love is hard for the modern mind to understand. One Ulrich von Leichenstein (the real one, not the movie one) supposedly went on jousting tours solely trying to win the support and love of a certain lady. Often he would compete in Costume as the Lady Virgin. He was not apparently successful in winning her heart. I don't know what his wife felt about it all, because she certainly wasn't the target of his year long efforts.

Sorontar

[Gwrthefyr]

And at the same time you had Cervantes around the same waning era writing books satirizing all that medieval-minded stuff, while the italian princes would spit on all the hypocrisy and pretense of these political ideals and not sugarcoat the fact that they were out for power, at the same time you had phemonenon like the "bonfire of vanities" and other form of renaissance proto-luddism, where people rejected the new heathen-inspired (either graecoroman or muslim) ideas, while politics became much more pragmatic, with much less veneer; basically, what would have led to the excommunication of a rule two centuries ago (not for doing it but for stating they were doing it, and for not having some hypocritical excuse for doing it) was slowly but surely becoming politics as usual. If Anuire is anywhere near its Quattrocento, it ought to be interesting times. Elaborate seduction rituals would still exist, though. And still exist today among some circles, it's just that, like courtly love at the time or the Précieux' version of it later, they're a fashionista thing

And if you look at the English nobility, the decadence of the period was impressive, the feasts, the castles well after they were rendered useless, the jousts... And even the highest and wealthiest magnates on the verge of bankruptcy to fund this.

And at this point rural overpopulation means people ARE travelling, even if to the nearest city. People who haven't seen anything beyond their village are increasingly rare as Europe is going back to 25% urbanization (thinking of Japan, the country, too, had a period of reurbanization; at the end of the Sengoku Jidai era only one city had more than 100.000 inhabitants, Kyoto (or was it Edo, I'm not sure), plus a lot of the daymios, especially those who rose from the samurai or *cough* the one who rose from peasantry could have taught a thing or two to the europeans about cynical power plays, and vice versa)

[SirRobin]

Well that brings up an important question. What portion of the medieval period are we in and how does the "fantasy" aspects of D&D impact it. Remember, the people of Medieval Europe had various superstitions, undead, werewolves, vampires, etc, etc... The key difference here though is that those superstitions are actually real.

Wander to far from your village and you do actually have a chance of becoming zombie fodder. Spiders the size a horse could actually be waiting in that tree you're about to walk under. Its possible the village types have not just heard stories of the undead/monsters, they've actually seen them.

Is the "fantasy" common enough the common folk are regularly exposed to it, like yearly? Are we still in the darker parts of the age or are we in the midst of late medieval revival?

[Gwrthefyr]

People in the renaissance still believed in all those things though. A lot of these superstitions survived all the way to the modern era; the Beast of Gévaudan was a werewolf scare in southern France on the eve of the revolution.

Also, thinking of the jousting and decadence, I could see the swords and crown turning into this as the high nobility throws about the most expensive party of the year while maintaining the pretence of the empire still being around even well after Anuire has become a confederate aristocratic republic of sorts. Think "we basically spent a third to half of the income of the empire on what amounts to a large party" levels of decadence... Of course still assuming a late medieval thing.

[HimekawaMiyako]

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Last name, then first name)
This was the Daimyo that arose from the peasantry, he was the one to supposedly end the Sengoku Period (0), lasting from 1479 to1605(1). He was first a retainer of Oda Nobunaga, seizing power after the incident and Honno-ji, instigated by the traitorous Akechi Mitsuhide.
Hashiba (Hideyoshi) force marched away from his battle with the Mori clan, clashing at Yamazaki with Akechi.

Akechi supposedly either was killed by a spear wielded by a bandit peasant as he passed through a village; two other rumors exist though. One says he was apprehended in a bamboo grove and beaten to death by peasants. Another says he began a new life as Tenkai, the priest.

Kyoto was originally called Heian-kyo, Peace and Tranquility Capital, and was lain out according to Chinese principles. It remained as the capital until the Meiji period, when the capital became Edo (which was renamed Tokyo, or Eastern Capital)

Kyoto (Heian-kyo) had during the Kamakura times at least 100,000 people inside its walls, with tens of thousands of nobles, and the rest being made up of ‘supportive infrastructure (like tradesmen, entertainers etc.) and servants’.

The population of the land was estimated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to be around 18 million during the late Sengoku Jidai… or so we hear.

The population of major cities (Kyoto) had around 200,000; other large cities at least 100,000.

