Culture in Medieval Fantasy

[skip.knox]

Borders is another topic in itself. Like roads, borders in the Middle Ages were fluid things, objects of controversy and conflict, ever-shifting yet not entirely arbitrary.

One does need to get out of one's head those nicely-colored maps with their sinuous black lines. That's a modern representation of a much muddier reality. And one, I'd argue, is much more fun for the writer than are modern political boundaries and nation-states, which are grimly dull.

Yes, geography. This valley or that. Your side of the river and mine, though if the river is small enough maybe my sheep graze over yonder. How language and diet shift across that landscape is immensely subtle and complicated, and gets disrupted by various demographic shifts like invasions.

The importance of geography for defining cultural groups is another reason why Aldarion's point is well taken--people simply did not tend to live together across cultural groups. Indeed, they tended to shun outsiders despite traditions of hospitality to strangers. Here's bread and bed, but in the morning you should keep on your way. <g>

Cities were the great exception, especially places like Venice or London. More typical, though, would be someplace like Novgorod. The Rus city welcomed the German merchants, but only so long as those merchants stayed within their compound. Even in a place like Venice, the Germans tended to stay in and around the Fondaco dei Tedeschi--the German warehouse. They were in Venice but not of it.

 

[Ž.J.]

Borders is another topic in itself. Like roads, borders in the Middle Ages were fluid things, objects of controversy and conflict, ever-shifting yet not entirely arbitrary.

One does need to get out of one's head those nicely-colored maps with their sinuous black lines. That's a modern representation of a much muddier reality. And one, I'd argue, is much more fun for the writer than are modern political boundaries and nation-states, which are grimly dull.

Yes, geography. This valley or that. Your side of the river and mine, though if the river is small enough maybe my sheep graze over yonder. How language and diet shift across that landscape is immensely subtle and complicated, and gets disrupted by various demographic shifts like invasions.

The importance of geography for defining cultural groups is another reason why Aldarion's point is well taken--people simply did not tend to live together across cultural groups. Indeed, they tended to shun outsiders despite traditions of hospitality to strangers. Here's bread and bed, but in the morning you should keep on your way. <g>

Cities were the great exception, especially places like Venice or London. More typical, though, would be someplace like Novgorod. The Rus city welcomed the German merchants, but only so long as those merchants stayed within their compound. Even in a place like Venice, the Germans tended to stay in and around the Fondaco dei Tedeschi--the German warehouse. They were in Venice but not of it.

I probably did miss the point , was world-building just few minutes ago and it did loosen my ability to comprehend what I am reading.
Or it may come from my personal idea that everything needs to have order. And the idea of fluidity, medieval style fluid cultures, borders and so on, was never something I really implemented into my world-building.

 

[Aldarion]

Cities were the great exception, especially places like Venice or London. More typical, though, would be someplace like Novgorod. The Rus city welcomed the German merchants, but only so long as those merchants stayed within their compound. Even in a place like Venice, the Germans tended to stay in and around the Fondaco dei Tedeschi--the German warehouse. They were in Venice but not of it.

To add to this, Constantinople specifically had Greek quarters, Venetian quarters, Turkish quarters and so on... basically each ethnicity in the city - and there were many - was quartered in its own town within Constantinople.

 

[skip.knox]

To add to this, Constantinople specifically had Greek quarters, Venetian quarters, Turkish quarters and so on... basically each ethnicity in the city - and there were many - was quartered in its own town within Constantinople.

Yep. The Steelyard in London for the Hansa merchants. Lots of that sort of thing. And neighborhoods could be fierce; just witness the contrade in Siena that sponsor the palio horse race. Or, have you heard of the War of the Fists in Venice? Bridge fights!

 

[Peat]

Yep. The Steelyard in London for the Hansa merchants. Lots of that sort of thing. And neighborhoods could be fierce; just witness the contrade in Siena that sponsor the palio horse race. Or, have you heard of the War of the Fists in Venice? Bridge fights!

And stuff like this continues today to an extent. I've seen word maps of London denoting where you can find the immigrant communities clustered together - Bangladeshis in Hackney, the French in Kensington (the 15th arrondisement), Portuguese in Stockwell, Jewish in Golders Green,etc.etc. We also have the unrelated phenomenon of postcode wars, where youth gangs define themselves by their locality i.e. the post code they're situated in, and brook no outsiders from rival gangs from other post codes.


