Medieval History, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Writing Fiction

I’ve added a list of medieval history resources to my site. These are sites (not blogs) I’ve come across while browsing the web. I had been storing them in my del.icio.us account but thought I’d go ahead and share them here as well. I’ve put them in the right-hand sidebar below the blog archives. Scroll down about half-way and they’ll be on the right. Also, I’ve made a distinction between medieval history resouces and medieval related blogs and separated those out. I’ll keep adding to the list as I stumble across more. Hope you find these to be useful.

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George R.R. Martin announced on his blog last week that HBO confirmed it will be filming the pilot of the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones being the first season). This is good news, but there are no guarantees the pilot will turn into a full television series. According to Martin, executive producers and script writers David Benioff and Dan Weiss have remained loyal to the novels. Supposedly, HBO was to issue a press release, but I checked their site and couldn’t find anything. If I run across it, I’ll post a link to it. Or if anyone else has seen it, can you send it my way? I’d like to read it.

Tags: George R.R. Martin, Fantasy, Literary News // 4 Comments »

I’m still working on getting a new short story posted to my site. I’m nearly half-way through editing the first draft now. Then, I’ll post it to Critique Circle, and once I have feedback from other readers, it will go through a few more cycles of editing and revising until it’s ready. Critique Circle’s website runs on a credit system, so I have to critique other writers’ works to get enough credits to post my own story. I critiqued two stories yesterday, and now I have enough credits. Hopefully, I’ll post the story next week, and then in a few weeks, it should be up for review. I was hoping to get my new short story up on my site this month, alongside Ravens Beneath the Ash and The Sea-Ghost, but it’s looking more like the beginning of next month now.

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Pentice

1) Lean-to building or covered passage or gallery. (Wood, Margaret. The English Medieval House, 413)

2) A covered way with open sides to enable people to walk between separate buildings in the dry when it is raining.
(Beresford, Maurice and Hurst, John. Wharram Percy: Deserted Medieval Village, 138)

*term definitions retrieved from Netserf’s Medieval Glossary (http://www.netserf.org/Glossary)

**the word “penthouse” is derived from the word “pentice”

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Charles Martel (b. 688 - d. 741) was the founder of the Carolingian dynasty and ruler of the Franks during the early 8th century. He was born near Liege around 688 to Pepin II of Heristal and Pepin’s mistress Alpaide. Tested militarily in his youth, Charles fought against his half-brothers after his father’s death, but he succeeded in defeating them and laying claim to the Frankish throne.

He united the three Merovingian kingdoms of Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy after defeating the Neustrians in 716, and in an effort to strengthen his power, he heavily employed the use of cavalry in his military strategy. As a reward for their service, Martel granted lands to these soldiers (or vassals), who would then hold these benefices for life.

In the most famous battle of his military career, Charles tested the strength of his cavalry against a Muslim invading force at the Battle of Poitiers on October 25, 732. This battle was significant in that it halted the Muslim advance into western Europe, and had Martel failed, the European landscape could have appeared very different today.

Charles died on October 22, 741. His supporters buried him in Saint Denis near Paris.

Source:

English, Edward D. “Charles Martel.” Encyclopedia of the Medieval World, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Ancient and Medieval History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE49&iPin=EMW0318&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 13, 2008).

*image shows the tomb of Charles Martel in St. Denis; retrieved from wikipedia.org entry on “Charles Martel”

Additional Reading:

J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ed., The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar and Its Continuation (London: Nelson, 1960); Bernard S. Bachrach, Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972); Paul Fouracre, The Age of Charles Martel (New York: Longman, 2000); Edward James, The Origins of France: From Clovis to the Capetians, 500–1000 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982).

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On this date, November 12th, in medieval history:

• 607 - Death of Boniface III
• 1035 - Death of Canute the Great (or Cnut or Knut), norse king of England and Norway and Denmark (and parts of Sweden); he ruled England from 1016 - 1035

*Note: image is of a silver penny engraved with a portrait of Canute; image retrieved from bowersandmerena.com.

Tags: Medieval Timeline, Middle Ages, Medieval History // 6 Comments »

Keeper at the Shrine by Domini Highsmith

Hardcover: 498 pages
Publisher: St Martins Pr (June 1995)

Editorial Review from Publishers Weekly:

Billed as a medieval mystery, Highsmith’s (Leonora) saga dwells more on the melodramatic and supernatural than on the murder that occurs. During a fierce storm in 1180, a hooded figure enters the town of Beverley, England, and, inside the Minster Church, cures Simeon, a lame priest, of his affliction while giving him charge of a newborn baby, Peter. At the same time, Father Bernard, hiding from the storm, is killed by Father Cyrus, who covets Bernard’s position. After the storm, news of Simon’s healing and the baby’s appearance spreads, alerting the rapacious clergy who see in Simeon and Peter a threat to their positions. Both Cyrus and the equally power-mad Father Wulfric try to discredit the miracles, suggesting the child is Simeon’s. As the town cleans up, Bernard’s body is found and murder suspected, prompting Cyrus and Wulfric to continue plotting against saintly Simeon. One-dimensional characters and a lack of suspense mark this lengthy tale as historical melodrama rather than mystery. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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I’m hoping to keep up a regular segment of famous battles in medieval history. These posts are intended to be short summaries of the battles and the circumstances surrounding the event, nothing too lengthy.

