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Christopher VaughnStrever




Location: San Antonio, TX
Joined: 13 Jun 2008
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Posts: 382

PostPosted: Wed 12 Jan, 2011 6:46 am    Post subject: Untold History of Blacksmiths         Reply with quote

Disclaimer --- Ok, this is completely fictional and not in any way historically accurate.

What I would like to do is create a “Medieval Blacksmiths Wars!”

This will become a series that I am making, and any involvement to help project the Historical Accuracy surrounding the story would be greatly appreciated and credited, Just let me know if you would like to join the team. This is meant to be fun and constructive that can take up some of your leisure time with something you love.

Here is a brief intoduction without the begining of the actual story.
In the year 1399, at the turn of the century; Blacksmiths were becoming the greatest of all Craftsmen. The word greatest in our sense of thought… equals power, riches, popularity, influence, and envy. As each blacksmith would work to craft a superior piece of armor, these blacksmiths also employed Mercenary Knights to capture armor from other blacksmiths in other countries. Through war on the battle field these Mercenary Knights would target certain Knights on the opposing side in order to take their Armor from them and ultimately take the captured armor to their employer: The Blacksmith. If at all possible these mercenary knights would allow the targeted knight to be set free once the suit of armor had been acquired.

At this point the Blacksmith would examine the armor in every detail and facet in order to see if this was in fact a superior armor than the armor he himself produced. When the discovery of a stronger and lighter armor would be found; the Blacksmith would perform certain tests and then would begin to fabricate armor trying to replicate what has been made by the other Smith. A race for advanced Armor had begun anew with aspects never seen before!

Fractions such as the English Blacksmiths, French Blacksmiths, German Blacksmiths, and Italian Blacksmiths arose late in the year 1399. Blacksmiths had a wealth beyond that of which even Knights could even imagine. These smiths could even influence and at times dictate wars in manners that not even a King could control.

And then, when rare circumstances arose and two opposing fractions of the Smiths Mercenary Knights came onto the same field… war ceased and a true spectacle of a fight of dominance began.

Thus in the beginning of the year 1400… The Smith’s Guild Wars began!

Comments welcome.

Experience and learning from such defines maturity, not a number of age
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Yuri Serebemnick





Joined: 03 Sep 2008

Posts: 35

PostPosted: Wed 12 Jan, 2011 3:44 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Great idea.
For more inspiration, give a try on those musics: http://www.aranyzoltan.hu/the_last_of_the_troubadours.htm
They helped me a lot with my drawings.
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Joel Minturn





Joined: 10 Dec 2007

Posts: 232

PostPosted: Wed 12 Jan, 2011 7:19 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This sounds like it could be a good book. I like the premise at least.

So is it blacksmithing guilds fighting other blacksmithing guilds with individual blacksmiths fighting for and stealing secrets from there own "friends" in the local guild? So with all the politics going on when do they find time to get work done? Razz WTF?! Or is it done by apprentices who are waiting to take the mantel of blacksmith by any means?

But good luck and can't wait to read it.
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Christopher VaughnStrever




Location: San Antonio, TX
Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Reading list: 1 book

Posts: 382

PostPosted: Thu 13 Jan, 2011 5:30 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

You gave me an idea Joel, Thanks.

I was not planning on local guilds competeing, more of a collaboration of guilds seperated only by country... though to make things get interesting.... yes at some point down the story a small fraction of smiths could break off from the main countries of their orgins...


And Yuri! Thank you my friend what a nice collection of ready music!

Experience and learning from such defines maturity, not a number of age
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team


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PostPosted: Thu 13 Jan, 2011 5:40 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Christopher VaughnStrever wrote:
You gave me an idea Joel, Thanks.

I was not planning on local guilds competeing, more of a collaboration of guilds seperated only by country... though to make things get interesting.... yes at some point down the story a small fraction of smiths could break off from the main countries of their orgins...


And Yuri! Thank you my friend what a nice collection of ready music!


You may need to reexamine your country affiliations. There wasn't really a unified Germany or Italy at that point, at least not like we think about now. You're also leaving out Flanders/the Netherlands and other smaller, but important, lands. At that time, there may have been differences in France between the Burgundians and others as well. Parts of modern-day France were under English control at this point in history.

The neater borders and large, unified countries we usually see today are more modern inventions.

Happy

ChadA

http://chadarnow.com/
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Christopher VaughnStrever




Location: San Antonio, TX
Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Reading list: 1 book

Posts: 382

PostPosted: Thu 13 Jan, 2011 7:07 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Thank you Chad this was the exact type of info I was looking for...

Chad Arrow:
Quote:
You're also leaving out Flanders/the Netherlands and other smaller, but important, lands


I was wondering as to the different allies - whether it would be by country, relatives, or some type of scratch my back and i'll scratch yours, I am simply in need of the name of different places such as those smaller but important lands.

I would be very appreciative of any additional info of this sort -- names and/or places

Experience and learning from such defines maturity, not a number of age
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Chad Arnow
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PostPosted: Thu 13 Jan, 2011 9:01 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Christopher VaughnStrever wrote:

I was wondering as to the different allies - whether it would be by country, relatives, or some type of scratch my back and i'll scratch yours, I am simply in need of the name of different places such as those smaller but important lands.

