Forums » RP Discussion » How to roleplay royalty or nobility?

Well, those could be, but I must say the third one seems to be the hardest to picture.

And in real life, I've never met such being.
Honestly, it bordeline impossible, if you ask, but I could well, admit it would exist.

The last one is fine!

Well, do you have noble (but right-minded kind of noble) characters that fit the "healthy man" type?

Did [/i]anyone[/i] of you have a noble to tell me about (IRL) or in DnD kind of setting to get an example?

What about peasants mortality?
They were surely more dying of poor peoples that can't afford the proper care than the medecine-mens or wealthier ones?
It sounds a hard life, yeah.
Do you know (compare, for example of the nowadays biologic cultures,) was at the time?
Do nowadays agriculture better than before?
More rendements, less people needed?
I'm talking about the non-industrialized culture, of now. do you know what I'm telling you about, or my english is too broken. Lol
Is agricultural knowledge better now than then?

Kim, sorry I did not saw your post,

Yeah, it's true, indeed!

It's true that cities had things like apothecaries (and during the Renaissance, trained doctors), but even in urban settings doctors were woefully outnumbered by their patients. Not to mention they derived most of their knowledge from ancient Greek texts. Not to knock Pliny the Elder, but a lot of his remedies were wack. Medicine in the Middle Ages was almost strictly empirical-- few attempts were made to understand disease pathology, so doctors would end up just using treatments that seemed to work even if they didn't understand why. Living conditions were also much dirtier in cities than villages. So yes, while peasant life was hard, I wouldn't say it necessarily condemned all peasants to die before wealthy urbanites. At that time medicine women and midwives were very common and knowledgeable (this ended with the creation of medical universities, ironically, because women were barred from the academic scene). If you want an example of medieval cures, I'd recommend Googling a translation of the Trotula or the history of humoral medicine. There's a lot of leeches being inserted in places leeches should never go.

Agriculture actually underwent massive improvements in the Middle Ages! The heavy wheeled plough was invented, which was more suited to till wet European soil than scratch ploughs. However, this came at the cost of requiring animals to pull it, and animals were expensive, so communities began using an open field system and shared animals and farming implements amongst themselves. Combining this with a system of crop rotation (leaving fields fallow), villages managed to double or even triple their crop yields. An increase in trade introduced iron to communities, allowing them to make better and longer-lasting scythes, pitchforks, and horseshoes. Water mills and windmills were also constructed around this time; a single mill could replace the labour of forty people and free them up to do other jobs. People started clearing forests, draining marshes, and digging canals to expand their arable land.

Hopefully this is what you're looking for? If you have an interest in plagues, I can definitely help out (my user is named after the bacteria that caused the Black Death, lmao).

It depends on which plague you're talking about; nearly every generation experienced one. I think when most people mention the plague they're referencing the Black Death, which peaked in the mid 1300s and killed easily a third of Europe's population (millions of people). It was spread through fleas. Some places fared better than others-- Jewish communities, for example, were more insular, and their religious practices included better sanitation than most Europeans at the time, so they tended not to get sick (although they were blamed for the plague and subjected to pogroms, which was another problem entirely). Mass graves became common practice. These horrified people-- for them, spiritual salvation couldn't be achieved unless one had funeral rites and a proper Christian burial, but this simply wasn't feasible with the rate at which people died. If a family member appeared to be sick, the rest of their family would be sealed into the house with them. The house would be marked and people posted outside of it were allowed to throw rocks at/kill anyone who escaped in self defense. England tried to quarantine the sick in "pest houses", but because they didn't understand how the disease worked, this did little more than create festering cesspool hospitals. Countries like Italy had the right idea-- they at least incinerated the corpses. I think there are also instances of them burning pest houses ("lazarettos") to the ground, but I'd need to fact check that one.

I can't think of any primary sources off the top of my head. If you're enrolled in college/university, your school should have access to academic databases (EBSCO, JSTOR, etc) that likely have journals and such from that time period. Museums, archives, and libraries in your area might also have them. I'd definitely recommend looking into it! History draws on facts but is also interpretive. Don't just believe what a scholar says if you have the opportunity to read the source material yourself.

Anything specific you wanted to know about dynastic China?

Hi!


Yeah, what about Nobility in China?

Well, of course, if I have the chance to indulge in my hobbies this year I will, but it seems my planning will be so tight I'll had to restrain somehow... (I'm not in classes right now, it should start the 23th, but maybe it will be delayed because of administrative feuds.)

