AARland Gazette Discussion and Feedback Thread!

[frogbeastegg]

I always have a point, somewhere...

Is it on the end of a stick? :backs away to a safe distance in case it is...:




Director, you are proving to have a talent for prodding me into thinking, and that is probably dangerous. I don't argue your point about cleanliness being as factor in medieval beauty, I just have a hard time believing things were as bad as the general wisdom says. This is why thinking frogs are dangerous.

I do remember hearing about a church proscription against bathing but I do not recall the date of it. My evil froggy mind suggests two points in relation to this:
1.The church had proscriptions against adultery, theft, murder and a load of other things people did anyway.
2.Bathing implies a bath as in sitting in a tub of water, not necessarily washing in a bowl of water or something. Semantics, I know

As to motivation, well I can see plenty. Having recently fallen victim to a plague of mosquitoes I am aptly reminded how painful insect bites can be, and the itching is incredibly annoying. They also take a long time to heal. I filled my house with citronella candles to reduce the likelihood of more bites solely on the basis of personal convenience. Humans are like that – lazy, self centred and willing to do a bit of work to ensure their comfort.

Nextly, spots are painful and inconvenient, not just embarrassing in our modern society. Having parts of your face swell up and get sore is not fun, especially when a spot is so badly located it prevents you from doing something properly, such as eating if your lips swells at one side. Think of the lengths people will go to to 'cure' their spots; that's not just vanity, it's comfort. I'm so glad I'm not a teenager any more for this reason alone.

I have long hair, not nearly as long as most women would have back then but down to the tips of my shoulder blades. If I don't wash it twice a week it gets impossible to manage, as in it ties itself in knots which are very hard to remove. It also gets even harder to style, even simply. Even rinsing it with water twice a week helps, something which takes about five minutes with a bowl of water and a jug (I know because we had our water cut off for pipe maintenance a few years back, so I had to go low tech for a while). Five minutes is a great trade considering how much easier it makes your life, and back then styling your hair was practically unavoidable.

The Miss Medieval ideal of beauty called for clear, white skin. If your skin’s dirty then it doesn’t look so creamy white, and if you are covered in blemishes you are further away from that ideal. People always have and always will go an extra mile to look good. That one kind of ties into your own point.

The existence of bathhouses in London also springs to mind. Glorified brothels yes, but I'm sure you could also have a bath

I'll stop there before my thinking goes too far and I start getting too interested/focused in this subject. :

I meant one of those old American army recruiting posters; I'm not sure of the correct name. The one with the guy with the top hat pointing out of the poster and saying "I want you!"

 

[Amric]

That was Uncle Sam in those posters...

BTW, Director and frogbeastegg, your articles prompted me to write my own article expanding on your two articles as it gave me some ideas and sparked memories or certain things I've read over the years and seen. It's already four pages long. It's looking really good so far. I'm rather pleased with it so far.

frogbeastegg- You do bring up a good point about being able to take a wash from a bowl of water. But one has to remember that such water was probably not all that clean in the first place. At the time the water wasn't all that clean. Director's point of filth being everywhere is important. A cistern or well being 'downstream' from a privy was very common. Which means that water isn't all that clean. The Europeans had forgotten the idea of keeping water sources as far away from such that the Romans knew. It wasn't until the concept of bacteria and such was developed that they realized their mistake. And you are right, the church did come out with an edict that mentioned bathing too often as wrong.

 

[Machiavellian]

To add my two cents to the bathing discussion, as was stated cities didn't have sewers or water delivery systems. As far as the church was concerned, they frowned on bathing not only due to the heinous reputation of bathhouses but also because it was regarded as a sinful pleasure of the flesh, as well as well as being regarded as a vehicle for the spread of diseases. It should also be noted that medieval and renaissance doctors also warned against bathing, believing that it washed off a "protective" layer of filth.

 

[Director]

frogbeastegg, i just know too many people whose concept of personal hygiene is sort of 'optional' even in these enlightened times.

Your points are well taken and I have no doubt some people went to great lengths to stay clean. I do think it was harder in the 'long ago', and I think - dare I say it - most men are pigs. From my decade in the bar business I can tell you that women don't take care of their restrooms, either.

