Medieval church "music" and Dark age maps

[isaanmini]

Hi guys
more info to take a look at when I have time..............not sure about loads of drunken Germanic market traders belting out the hits of the day, but there you go....might be worth a listen
Yes its more the sedate atmospherics I am interested in ,hence the chants, but I am starting to get interested in finding this other stuff now

God help me

another Tangent............seem to remember something about a Dark Ages film that had a date for a title, and a bunch of Hairy guys (vikings ?) in the publicity shot that I saw

Any ideas........wow I love this place..........

cheers
Barry

[Arlequín]

Not the one you're after but if you want a good Dark Ages film 13th Warrior (1999) is about the best I've seen. No marks for historical accuracy, but I rate it. You can usually pick it up quite cheap.

[isaanmini]

I am not sure how usefull it will be .but I was in a bookshop in Bournemouth the other day and I noticed some rolled OD maps (poster style)......I enquired and was told that they had some stock of a Roman Britain map........1/1.000.000

I have ordered one and while I am not sure if it is exactly the same as the one mentioned By Sid and one or two others it sounds very usefull
I wont be collecting it for a few weeks but I will let you know more when I can compare it with Sids post

[Arlequín]

The only drawback with the OS Roman Britain map is that it only shows Roman sites. While the 'tribal capitals' (Civitates) will be featured, other tribal settlements won't. For the most part the Roman settlements were gradually abandoned, or reduced in size, over the course of the 5th Century. Obviously mileage varies as to area and site and I'm not aware of a map that shows post-Roman Britain. You might be better making your own from a blank topographical map of the UK to suit your needs.

I've been using this one; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Topographic_Map_of_the_UK_-_Blank.png

I can't remember if OS do an Anglo-Saxon one, but it actually might be of more use than the Roman one.

[Red Orc]

The 'Ancient Britain' map shows Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, selected Roman, and Post-Roman (Anglo-Saxon, Viking, British, Scottish and Pictish, before 1066?) sites.

However, I think these are only sites that can be visited. Not every known site is on the map by any means.

I was recommending it to Isaanmini on the grounds that, apart from showing the 'current' sites (AD400-1000), all those other things were still there - the Roman towns and forts (some occupied, some not) were still a presence in the landscape, they could have warbands using them as bases; the hillforts of the Iron Age were sometimes re-fortified in the post-Roman period, especially in the west; the Bronze Age and Neolithic barrows and henges were the focus for new burials, church-building, pagan revival cults and who knows what? 'Wodensbarrow' didn't build itself you know (nor did Woden build it)!

[Arlequín]

No you're quite right, older sites had their uses and indeed there was continuous occupation from the Bronze Age to the present day in a lot of places. The map you've described sounds like the one I vaguely remember as existing.

My only criticism of it would be, as you say, that not everything is listed. This creates a bit of an imbalance in some places, which look positively un-populated. There's no easy solution to this problem though.

[Red Orc]

...

My only criticism of it would be, as you say, that not everything is listed. This creates a bit of an imbalance in some places, which look positively un-populated. There's no easy solution to this problem though.

Extensive local fieldwork is the only way. When I was doing my Arthurian RPG campaign I'd take sections of the map, blow them up, compare them with the Roman map to get roads and any missing Roman sites in the region, then start consulting history books to find anything Iron Age or post-Roman that I'd missed.

All of this I considered to be 'fun', however, so that's alright!

[Arlequín]

For a moment I thought you were about to suggest we go out and dig up some the blank areas on the map. 

[Funghy-Fipps]

Sorry to come late to the fray (as it were), but viz. the medieval music may I suggest Medieval Steel?  The latest research suggests that this is what the French knights listened to before they went off at Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt.  Whether it made them frenzied or suicidal is not certain, but effect was that they rode breakneck for the English lines.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q9Vzjefnik

For those who cannot stomach sitting through such unadulterated manliness, may I suggest skipping to 4:09, a moment that cuts straight to the very essence of what this song is about (that is, leather and very tight codpieces).

[Vinlander]

Of course, historians are still divided as to when exactly the 'Chansons du Geste' went out of fashion for the up and coming chevalier and were replaced by ' Ye Cocke Rocke'...

 

[Momotaro]

Naxos sells a CD of medieval carols (called, Medieval Carols funnily enough), which is only about a fiver. 

Of course, it includes Gaudete , which may be too firmly linked in your mind with Alan Partridge...