I would be very appreciative of any additional info of this sort -- names and/or places


I'd actually recommend you do some reading on the period in you want any sort of realism. Some of the loyalties were firm, others were much more fleeting. Some sub-regions of larger countries like France were semi-autonomous with prince-like dukes and advanced trade systems of their own. There's far more to it than a short forum post could convey. Simply naming countries and regions won't do much to aid in any sense of realism in your story. The relationships between those countries/principalities are important to know if you're looking into something like this. Ignoring those things removes more and more realism. If you're going to ignore realism, you might as well have lasers and aliens, right? Happy

Taking England as an example: England seems to have a enjoyed a good trade relationship with the Flemish wool buyers, as wool was a (the?) major export for England. England also owned much of the wine-making region of France and did big business with that. England imported brass from some Cologne and other germanic cites. But armour trade may have been different than other goods.

England likely had some kind of homegrown armour industry, but a lot of historical examples were imports. Not every country produced all of its own armour. That would be rare, in fact. Certain "German" and "Italian" cities (nationalities in quotes because the nations were not fully formed at the time) produced a lot of armour for export.

The very wealthy could afford to import the best, latest, and greatest. Less wealthy would have made due with locally sourced pieces or older imports.

Unfortunately, a country-based system may be a modern way of thinking that doesn't fit a medieval scenario very well.

Happy

ChadA

http://chadarnow.com/
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Christopher VaughnStrever




Location: San Antonio, TX
Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Reading list: 1 book

Posts: 382

PostPosted: Thu 13 Jan, 2011 2:17 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

My goodness, my hat is off to you Chad, instead of shoot me in the direction I was headed (Wrong direction) You helped me understand a bit more of what I was really shooting for. I will look into the said information above, thank you.
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Craig Johnson
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Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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PostPosted: Thu 13 Jan, 2011 9:20 pm    Post subject: Outline and ideas         Reply with quote

Hi Christopher

I would agree with chad that you need to delve into the history of the period as it will be far more inspiring and amazing than ideas generated from us today. I would recommend looking at it more in the frame work of city states, principalities, craft regions and very constrained Guild systems with in these larger structures. The idea of any organized craft sub culture that is larger than a day or twos journey by foot is probably a good frame to start with. The people of the period did not identify themselves as we do today by nationality. They where local identities that may be ruled by a national system but they thought of themselves as beings of their local.

As Chad says this is a huge topic, idea, concept to flesh out. But one so rich in historical detail and structure that you would not have to manufacture much of this info on your own.

Best
Craig
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Gottfried P. Doerler




Location: Tyrol, Austria
Joined: 11 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Fri 14 Jan, 2011 2:16 am    Post subject: Re: Outline and ideas         Reply with quote

Craig Johnson wrote:
The people of the period did not identify themselves as we do today by nationality. They where local identities that may be ruled by a national system but they thought of themselves as beings of their local.



thats especially true for central european regions.
(i once read, thinking of a english or french identity grew during the 100 years war)
in germany and italy the thought of being a nation developed during the first half of the 19th century.
in austria this was even later the case, the habsburg empire was still more like a feudal state, when it entered first world war, 11 major language groups... and when it finally collapsed in 1918 the inhabitants of nowadays austria had no idea who they were and what, and didn`t think this little spot on the map was able to survive, some wanted to join germany, some hungary...
my impressions of austria tell me, national identity rather grew after world war 2, with great aid from...erm...skiing.

besides, feeling as one nation doesn`t even mean having one language.
switzerland surely thought of herself as a nation since 500 years, and they have four official languages (french, german italian and an old latin dialect called rhaeto-romansh).
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Christopher VaughnStrever




Location: San Antonio, TX
Joined: 13 Jun 2008
Reading list: 1 book

Posts: 382

PostPosted: Fri 14 Jan, 2011 5:31 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I have done a tad bit of research thus far (Not as much as I'd like to up to this point) Though i know at the least "internet reads" are questionable in the least...

Does any one know what key words would be best to search under (not for this website alone) to get into this subject matter at hand?

Or perhaps any good books that I may be able to delve into?

I have had ideas in the past for this sort of thing, but I want these future writings to be as spot on as I personally can. So alot of research is "comming soon" to me.

Experience and learning from such defines maturity, not a number of age
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Tue 18 Jan, 2011 6:16 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Book recommendations? I was going to say the New Cambridge Medieval History, but I'm not sure it's anywhere within your budget. The online edition might be a bit more affordable, but I wouldn't know since I've never made a pricing inquiry to them.

In any case, for the military side, I can't recommend J.F. Verbruggen's The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages strongly enough. It's probably the most up-to-date single-volume general reference work on medieval military history that's still well within the purchasing abilities of the beginning enthusiast. Some people have said that it's a tough read; I'd beg to disagree, but then I'm used to reading academic stuff (a lot of which are much harder to read than this one) so your mileage may vary.
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