arpad: (Default)
arpad ([personal profile] arpad) wrote2008-10-18 08:17 am

(no subject)

We are almost all city dwellers. And nevertheless we understand more about medieval peasantry, medieval lords, medieval monks than about medieval town people. It is their way of thinking, their society that is completely hidden behind a fog of modern myths and tales. A capital town in history books just play a decoration for palace plots, whereas fantasy provides impossibilities like "thieves guilds"...

I don't know enough, but somehow I am completely sure that a medieval town would have been the most horrid and alien place for a guest from the future. And not because of its filth.

[identity profile] arpad.livejournal.com 2008-10-18 08:25 am (UTC)(link)
Villages are alien, but I would call them "anthropologically simple". Towns are alien and complex. And this is what you need to feel truly alienated.

Edited 2008-10-18 08:25 (UTC)

[identity profile] trurle.livejournal.com 2008-10-18 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know how to measure anthropological complexity, do you?