I'll say I find the discussion productive. Maybe we should take this to a Hygiene in History thread - or would that be too OT? it seems to me that you are applying modern preference for cleanliness to people who were not brought up that way and I'm painting all historical people with the dirty brush that emphasizes the worst of every case. If I had to be, I'd bet the truth varied from person to person and city to city.

Working on construction/reconstruction projects at the bar(s) taught me what a luxury it was to be clean... and how pointless it was to clean up when you were only going to go get dirty again in a few minutes, anyway. I suppose that has colored my view.


The man in the 'I Want You' poster was also Lord Kitchener for Great Britain.

Kitchener

 

[frogbeastegg]

Generally if the church was warning against something then plenty of people were doing it

I wouldn't exactly say that I think everyone was clean back then; certainly not by our standards. I just have a very hard time accepting the established wisdom that people were so filthy and pest ridden. It just doesn't tally with common sense. Dirty by our standards, yes, but to be as bad as I keep seeing history books say it would take real effort. People naturally tend to gravitate towards personal comfort and ease, which sticks them as not natural neat freaks but also not too likely to allow themselves to be chewed up by fleas when there is a simple remedy.

As Director says hygene would vary from person to person, place to place and rank to rank.

On primary sources, I'm sure I encountered a few several years back advocating a slightly cleaner approach. The issue of miasma (foul smelling air that spread disease) was a bit later than the middle ages, I think. Hmm, ah yes - a webpage with historical toothcare. Not the best source I admit (I'm leery of citing webpages as good sources), but there's some primary evidence aiming at clean. I'll try to remember where I saw some of the rest; in a variety of books, I think ...

Heh, by some modern standards I'm terrible. I only wash my hair every three days!

RE water, well it depends on where you are and where you get your water from. They had to have some fairly decent water to wash clothes, dishes and the like in. Well water, rain water, spring water if you're in the right area. Again by our standards that water was filthy and could kill, but it would have been better than the famous river water. It's hard to do your dishes in water that has sewerage floating in it. The water might have been full of bacteria but they don't stop it from swilling away dirt.

While this discussion is interesting I suppose it files under the usual heading of 'arrogant frog starts thinking and decides her common sense is better than loads of people with degrees'. I can't help it; I really do have enormous trouble accepting some of the wisdom handed down from the bigwigs. But then I've seen them being wrong before, wrong on important areas that had been 'correct' knowledge for decades. Remember how a couple of decades ago everyone insisted that full medieval plate armour practically turned the wearer into a helpless statue? There was plenty of primary evidence to contradict that, and common sense too – no one wears something which seriously hampers their ability to fight into a battle, and they do not pay huge sums of money to obtain equipment which is so limiting.

I told you thinking frogs were dangerous.



Yes, that’s the kind of poster. I saw an Uncle Sam version of one where he had a big beard and grey hair which look quite similar to coz1’s avatar, hence the Photoshop suggestion. It goes with his article.

 

[Amric]

Well wells and cisterns and so forth could still be full of filth and disease because most of them were 'downstream' of dumped garbage and filth. Washing dishes? Most people didn't have many dishes, and what they would be mostly made of would be wood or rough clay. Only the wealthy had gold or silver plates or until the later periods made of real china. Forks didn't come about until MUCH later. Spoons and knives were the order of the day. Now that doesn't mean they didn't wash them in filthy water, but it certainly wasn't clean by OUR standards.

Now I can understand why you find it hard to accept. I do too, in a way. But I also realize that things were much different back then...there was no running water in homes. Or central heating, or air conditioning. People worked long and hard every day. There was very little time for the niceties of life we are all accustomed to in this day and age.

Yes, some people would be cleaner than others...but if you were TOO clean it might leave you open to accusations from the church. Which is NOT an organization you wanted peering closely at you in that day and age. VERY bad things could happen to you if the church decided you weren't doing things the way they believed you ought to do them.

Were people CAKED in filth? Of course not. But by OUR standards one could certainly make an argument that they were. But regardless of our feelings, history is just that. History. We can pretty it up, but if we want to be TRUE to it, we must realize that history is dirty, smelly, and HARD.