In any case, I think for storytelling purposes, the most important parts of culture are how your characters views the world and how the world views them. As noted, in the real world that'll come from a myriad of things - depending on who I speak to I am a Londoner, I'm middle class, I'm English, I'm a Brit, I'm a foreigner of some type; maybe a metalhead, maybe a potsmoker, maybe a hipster; depending on my attire and when I last washed, might come across as anything from homeless to a bit posh. Capturing all of that is a bit bloody complicated for fiction, it arguably slows the book down. But capturing a verisimilitude of that I think can add huge depth to a book.

And of course, a lot goes into how I view the world, some of which is only relevant around certain people. I am product of my ethnicity, nationality (or maybe nationalities, as someone who sees themselves as British and English and there being a difference between the two), class, locality, generation, interests, faith, employment, and certain aspects of my parents, grandparents, etc.etc.'s various. And also the feeling of Outsider vs Belonging - I don't always feel I truly belong to all of those, and that gives me a difference of mindset to people with very similar backgrounds who do. Again, to capture all of it impossible to capture a verisimilitude potentially wonderful.

How to capture that? Story wise, it will probably crop up most when that world view becomes a point of conflict and will probably be most interesting when it says a little about who the characters are. Doesn't have to be huge - the microconflict of a hobbit asking one of the great and wise if they've got any baccy after a world-altering battle and being crisply informed there's more important things doesn't say huge things about hobbit culture, but it does tell you a little about them. As for where these details come from - I'm not sure whether it makes a huge difference as to whether the writer writes what's right for the character on the spot and backfills it into culture, or spends a lot of time thinking about culture and thinks "huh, now's a good time to show this" but either way, I think it involves knowing a lot about your characters. And not necessarily so much about their culture; showing it well matters more than having built it well.

 

[Gurkhal]

I like creating new cultures very well even if I've come to play very closely with historical cultures and tend to build new ones based on historical but with a certain empathize that supports the story. Creating new cultures is nice and personally I love to learn and read about new cultures but it can ge grating if things never comes up as important in the story.

For example.

Based on this excellent work of art (which I feel I had to share ) I am thinking about a story based on the Messenian Wars and the myths of Werewolves in general and of King Lykaon of Arcadia in particular. Don't know if I'll give it a real try, but it is enticing.

Thus I have a basis for the story, I have some general inspiration and can now start to twist and turn archaic Greek culture into what the story needs and wants.

 

[Gurkhal]

Sorry for double post.

To add to this, Constantinople specifically had Greek quarters, Venetian quarters, Turkish quarters and so on... basically each ethnicity in the city - and there were many - was quartered in its own town within Constantinople.

A short question on this. Were there specifically "Greek" as in "Roman" quarters? I thought that every quarter that wasn't specifically dedicated to a foreign ethnicity would be inhabited by the Romans. I am totally wrong here?

 

[Aldarion]

A short question on this. Were there specifically "Greek" as in "Roman" quarters? I thought that every quarter that wasn't specifically dedicated to a foreign ethnicity would be inhabited by the Romans. I am totally wrong here?

You are correct: there were no formally "Greek" quarters, but in practice, once you give everybody else their specific quarters...

 

[DavidTheSatyr]

Would you say that culture includes other cultures around the main culture, and if so, what sounds like a more realistic background for this concept, a sort of a "we are all one and we all need to contribute" idea, which would eventually collapse, or "what others around us do affects us"?

 

[Ban]

Would you say that culture includes other cultures around the main culture, and if so, what sounds like a more realistic background for this concept, a sort of a "we are all one and we all need to contribute" idea, which would eventually collapse, or "what others around us do affects us"?

Subcultures and countercultures always exist within the framework of one or more cultures, whereas minority cultures in any given country exist within the orbit of the dominant culture(s) of that country, but are not dependent on it and given a breakdown in political/social institutions would survive independent of the previously dominant culture. That being said, a subculture or counterculture can develop into a culture of their own, as has arguably been the case with the hippy movement in certain locales. Culture is variable to put it mildly. As for the rest of your question I don't understand what you're getting at with the dichotomy you present.

 

[P.A. Trujillo]

I think culture is very important to my fantasy stories. I try to draw upon real-world cultures for inspiration and as a groundwork for the fantasy cultures I create, partly because it's kind of fun finding all the cultural references like hidden Easter eggs.

Even my fictional races, though inspiration is drawn from Tolkien, have cultures that are at least partially based upon the culture that created the myths in the first place. Tolkien's dwarves draw inspiration from medieval Jews, but my dwarves will skew much closer to ancient Germanic and Norse cultures.