Some of the more detailed responses to my request for anachronisms are archived here. I've taken the liberty of slightly editing some texts in order to "glue together" responses from the same person, and to divide the responses between the details for anachronistic items and details for other anachronisms. Also, .sigs etc. have been removed.
It's very difficult to pin-down dates on things. For example, plate
armour. There is a documented case of folk experimenting with large
plates sewn into armour from 1185. But the coat-of-plates didn't really
catch hold until the late 13th century. (I wouldn't call it platemail
BTW, I've been admonished in the past for using that particular D&Dism)
Another example, gunpowder. An important text on making gunpowder, Liber
Igneum, probably found its way into Europe by the mid 13th century. It
wouldn't be totally unbelievable for Magi with mid-eastern contacts to have
this info in 1220. However the first use of gunpowder in European
warfare is around 1300. Siege cannons early 14thC. Handguns mid 14thC IIRC.
So, you see the problem. There's a big difference between the thing
being available, and it being in widespread use. Sometimes 50 to 100 years
difference. Perhaps another column on the table is called for.
Then you've got the problem of terminology. Longbows were around, they
just probably weren't as powerful as the famous 15thC versions. Magnets
were around in the form of lodestone. Two-handed swords? Well, it
depends what you call a two-handed sword. I've heard that Celts used a
two-handed sword from horseback!
Here are dates for important developments in Barding, Helmets and Crossbows
(three topics which are easy-ish to pin down the development of).
RARE COMMON
Horse Barding [1] late 12th mid 13th
Plate Barding early 14th
'Masked' Helm [2] late 12th
Brimmed war-hat [3] late 12th
Great Helm [4] early 13th
Bascinet [5] mid 13th
Visored Helm [6] early 14th
Hunting Crossbow Roman (3rd?)
War Crossbow (S. Europe) [7] 10th? late 11th
War Crossbow (N. Europe) 13th C.
Composite Crossbow mid 12th late 12th
stirrup + spanning hook [8] mid 12th late 12th
windlass [9] early 13th ? 1297
steel crossbow 1314 15th C.
Cranequin [10] 1375
Notes:
1. Partial chain and quilted armour for horses. (Barding had been around
before, but had fallen out of use before this period)
2. A "Norman" helmet with a very broad nose guard which covered the cheeks.
(Similar things had been around before, this is another "re-invention")
3. A round metal cap protecting the top of the head, with a brim. Popular
with common soldiery.
4. Growing use of crossbows and lances necessitated the adoption of this
completely closed helm. Note, it has no moveable visor.
5. The bascinet is a close-fitting open-faced helm which covers the back
and sides of the head as well as the top. May be worn beneath a Great
Helm for added protection.
6. Basically a bascinet with a movable hinged visor to cover the face.
7. Crossbows had been around since roman times for hunting. These are
approximate dates for adoption of the crossbow in warfare. Initially
much more common in the south of Europe than the North.
8. The stirrup is a metal hoop on the end of the crossbow which the
archer places his foot in. The spanning hook is a hook on the belt
which is attached to the bowstring to draw it. Prior to this, the
crossbow would be spanned (drawn) by standing upon the bow itself,
and drawing the string by hand.
9. An ungainly winch device for spanning crossbows. Early references
to these winched crossbows appear in the Albigensian Crusade. They
may or may not have been man-portable. First illustration 1297.
10. A rack-and-pinion device for spanning very heavy crossbows quickly
(in about 15 seconds IIRC).
Use of the crossbow in war occured in southern Europe long before northern
Europe, hence I suggest S. Europe as the location of First Introduction. Rare
in the 10th century, common by the 13th.
My reference to experimental plate dated 1185 is so much of a one-off
that I would exclude it from your list. (Your magus of Verditius might
develop plate armour, but will he find anybody to wear it in battle?)
Plate was Rare in the late 13th century and became more common in the 14th.
The first form of playing cards were likely some form of tarot. The first documented appearance is in (French or Italian, can't remember exactly) court sometime during the 14th C. The origin of these cards are hotly debated. In mythical terms, I'd probally place them from Egypt, as the gypsy peoples were believed to also be from Egypt as well and there's a connection between the two (beleived). Of course, dice would be much much earlier and more common as playing/gambling devices.
