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Medieval UK Battle Records Released Online
eldavojohn writes "Do you have ancestors who served in the British military under Henry V or fought in the Hundred Years War? Look them up online now that 250,000 medieval battle records are online and available for searching. According to the project details (PDF): 'The main campaigns of the period were to France but there were others to Flanders, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, a much wider geographical spectrum than before 1369. In addition, garrisons were maintained within England (such as that held at the Tower of London), the Channel Islands, Wales and the marches, as well as at Calais and in Gascony. In the fourteenth-century phase of the Hundred Years War, the English also held some garrisons in areas of northern France, and in the fifteenth century phase, there was a systematic garrison-based occupation of Normandy and surrounding regions...'"
Terrorists could exploit this knowledge to close the trebuchet gap.
""The reason the sun never sets on the British Empire is because God doesn't trust the British in the dark.""
Seems that even absolute monarchies had problems with bureaucrats. Makes you wonder if the species will ever evolve past them.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Lots of records with no family /surname. "What's your name soldier?" "John" "Right, stick him down scribe, John the archer".
Don't hold your hopes out if you were dreaming to find your ancestor on some particular march out to France or Scotland. Not unless your ancestors happen to be the Dukes of Northumberland or the like...
Nerds love ancient historical stuff -- who the hell else is in the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Sealed Knot, various battle re-enactment societies, etc. etc.? Nerds! And what could be more nerdy than a mountain of statistics about the same?
Oh, and anybody who can't think of a use for this data has no idea what historical research is. You crowdsource this stuff and all kinds of interesting things will pop up. The better we understand our past, the better we understand ourselves.
As for the observations about monarchs needing bureaucrats -- EVERYbody needs bureaucrats, unless you'd prefer the government to be run by astrology and guesswork. If you're a soldier and you want to get paid the correct amount, on time, you need a bureaucrat to look after it. Plus, Britain during a lot of this period was essentially a police state, and police states need more bureaucrats than most. The Stasi in East Germany were Exhibit A, closely followed by the Nazis. The latter's record-keeping got a fair number of them hanged.
I piss off bigots.
yeah it is pretty cool but it's not worth carrying an umbrella all the time.
...check out John Keegan's Face of Battle. It covers the battle of Agincourt and several other major battles - Waterloo and the Somme. This book really gives you a feel for the human element in these battles.
As an additional stamp of approval, it's also on both the Army and USMC reading lists.
The Army reading list
You can do statistics on the datasets...
Did the name "Cuthbert" not appear before 1361, and then it spread along river valleys because its carriers were predominantly farmers (with occurrences of it popping up here and there because people were conscripted into armies/died out/whatever)?
Did the plague wipe out mainly those with surnames common to the Mediterranean region, because those people had less exposure to the rats, which carried the fleas, which were the main vectors?
Do "Smiths" follow the armies, or settle in the cities? Were Teutonic names more indicative of higher classes? Did northern European names cluster more with archers rather than cavalry?
I'm forseeing a lot of interesting temporal/spatial analysis which could be done with the data.
that a family member had served in the military back in the day.
Signed,
John Arrowbait
"The reason the sun never sets on the British Empire is because God doesn't trust the British in the dark."
God knows about Lucas, the Prince Of Darkness.
>The main campaigns of the period were to France but there were others to ... Scotland
Sorry, but my ancestors were on the other side. Damn English. Well, they were good at raising cattle to steal.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
"I am Arthur, king of the Britons."
... "I am your king!" - "I didn't vote for you." - "You don't vote for kings." - "How did you become king then?"
"King of the who?" - "The Britons." - "Who are the Britons?" - "We all are. We're all Britons. And I am your king." - "Didn't know we had a king. I thought we're an autonomous collective."
"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying, by divine providence, that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king." - "Listen, strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses. Not from farcical aquatic ceremony."
Let's see...
2009-1369 = 640 years
Using a (conservative) 25 years/generation...
640/25 ~= 25.6. Call it 26.
2^26 = 67,108,864
According to medieval demographics and human population, the number of people alive in "Europe" around then peaked at 70-100m *before* the famines and plagues of the 14th century. Europe would not regain that population peak again for 200 years.
If you are caucasian then, given these figures, unless you are descended from a multi-generational set of *extremely* inbred kin, the probability that at least one of your ancestors was in that battle is quite high. The Most Recent Common Ancestor of all peoples. never mind all Europeans, is more recent than you think.
Da Blog
I should add these population numbers:
1350, England: 2,500,000
1345, France: 20,200,000
Da Blog
Scotland is not now, and never has been, part of England.
Is here. Share and enjoy.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.