Did it mean they didn't have fun? Of course they did. But they had a hard life compared to ours. Very hard. I certainly don't wish to live like they did.

 

[frogbeastegg]

I know the lack of tableware, but whether you have one or one hundred dishes at some point you have to wash it. This is partly why they used trenchers instead; no need to wash them. But you can't use stale bread to hold your drink or to cut your food, or even to cook your food in. You might have one thing that you swill a bit of water on once a week, but you are still splashing a bit of water on it. Unless, of course, you want to remove that bit of caked on pottage with some small beer.

Again I'll say that the church might have been so powerful even kings weren't safe from it but there were many people doing things the church disapproved of in plain sight, boasting of it even. Going all the way back to a that discussion nearly two weeks ago think how common it was for men to visit whores and take mistresses. The church surely frowned on that, and adultery is one of the major sins.

Aside from that we're saying the same thing.

 

[Amric]

True...as for the mistress/adultery thing...the wealthy would buy dispensation from the church for whatever sins they were continually committing. Plus crusaders would buy dispensation from the church for the raping, pillaging, and out right murders they would possibly commit in the holy lands.

 

[Amric]

Well I've posted a bit early...but then I have been known to do that...usually on Sunday...

I hope to see quite a few articles this issue. I'm sure Coz1 has something. I believe stnylan mentioned that he would have something this issue. I hope Director and our newest contributor frogbeastegg will also weigh in as well. I can hardly wait to see what else is written for this issue!

 

[frogbeastegg]

Re: refuse collection, there was a kind of service (note: I class it as a service in the same way I class medieval hygiene as reasonable, i.e. better than the stereotype not terrible by today's standards, so don't complain at me!). Night soil men, gong scourers or whatever period name they happen to be using. Also road sweepers/cleaners. Whatever you call them they were all working on a similar principle, that of wheeling a cart over and shovelling the muck into it and transporting it elsewhere. At some places in some periods they were officially employed, at others they were private contractors.

If you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater then you are having a bath, just as I said before, and it's the same water I mentioned before [/smug git who is asking to be clobbered with a size 9 mallet]



:sigh: I might end up with 0, 1 or 2 articles this time. Number 2 threatens to be long and annoying to write; I gave up doing historical essays when I left university and I am not keen to break that and do another one. I shall see how they go; I haven’t actually written anything yet.

 

[Amric]

frogbeastegg- You are right, there were night soil collectors and such, but that isn't something that happens until the early 1800's isn't it? I remember reading about such during that period of time, but I cannot remember any earlier...perhaps there is some insight to this that I was previously unaware of....one two or three articles, eh? Well you ought to save two of those for future issues! That way you have a small stockpile!

 

[frogbeastegg]

Yes, they were around before. Excuse me if I look baffled and say I thought it was kind of obvious - otherwise the muck would pile up until it literally buried the city. People generate waste far quicker than it will decay away. The name of the unfortunate workers changes by period, but one of the earliest things I remember hearing about medieval life was that the privies had to be dug out to prevent them overflowing (you can move a pit style wicker privy but not a castle, and in a city there's often no where to move to) and the streets had to be cleared of all the muck or they would become impassable. Midden heaps had to be removed from time to time too.

Also remember many of those waste products were not exactly waste in ancient eyes - rotting vegetable matter makes quite a good fertiliser and compost, and I recall seeing mention of human dung being used as fertiliser too. It's not great but better than nothing. Urine was invaluable too; bleaching clothes, removing the natural grease from new wool, a kind of low grade chemical for use in many old industries including the manufacture of gunpowder, and more I forget. Urine was a really important resource throughout history.



You've got one article, it kind of covers two subjects. The other one is too time consuming and horribly long, as in 'I wanna be a book when I grow up' long. I think I would do better providing a nice bibliography and letting people go off and read a couple of shelves of real books instead. It would be a 'why do people insist on making the past worse then it is while at the same time trying to gloss it up?' kind of article. I hate Hollywoodovision and depressovision equally.