I humbly offer the following citation. I cannot vouch for veracity; I simply came across this. (I'm trying to learn to play Tarokk.) >From Dummett, Michael _Twelve Tarot Games_ , Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd, Gloucester Crescent, London, NW 1980 (ISBN 0 7156 1485 1 (cased) ) "A single documentary reference shows that Tarot cards wee known in the court of James I, being regarded there as of French origin and being used for a kind of card game. Probably they did not then spread to any wider social circle. [...] Their reintroduction into Britain had to wait until the 1880's, when they were marketed for those interested in fortune-telling and the occult; and that association has persisted ever since. In recent years, the Tarot pack as become very widely known; and at least 9 out of 10 in the Anglo-Saxon world who have heard of them, perhaps 99 out of 100, think of them solely as a document of the occult or an instrument of divination. ... "This belief is quite mistaken. The Tarot pack was invented in northern Italy in the fifteenth century, probably in the 1430's (the earliest known mention of it is dated 1442); but no one associated it with the occult or with telling fortunes until the 1780's, in France. That association was first made by Antoine Court de Gebelin, who propounded the preposterous theory that the pack was invented by ancient Egyptian priests as a means of symbolizing thier religious lore, a theory he published in 1781. Within two years a professional fortune-teller who called himself Etteilla had fastened onto this theory, and began to tell fortunes by means of a form of the Tarot pack, greatly altered by himself, which he called 'the Book of Thoth.' It was another hundred years before these notions were taken up anywhere but in France. ... "There is, however, not a grain of truth in these theories. Playing cards themselves probably reached Europe from the Islamic world in the late fourteenth century, indeed most likely from the Egypt of the Mamluks. But Tarot cards are a european invention, specifically an Italian one.; nothing like them is known from outside Europe, nor from before the fifteenth century."
> The first form of > playing cards were likely some form of tarot. The first > documented appearance is in (French or Italian, can't > remember exactly) court sometime during the 14th C. The > origin of these cards are hotly debated. In mythical > terms, I'd probally place them from Egypt, as the gypsy > peoples were believed to also be from Egypt as well and > there's a connection between the two (believed). Hmm. . .first of all, unless your Saga takes place after the mid 1300s, you're not going to find any gypsies in Europe. Secondly, the gypsies didn't take up tarot, documented, until the mid-1800s. They did palmistry. Also, the whole "gypsies are from Egypt" thing is a mostly a British viewpoint. The other Europeans usually assumed they were from the southeast of Europe, usually somewhere just over the horizon. The French thought they were from Germany, the Germans thought they were from Hungary, the Hungarians thought they were from Turkey or modern-day Khazakstan, when in fact, they were from northern India, as we now know. The tarot definitely (as opposed to guesswork) originated in the French court in the late 1200s, and was used for both divination _and_ as playing cards, and was referred to as women's magic, since the wives of nobles would wait outside of the chambers while the men discussed business and played cards, as dice was a peasant's game (I'm at work, or I'd quote the reference to ya). This opinion of dice would hold true until early in our century. Mythically speaking, the cards were thought to have come from France; the Egypt thing is a 19th century belief. If you're going to use cards in the game, remember that they'd be the realm of the mid-nobility, and probably not found at the peasant level, which tended to use dirtier methods, like animal sacrifice, reading feces, bones, egg yolks and the like. Also practiced, though documented only in the 1400s in France, was the planchette, the practice of using a cup to point to letters or (in early forms) images on a table. The source is from a local PhD student's thesis on tarot and divination in general. It seems she found accounts to indicate that the tarot (or at least, carved wooden plates used as playing cards for divination) preceded the Italian versions by about 200 years. They weren't tarot as we'd recognize them, from the Waite standardization, but similar in function.
Knitting was introduced to Western Europe some time in the 13th century; it probably came from Egypt. Buttons were likewise introduced during the 13th century. As I recall, the spinning wheel and a better loom were introduced around then, too -- dramatically reducing the cost of clothing, of course (so 14th century clothing prices really shouldn't be compared to 12th century prices). I believe compasses were just starting to be used around 1200, or maybe a little later (though they are much older than that; they came from China). For those of you with campaigns set in earlier periods, the moldboard plow was introduced early in the 9th century and gradually spread; the horse collar and horseshoes were introduced late in the 9th century (or maybe the middle). Before their introduction, you really couldn't use horses to plow; the load would choke them. Paper was just starting to appear around 1200 in Christian Europe; it arrived from China via the Middle East and Spain. Sometime around 1200 the sternpost rudder was introduced (again, from China); your basic Viking longship had a steering oar on the side (this may be apocryphal, but as I recall that's where "starboard" came from -- the side with the steering board). All in all, the 13th century was pretty exciting. The stirrup may have been introduced to Europe (from the Asian steppes) as early as the 9th century; it, however, spread fairly slowly and didn't reach England till 1066. Note that all of this is from memory, so some of the dates are doubtless off a bit. Not all that much for most, though. I hope.
