Were the Middle Ages boring compared to Game of Thrones?

[Razgovory]

Well, that's another thing we can credit Peter the Great for not inventing.

Point being that he liked to "collect" them, so they were clearly around. The author clearly knows enough about GoT to know that Tyrion is a human and not some other species like Snow White's dwarfs, so his "no dwarves" claim is rather odd; there have always been humans with stunted growth.

I was wondering why you brought that up.  "Collecting" human oddities was fairly common in Europe for hundreds of years.

[11B4V]

The battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles

Can someone confirm this?

[Grey Fox]

The battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles

Can someone confirm this?

No, because that's a lie.

[The Brain]

Does the author really use Towton as an example of a brief and relatively bloodless battle? I hope I'm just too drunk and tired to understand.

[11B4V]

The battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles

Can someone confirm this?

No, because that's a lie.

Figured that didnt sound right.

[The Brain]

Good to know that Foreign Affairs is garbage.

[Solmyr]

The battle of Courtrai, fought between the French army and rebellious Flemish townspeople on July 11, 1302, was one of the bloodiest of all medieval battles

Can someone confirm this?

No, because that's a lie.

Figured that didnt sound right.

Well, more nobles than usual died in that battle, because the Flemish didn't care about ransom.

[Camerus]

Dude claims to be a "historian of the period", but can't think of many examples of violent warfare or interesting events from the entire Middle Ages (even from the high and late Middle Ages only, as his analysis seems to exclude the early MA)?   

[Sheilbh]

Well, yes.

In the Middle Ages Tywin Lannister would probably have had to wait an extra 4-5 months before his army was fully assembled and requisitioned, leaving a relatively short campaigning season. So instead of being able to roam over the country he would have to content himself to a chevauchee somewhere. Game of Thrones is fictional and about moving a plot forward. In the Medieval period war was expensive, incredibly difficult to organise and pretty unpredictable because no plan would ever, ever work.

But a series of Tywin meeting local dignitaries and making plans while writing feverish letters for Tyrion to speed up recruitment and send more money would be terribly, terribly dull.

Which isn't to say the period isn't interesting or didn't have violence.

[Ed Anger]

In the Middle Ages, George RR Martin would have been torn apart by geese, who would chase him through the village, until he collapsed in a heap.

[garbon]

He already is a heap.

[Razgovory]

Well, yes.

In the Middle Ages Tywin Lannister would probably have had to wait an extra 4-5 months before his army was fully assembled and requisitioned, leaving a relatively short campaigning season. So instead of being able to roam over the country he would have to content himself to a chevauchee somewhere. Game of Thrones is fictional and about moving a plot forward. In the Medieval period war was expensive, incredibly difficult to organise and pretty unpredictable because no plan would ever, ever work.

But a series of Tywin meeting local dignitaries and making plans while writing feverish letters for Tyrion to speed up recruitment and send more money would be terribly, terribly dull.

Which isn't to say the period isn't interesting or didn't have violence.

Yeah, the big thing in the novels is that events move much quicker.  Pitched battles were uncommon, commanders preferred to engage in siege warfare and raids.  You wouldn't have several major battle in quick succession.  That isn't to say that knights didn't get to use their capabilities very often.  There were doubtless countless smaller actions and raids that were never recorded.

[Sheilbh]

There's also the issue of ease. Towns and castles don't move so they're easy to find, two armies roaming in the same general vicinity could miss each other. Even if they arranged a battle (and they often did) something else could happen that required one or other to move somewhere else and so on. Which is the other thing, very often they did try to arrange battles because that was the chivalrous thing to do.

[jimmy olsen]

Well the Seven Kingdoms seem much more centralized than medieval Europe, more so than is realistic given how closely their feudal social system mirrors Europe's. There are plenty of preindustrial empires that could have waged such campaigns, but they were organized quite differently.

[The Brain]

Well, yes.

In the Middle Ages Tywin Lannister would probably have had to wait an extra 4-5 months before his army was fully assembled and requisitioned, leaving a relatively short campaigning season. So instead of being able to roam over the country he would have to content himself to a chevauchee somewhere. Game of Thrones is fictional and about moving a plot forward. In the Medieval period war was expensive, incredibly difficult to organise and pretty unpredictable because no plan would ever, ever work.

But a series of Tywin meeting local dignitaries and making plans while writing feverish letters for Tyrion to speed up recruitment and send more money would be terribly, terribly dull.

Which isn't to say the period isn't interesting or didn't have violence.

Yeah, the big thing in the novels is that events move much quicker.  Pitched battles were uncommon, commanders preferred to engage in siege warfare and raids.  You wouldn't have several major battle in quick succession.  That isn't to say that knights didn't get to use their capabilities very often.  There were doubtless countless smaller actions and raids that were never recorded.

In the Wars of the Roses you had many pitched battles, often several in a season. The dynamic was very different from say the war in France.