But as I said before I've given up the whole essay business and the information is really easy to find if you look for it. There's something of a backlash going on against the old, stereotypical ideas. Heh, it's been going on for a decade or two and for the most part the evidence is far more numerous and convincing than the evidence for the old, grim version. I think I’ll give this one a miss; I can’t see any reasonable way to do such an article.

Once again that’s not to say I think the past was some fluffy, happy thing, more I know a wattle and daub hut can be quite cosy, especially when kitted out like those from Warram Percy. I’ll take my modern house any day but that doesn’t mean I have to insist everything before houses like mine were irredeemably bad. I’ve never been fond of the crowd yelling “But the walls were made out of dung! Eeeww! That house must have been really terrible and cold and smelly and gross!” No, it’s actually kind of snug and it doesn’t smell at all.



Anyway, I have to run if I'm gonig to get the next part of my Eleanor story up today. I'll be back to read the articles in detail later.

 

[coz1]

Some interesting AARticle so far today. Amric, you have done splendid job tying much of the recent discussion revolving around looks, cleanliness and such. Very descriptive. Not much more to say on the subject that has not already been discussed.

And frogbeastegg, you continue to include interesting words. I was struck by the later part of the AARticle when you discussed how some include themself in their characters. I'll admit, I am in agreement with you; however, at the same time, I think we have our characters react at some point as we might. I think of acting and using the emotions that you might have felt at some earlier point in your life to choose a way for the character you are playing to react, or at least assisting your senses to understand and remember what that emotion was like.

I think we all do that a bit, as we are all different shades of the black/white spectrum. We all have experiences outside of our normal frame of mind or state of emotion, or at least have seen it from someone else. I think it is that which allows me to respond differently as each of my characters, and do so convincingly - because I have tried to act out, in my mind, what these people are doing and saying to each other. There's quite a bit of action in my AAR that is far beyond my own experiences in my life, but taking what I think might be the reaction from what I know I am capable of, or have seen someone in a similar state, I am able to make the close up and personal scenes more character study than caricature (or at least I hope so.)

And, of course, then there is the subject of dichotomy within each of us, and our characters that ties into much of the topic that Secret Master and Estonianzulu touched on so well. Anyway, good stuff.

Well, my AARticle is up and I assume we shall have a few more pieces between today and tomorrow. I have also updated the Rules and Staff section and placed it in the AARticle Index thread. The Index itself is also updated through what has been posted already today and I will add the others as they come in.

You might notice that Director has been promoted from Associate EditAAR to full Senior EditAAR. I took the liberty so I hope that Amric does not mind his joining our ranks. I simply fealt he had earned it through his hard work and dedication to the project and since Alexandru has left, we could always use an extra hand. He has been instrumental (pun intended) in getting the reviews known as Recommended Reading up and running and has recruited a few new columnists too, not to mention his fine column we get to enjoy from time to time. Well done, sir and congrats!

 

[frogbeastegg]

I think we have our characters react at some point as we might. I think of acting and using the emotions that you might have felt at some earlier point in your life to choose a way for the character you are playing to react, or at least assisting your senses to understand and remember what that emotion was like.

Perhaps for other people but not for me. I was bullied so badly during my school days I shut down and stopped feeling any emotion. I spent most of my life in a void, feeling nothing but an icy calm. It's only very recently that changed and there are still some emotions I haven't encountered yet. It's an odd position to be in but believe it or not I often forget not everyone else is the same. Perhaps someone more capable can do an article on this?

And to keep to the theme of the second part of the article: no, my experiences have no influence on Eleanor. Worlds apart, the cruelty of children compared to something all together more ... adult.

Due to unexpected an goldfish appearance I didn't get my Eleanor chapter done, so I'll work on that now and come back to reading tomorrow when my mind is fresher.

 

[Amric]

Coz1- I think Director as a Senior Editaar was a very good decision and I have no problem with that whatsoever.

Glad to see more articles today. Fabulous stuff and I am very impressed!

 

[coz1]

Amric, I'm glad you agreed with the decision. It just seemed natural.

And two more great AARticles from Secret Master and Estonianzulu. We do so love our regulars.