> How did people store books? On tables, generally. Remember that before printing was invented, a couple of dozen books in one room was considered to be a fairly impressive library. No need to have bookshelves when you don't have enough books to fill them :).
+ Coffee Yemen IXth c., XIth cent. (Avicenne)
XVIth cent.
+ Eye glasses Italy 1285 (Rq : not everybody agrees)
+ Gunpowder China end of middle age
+ Magnets Old Greece or before Middle Age
+ Playing cards Asia around IXth C. XIIth C.
+ Potatoes America very old 1526
+ Tea Asia Legend says 2750 before JC
(Chen-Nong), evedences exist for around 500 years BC (Confucius)
1559 (venise)
+ Tobacco Unknown(1) 1520
(1) : was used on the corpse or Ramses II.
> Alchemy
Toth's priests, If i remember well
Beginning in XIVth cent. in Paris, but older in meterranean
countries.
Word exist from 1265 in France.
> Dante's Hell Europe
The word Enfer (hell) in France : 1080.
> Celibate clergy Europe
+ Feminism Europe 1837 in France (The word, not
the ideal !)
Sapho, Greece, a long time ago
Lilith, long before. :^P
+ Papal infallibility Europe 1870 (Proclamation)
Others :
Street lights :
In 1258 Etienne Boileau, "Prevot" of Paris, orders people to have a light
in front of their house. Nobody listens. Philippe V, in 1318, adds light
on the door of the Chatelet tribunal.
> > Item First introduced in When Available in Europe > > ==== =================== ==== =================== > + Coffee Yemen IXth c., XIth cent. (Avicenne) > XVIth cent. Okay, maybe this is a little uptight of me, but coffee has been around for a heck of a lot longer than the 9th century. . .read some old (preIslam) Arabic texts and accounts of Arabic life. The coffee service was discussed as early as 2 B.C. (and that's without me doing any research but reaching over my shoulder to a bookshelf).
> Compasses The vikings apparently used a magnetic stone on a floating wooden disk to keep track of direction. This is according to rumour, but probably mythic enough to be included in the game. Also, they had some kind of rock crystal, which made it possible to see the sun behind cloud cover (something to do with polarization, wth. do I know, anyway.) > Eye glasses Galileo used lenses to piece together a telescope in the 1600s, wasn't it? And he wasn't even the first, and I assume eyeglasses (or at least magnifying glasses) were the primary use for lenses before that. > Longbows Very old. I'll dig up that old Scientific Americal article, but I think they found bronze age longbow-like bows. Very popular in periods, depending on who you fought. Late (1500s, Mary Rose, wasn't it?) they made the bows thicker, with it's largest diameter outwards, instead of flat. Flat bows are better, but you get more bows per stave of wood, so it's a matter of economy. > Two-hand swords Japan/Asia 1100? 14th century I'm sure claymores etc were found in Europe by then or before. No guarantees.
Tobacco would have been introduced to Europe at, approximately, the same time as potatoes. Potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, beans (except for broad or fava beans), corn (maize for Europeans), squash and pumpkins were all first domesticated in the Americas. It's generally believed to have been central America (Mexico) for everything but potatoes (South America by the Incas or their neighbours). Similarly, turkeys also originated in the Americas. When these products became common would be much later for most. Potatoes and tomatoes are nightshades (Solanaceae) and were believed to be poisonous (parts of the plants are, in fact). Pasta noodles are said to have originated in China and been introduced to Italy by Marco Polo.
Brandy (distilled wine) was invented in 1300 by alchemist Arnau de Villanova. The process of distilling was known before his invention, but while it was used for other purposes (such as making drinkable water out of salt water), this is the first *recorded* use of it for the purpose of making liquor.
I think that paper just arrives on the scene in the C13th. Paper does not really take over as a writing medium until the demand for written (rather, printed) material outstrips the supply of available sheepskins. Paper is a little more durable than papyrus and doesn't disintegrate completely when it gets wet, though, so it has some advantage. However, like papyrus, paper has a shorter shelf-life (make that ``table-life'' :) than parchment, and is more easily damaged by water and so on.