Nihon’s peace allowed a big population growth, where the population nearly doubled in size during the 250 year-lasting Tokugawa Shogunate.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Edo had over a million inhabitants, though Edo obviously did not begin as populous as that, because at the end of the Sengoku Era it was still a growing fishing village.

During the Tokugawa Shogunate Samurai were forbidden from moving about the countryside, dwelling there possibly to set up armies. They were limited to the Castle towns.

The 're-urbanization' idea could be accurate, and the practice of Sankin Kotai (alternate attendance) meant the Daimyo had to be in Edo for much of the year.
Cities like Osaka became major trade hubs. If by re-urbanization you mean 'more', that seems accurate. Not certain it the cities ever became 'not urbanized'.

Sources (included these for some extra reading)
http://www.samurai-archives.com/hideyoshi.html - (0)
http://www.samurai-archives.com/time2.html - (1)
http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/ind...tle=Edo_period – (3)
http://facts-about-japan.com/feudal-japan.html
Birthright Setting

It probably is not one or the other, but all of them. A blend of all the really good content people ever came up with, always growing. Birthright is a 'new kind of monster!'

[Gwrthefyr]

Thanks for the sources (and yes I'm aware it was Toyotomi Hideyoshi who rose from the peasantry, I just love paraphrasing him that way, it hammers the point home of how much cynical power playing was involved (he was the one to reinstate the laws forbidding social mobility after all); for the numbers I had a japanese paper somewhere which named a number of sources questioning the number (it was too high for the recorded food production in Japan at the time by about 50%, so would not have been stable until the 17th or 18th century, especially not once most external trade was blocked apart from a trickle from China and the Netherlands, but it's not the thread xD). For reurbanization I mean the repopulating of the cities. Long civil wars tend to kill a lot of the urban population and in most countries before the industrial era, urban populations tend to not replenish themselves fast enough and instead require a constant inflow of rural emigration, whether forced or free).

[HimekawaMiyako]

Next
Let's list fun sources which accentuate, or provide inspiration for, Birthright psychology.

How about Movies:
Kozure Okami (but not Shogun Assassin, because that destroys it)
The TV series ROME
Kingdom of Heaven (the movie with Orlando Bloom)
Warriors of Heaven and Earth
The Warrior (Korean, not gymnastics)
Curse of the Golden Flower
Throne of Blood
Samurai Assassin

We need some for for...
Video Games
Reading (literature)
Beowulf
Hagakure (take what is good from this, leave the rest)
The Art of War

Famous Art Pieces
Other things

[Gwrthefyr]

Next
Let's list fun sources which accentuate, or provide inspiration for, Birthright psychology.

How about Movies:
Kozure Okami (but not Shogun Assassin, because that destroys it)
The TV series ROME
Kingdom of Heaven (the movie with Orlando Bloom)
Warriors of Heaven and Earth
The Warrior (Korean, not gymnastics)
Curse of the Golden Flower
Throne of Blood
Samurai Assassin

We need some for for...
Video Games
Reading (literature)
Beowulf
Hagakure (take what is good from this, leave the rest)
The Art of War

Famous Art Pieces
Other things

It's interesting but rather anachronistic (especially the Hagakure - but still I mean it covers a lot of eras, from post-classical divided China to late Edo with some Early and Late Middle Ages ) - I'm sadly more renaissance sided; Machiavelli is an interesting read since he lived at the very end of the european middle ages more or less, the Discourse on Livy, Art of War and the Prince are interesting in that they might work for the more modern anuirean rulers like Avan, or novi homi like Kalien who sounds a lot like an expy of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

There's also the Book of the Courtier for an idea of how a more renaissance noble was expected to act. And I think digging up some material on the ottoman court (I have trouble remembering titles off the top of my head, further east and I'm completely lost with a few exceptions)... Chrestien de Troyes' Arthurian cycle, while it pretty much destroys the welsh source material, is invaluable for its glimpse on what a medieval fashionista knight or noble was expected to be in Europe.

[Decarcassor]

First thing first: Hi I'm new around here. Pleased to meet the still active community of Birthright.

People in the renaissance still believed in all those things though. A lot of these superstitions survived all the way to the modern era; the Beast of Gévaudan was a werewolf scare in southern France on the eve of the revolution.

I don't want to nitpick here but you make it sound like the Beast was some kind of prank on suprestitious peasants. Actually dozens of childrens and womens were killed by the "beast" over many month where peoples of gevaudan lived in terror. The whole story is far more complicated (and very interesting), but the end of it is still a mystery. No one know what the beast was exactly.

And also while its true that the revolution was close, for peoples in a backwater place like Gévaudan life was'nt that different from the dark age.