Man, when I hear you, the plagues and Middle Ages seems horrific lol.
I'm quite glad we had scientific and technologic advancement.

Is there any kind of sickness very popular nowadays that were very uncommon then?
Somehow, except maybe under-nutrition, I can't think of the Middles Ages a time where human race was plaggued with sickness. You certainly die more easily, but they would not be a lot of sick people back then.

Nobility in ancient China is complicated; it depends on what dynasty you're talking about. I can't make any overarching comments, but if you give me a time frame I can tell you what I know. Keep in mind that scholars argue over exactly when a dynasty ended and that these are just my professor's estimations (though if it's any consolation, she's from China):

- Xia (contested) or Shang (1500-1045 BCE)
- Zhou (1045 - 221 BCE)
- Qin (221 - 206 BCE)
- Han (206 BCE - 220 CE)
- The Period of Division (220 - 580)
- Sui (581 - 617)
- Tang (618 - 907)
- Civil War (907 - 960)
- Song (960 - 1279)
- Yuan (until 1368-ish)
- Ming (1368 - 1644)
- Qing (1644 - 1911)

re: medieval sickness, due to vaccinations and other modern medical advances we've managed to eradicate (either completely or almost completely) illnesses that were devastating in the past. However, viruses are always evolving, which means we have diseases nowadays that medieval physicians had never seen. As above, I can't make any overarching comments on the general health of peasants and nobles, though I will wager that having massive plagues every generation or so probably made them "sicker" than us overall.

Good Evening!


Nobility in ancient China is complicated, you definitely got me hooked. Bless you.
The older the better! If I have to choose, I would like to know about the Xia.

And, because curiosity is going up in me, maybe the "one" dynasty all those chineses dramas are about?
(Or maybe, they do a lot of dramas on a lot of differents timelines. ), I'll get you reference so maybe you can help me check which timeline is!

Another thing is, I don't always trust some academics reviews too, especially if it's about others country (I'm currently studying in France), and it can become a bit of the warrior's quest to come over any valuable traductionswhen I want to read something that is not in modern french. They were times where I just utterly dropped reading for example, about Antiquity, because from a book to another one, it was a different translation, and I hated not being able to get to the "true" text. I tried to study by myself, and it was time consuming. Really, really time consuming. I dropped. I grasped some things thought, but it was not as satisfying I which it would have been.


About medieval sickness , well I meant, they were less sick people roaming about (diabete, obesity), but more died people around. bc, no remedies for example.
But i got what you meant when you said "sicker" lol.

Do you think you can know from which era is an outfit if you see it? (Chinese outfit I mean)

Hope to hear from you later!

Thank you!

You picked the dynasty we know the least about, lmao. Part of the reason what we think we know is conjecture is because the Xia (or, more definitely, Shang) was taken over by the Zhou; history is written by the winners, as it's said. The Zhou kept detailed records, but it's also fair to assume that they're heavily biased and embellished. A lot of what we know comes from more "primary" sources-- like the excavation of Fu Hao's tomb. We learned that she was the consort of the Shang king at the time (China wouldn't have a singular emperor until the Qin dynasty). She was buried with weapons (possibly indicating she led troops), servants, dogs, and bronze (indicating her wealth), ivory (indicating that China traded with other nations, as ivory was not readily available; corroborating this, Shang silk has been found in Egyptian tombs), and ceremonial items (example: oracle bones).

Shang society was highly stratified. The aristocracy were free to engage in sport hunting, ceremonies and rituals, rode horses and chariots during war, had scribes and artisans that worked for them, and had peasant farmers to provide food. Temples were constructed by slaves over decades and required a surplus of food and a strong economy to support them, so it's reasonable to conclude that prior to being taken over the Shang dynasty was doing (to put it in academic terms) pretty sweet. However, the following Zhou dynasty is referred to as the "golden age" of kings where a lot of technological, economic, philosophical, and statecraft development took place. So. That's nice.

I don't know much about clothes, and I know that period dramas rarely go for historical accuracy anyways, so I'll link you to some resources. Maybe you can sleuth it out yourself: [x] [x] (Googling "_______ dynasty clothing" yields better results!)

And ah, I see what you mean now. I suppose it depends on how you define sickness. Diabetes and obesity may not have been an issue, but you also might see lepers limping around with their noses rotted off or people with massive black buboes swelling on their necks. I think I'd rather live nowadays, lmao.