Also note that paper was not made from wood. Some was made from plant fibers, but it was also made from linen (which, I know, is also a plant fiber. So sue me.) Strangely, one significant source of linen for paper in the 18th century was from mummies wrappings from Egypt. No joke.
> Were there any other kind of herbs smoked in the middle ages or are > pipe-smoking wizards a complete anachronism? Unless my memory is completely failing me, the 5000 year old Ice Man was found with traces of marijuana in a pouch. Someone with a clearer knowledge of the find and/or of the history of marijuana smoking could confirm or deny that speculation on my part, but I'm fairly certain of it.
I hope this information is useful. Most of it comes from the book
Gies, F. and Gies, J., _Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and
Invention in the Middle Ages_. New York: HarperCollins, 1974.
I have listed the first date of appearance in Europe, which should
correspond to your ``rare in Europe'' category, and have tried to estimate
when the invention or development would be common. I have used dashes to
indicate a missing or unknown date.
Dates in Europe
First Common What was developed or invented
========= ======== =====================================================
early C5 --- Artes Liberales [by Boethius]
C7 C7 Gall-iron (black) ink
late C7 --- A.D. and B.C. dating [by the Venerable Bede]
--- C8 Motte-and-bailey castle
--- C8 Above-ground reduction furnace (for iron smelting)
--- C8 Horse collar (allows draft horse)
C8 --- Horizontal waterwheel (for grinding grain)
C8 C9? Carolingian miniscule (script)
C9 --- Rotary grindstone with crank handle
late C9 C11 Stirrup
late C9 C11 Nailed horseshoe [mass-produced in C12]
late C9 C11 Spurs
late C9 C11 Curb bit (for horses)
late C9 C11 Stone keeps [on Loire near Tours, by Fulk Nerra]
C10 --- Cog (carvel-constructed ship with flat-bottom hull)
C10 C12? Paper products [via Muslim Sicily and Spain]
C10 C14 Use of hops in beer (a preservative)
late C10 C11 Waterpower from vertical waterwheels [via Spain]
late C10 C11 Open-field agriculture (crop rotation; spring/fall crops)
C11 --- Cog given round bottom for stability
C11 C11 Drawplate (used to draw wire)
C11 C11 Olive oil-based soaps
C11 C11 Crossbow [in Italy]
early C12 C12 Cistercian Order
early C12 --- "Artesian" well deep-drilled using percussive drilling
C12 C12 Mechanized loom (horizontal loom with treadles)
--- C12 Trip hammer (vertical waterwheel-driven wheel of hammers
used in forges, to hull grain, and to crush ore)
C12 late C12 Compass (usu. south-pointing) [overland from China]
C12 late C12 Two-masted ships (in Mediterranean)
C12 late C12 Rudder
C12 late C12 Condensor [by Salernus of Salerno] for distillation
late C12 C13 Vertical windmill [invented in East Anglia, England]
late C12 C13 Trebuchet improved by adding huge couterweight
late C12 C13 Wheelbarrow [from China]
late C14 --- Canal lock gates
Paper: Arabic paper-making since 751 (first by Chinese prisoners of war). Paper in the Christian Europe: 9th c. (Hispania), after 1100 (Italy). Paper-making in the Christian Europe (that means "Common"? :) ): 1260's (Hispania), 1276 (Italy). AD/BC dating: It was invented by Dionysius Exiguus in 525. That's true that Beda Venerabilis used it, and his big reputation helped it to become general. It was used in the Papal chancellery since the second half of the 10th century. (The Papal chancellery was very conservative, it accepted new things and ideas very slowly...) I recommend you to list the Latin names of the coins as well: English French Latin pound livre pondus, libra, talentum shilling sou solidus penny denier denarius halfpenny obulus Units of weight: I'm not absolutely sure about it (to tell the truth, I'm not sure at all :) ), but as far as I know, at the time of the ArM there was used the Tower-pound (aka London-pound, English-pound) in England (it was cca. 0,350 kg). The Troy-pound (that has French origin) and the Avoirdupois are later units... (the Troy-pound, AFAIK, since the 16th c. in England). I certainly don't recommend you to beleive me :), but I think maybe it should be investigated... That's not to important (it's just a single error on the map in the ArM - and not the one and only :( ) Budapest: The three cities (Buda, Obuda, Pest) were united in 1873. The first mention of "Buda-Pest" was in 1499, and _relatively_ frequent since the 16th century... but officially just since 1873.
- comments?