The first battle is the Battle of Fontenay, fought on June 25, 841, in eastern France. The battle involved Louis the German (840 - 876), ruler of Bavaria and Northern Germany, and Charles II (the Bald), ruler of West Francia, against Lothair (840 - 855), ruler of Lorraine and Italy. Charles II and Louis came together to fight Lothair over a disagreement in the Oaths of Strasburg, which had divided the empire the previous year after the death of Louis the Pious, the son of Charlemagne. Lothair and Louis the German and Charles II were all sons of Louis the Pious, and upon his death, Louis the Pious had divided his empire into several parts, giving some of the empire to each of his sons, but this division of the empire did not sit well with his sons and resulted in the Battle of Fontenay.

Charles and Louis the German defeated their brother Lothair, and their victory led to the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the empire into three parts: the kingdom of the West Franks (granted to Charles II), the eastern Frankish kingdom (granted to Louis the German), and the middle kingdom or Francia Media (granted to Lothair).

Source:

English, Edward D. “Battle of Fontenay.” Encyclopedia of the Medieval World, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Ancient and Medieval History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE49&iPin=EMW0525&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 11, 2008).

*the above image is of an obelisk commemorating the Battle of Fontenay (image retrieved from the wikipedia article on the “Battle of Fontenay”)

Additional Reading:

Bernhard W. Scholz, trans., Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972); Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–987 (London: Longman, 1983).

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Ancient and Medieval History Online is a database of information covering various civilizations, including: ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, medieval Europe, ancient America, and medieval and ancient Asia, among others. The site includes biographies, events and topics, primary sources, timelines, images and videos, and maps and charts.

This seems to be one of the best online resources I’ve come across to date. I especially love the medieval primary sources (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Capitulary of Charlemagne, the Magna Carta, etc.) and the medieval maps and charts (the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England, the Black Death in Europe, the Division of the Carolingian Empire, the Kingdom of France, the Lands of the Picts, etc.).

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The 2008 World Fantasy Award winners have been announced. The awards include the following categories in fantasy writing and fantasy art: Novel, Novella, Short Story, Anthology, Artist, and Collection.

Novel
*winner - Ysabel Guy Gavriel Kay [Viking Canada/Penguin Roc]
Territory Emma Bull [Tor]
Fangland John Marks [Penguin Press] 
Gospel of the Knife Will Shetterly [Tor] 
The Servants Michael Marshall Smith [Earthling Publications]

Novella
*winner - Illyria Elizabeth Hand [PS Publishing] 
The Mermaids Robert Edric [PS Publishing] 
“The Master Miller’s Tale” Ian R. MacLeod [F&SF May 2007] 
“Cold Snap” Kim Newman [The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club, MonkeyBrain Books]
“Stars Seen through Stone” Lucius Shepard [F&SF July 2007]

Short Story
*winner - “Singing of Mount Abora” Theodora Goss [Logorrhea, Bantam Spectra] 
“The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” Daniel Abraham [Logorrhea, Bantam Spectra] 
“The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change” Kij Johnson [The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, Viking]
“Damned if you Don’t ” Robert Shearman” [Tiny Deaths, Comma Press]
“The Church on the Island” Simon Kurt Unsworth [At Ease with the Dead, 
Ash-Tree Press]

Anthology
*winner - Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural Ellen Datlow, Editor [Tor]
Five Strokes to Midnight Gary A. Braunbeck & Hank Schwaeble, Eds. [Haunted Pelican Press] 
Wizards: Magical Tales From The Masters of Modern Fantasy 
Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, Eds. [Berkley] 
The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, Eds.[Viking] 
Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories John Klima, Editor [Bantam Spectra]

Collection
*winner - Tiny Deaths Robert Shearman [Comma Press] 
Plots and Misadventures Stephen Gallagher [Subterranean Press] 
Portable Childhoods Ellen Klages [Tachyon Publications]
The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club Kim Newman [MonkeyBrain Books]
Hart & Boot & Other Stories Tim Pratt [Night Shade Books] 
Dagger Key and Other Stories Lucius Shepard [PS Publishing]

Artist
*winner - Edward Miller
Ruan Jia
Mikko Kinnunen
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio

*the above image is from fantasy artist winner Edward Miller

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