Secret Master, I was intrigued by your AArticle in that I agree with you entirely that Hollywood and the mainstream entertainment industry has taken it upon themselves to create a love affair that is quite inconsistant with what goes on in daily life. I am not sure I have ever seen a film or read a book that presented a love affair near as real as one I've been involved with (though that might be asking for too much. )

I often find that the love affair angle is too much a part of films (at least) that need not venture into such territory. What is the purpose? Quite a few action/adventure films have been ruined for me by including such. An excellent overview of the potential issues involved with including such an angle.

An Estonianzulu - an unexpected and quite appreciated look at different types of AARs written. I would suggest that done right (at least on my terms), a single player written AAR can be just as tough, but only if that author is working as hard as they can to create something original. But as far as multi-player goes, be it true multi-player or same game multi-player, there are definite pitfalls to take account of and you did a splendid job highlighting them. I recall fondly the Denmark and Burgundy rotation games presented here a couple of years ago and would love to see some of that action start again.

But, of course, there is always that ever present issue to rear it's ugly head - life. I think that explains much of why some projects do not have long lasting life, and why certain AARs die on the vine. It is bound to happen, but the more people that take up the challenge, the more successes we will see.

And lastly, frogbeastegg - I have in mind an idea to perhaps write a longer AARticle on motivations and how to approach them. But certainly in the time that you have taken to, as you mentioned, shut out other emotions, you have "felt" enough to let you know what might be why A did such and such to B. I suppose that was what I was getting at. You may have some recollection as to what you experienced, or you may have some idea as to what someone put in that situation might have experienced by way of watching others. Much of my acting career was built on seeing how others responded to situations and utilizing that in my own characterizations. If you cannot use that in writing a character, I don't what you can use.

In the end, it comes down to the concept idea I presented. You create an idea that you want your story to project, and then place your main characters, and side characters, in the story to accomplish that goal. Once you have the main idea down, you try and get your "actors" to react as they should to move that idea along. If you are able to use a personal history to further that goal, then great. If not, then you are left guessing - much as you have suugested with writing for the opposite sex. Just another handy item to assist in creating characters that are real, alive and believable.

 

[coz1]

And one other slight niggle that I thought I would present seperately - established columnists - please try to maintain your column name from AARticle to AARticle. This name should remain the same to suggest your ongoing effort. It is the title of the specific AARticle that should change from time to time. Certainly if you have two separate agendas to accomplish, then use different names, i.e. Recommended Reading for reviews where as others columns from those writing reviews are listed under their column names - just a friendly request from your Gazette Index keeper.

 

[frogbeastegg]

Actually I don't remember much at all about the time before I shut down emotionally; I was too young and the icy numbness consumed everything including memory of feeling. I've only got about 5 months of usable experience, and even that is slightly wonky somehow.

Because someone without a trace of emotion is odd, and therefore becomes even more of a target, I learned to do a reasonable act for most emotions and what triggers them. I actually reverse engineered the approach most people use for writing emotion; I took the description and turned it into body language, tone etc rather than taking the emotion and turning it into words. I learned to do emotion in the same way I learned sword fighting, horse riding or any of those other things I have never personally done. The emotion is no more based on my experience than the battlefields. I can't even say I learned by watching other people's reactions; I didn't entirely understand them. In books the reaction was almost always coupled with an explanation, and that I could work with.

If you do write a larger article I'd be interested in reading it. It would be ... nice to see the other side of the fence.


Away from that the other articles were good again and made pleasant lunchtime reading.

 

[Estonianzulu]

just a friendly request from your Gazette Index keeper.

meh, I just got tired of typing the whole title and so began abbreviating. My article sort of came out of a different one I was working on (concerning Grand Campaigns) but then I got to thinking about an interactive AAR I was a part of a while back.

Anyone remember the German Diet game with Prussia? I remember the bureaucracy. We had arguments for days about moving the capital, of all things. I was upset when that one collapsed.

 

[Machiavellian]

Some really great Articles this week. Some interesting topics and some useful info that I have stored away in the back of my head for when I actually do have time to write again. Keep up the excellent work everyone.