What does a medieval historian have to say?

I have stumbled upon these comments at an EuroGamer article about KC:D.

Sean M. says:
7 months ago

@R. Very much agree. It is incredibly hard to write dialogue for period characters in terms of language (e.g., the Medieval series simply did modern English) or real opinions (how many public opinion surveys have you seen for the 15th century?). I was put off by the anti-Catholicism and I am not Catholic (sure there were debates but the aristocracy stuck together despite questions of confession, so maybe religion was not much of an identity marker for the period?), then there were the modern British accents, but we will see how it ends.

I hope for the best. They have put a lot of time and money into the project. But my cynicism is on high. It is a very hard task that DV set for the team.

@I. Deliverance. There are Catholic and anti-Catholic characters (not the one you play). Some of the dialogues were heavily biased. Not sure where they went with that later.

@H. Buy a history book. It was before Hus was burned at the stake. It might have some Hussite moments in its later spinoffs, but for the moment it is right about 1400 (say 1390-1410).[1]

In any case, a local lord telling a priest off over dinner [as seen in the first live-streamed video] is less than likely. It reeks of anti-Jesuit feeling of the 19th century and the [Czech] National Revival.

@H. The original premise was it started in 1390 and ran about 1390-1397. DV has been writing about his ideas of how it formed for several years. I actually translated some of the early dialogues and we disagreed on some of these precise topics. He also felt my translations of his dialogues were too modern, but nobody speaks Middle English anymore and the characters have Modern British accents, which for me is a bigger problem for his authenticity as there are actors out there who do Shakespearian accents and can be understood by the modern audience.

There are also some issues with the translations of some of the names and their pronunciations. There will be a lot of bugs to work out from what I have seen. It looks great, but the details are hard to get right.

As for me being a ****, I am a medieval historian who translates Bohemian history into English for a living. I do not need to be kind to people who try to tell me my business (you jumped in feet first to tell me about Bohemian history, I simply put you back in your place). Even in the Hussite wars, Moravian Hussites fought for the king against their co-religionists. It is a misreading of history to see everyone split over questions of confession. Feudal relationships were often more important as they had economic import, so people of various confessions signed letters to the pope etc. for their landlord (even this was changing at the time of the story as the Franconian system was spreading into Bohemia).

As for nation, the word gens in Latin meant “tribe”, while nation was a Christianized tribe and at the time of the game in the Middle Ages it was used for wide swaths of people – the German nation at the Sorbonne for instance which included Bohemia. In George of Podebrady’s time, the nations were German, Italian, French and possibly “Hispanica” when he tried to form a coalition against the Turks.

So, you are projecting your modern views into the past.

My unkind reaction was to you trying to school me. Offence was taken and so returned. In future, I suggest checking that you know what you are talking about before jumping in and telling other people what is right or wrong. The team at Deliverance spent weeks doing research, met with scholars in the field and then spent months trying to make it as close to reality as they could. I respect them for that. I disagree with some pieces of it, but they did their homework. You did not.

[1] Sigismund was recalled to Hungary by an invasion (led by Ladislas of Naples) in July, and released Wenceslas in November 1403.

Jan Hus was urged to recant at the Council of Constance (1414–18) but he refused; he was solemnly sentenced of heresy on July 6, 1415, and burned at the stake.

Wenceslas IV died in 1419. He had no children, and the Bohemian crown passed to Sigismund, but the Hussite wars (1420–31, 1434) delayed his coronation until 1436. He died in 1437.

Note that I am not Sean M. and ^these comments^ aren’t mine. Though I agree with him on many points, especially that this game’s writing reeks of “anti-Jesuit”/anti-Catholic or anti-Christian feelings.

But, hey, why wonder? This is what Warhorse Studios’ mascot and KC:D’s director Daniel Vávra has posted at this year’s Pas-cha (Greek Páskha) on his Twitter page:

"Happy Eostre everyone! This was never a zombie memorial, this is celebration of spring and fertility :wink:

"But since I am tolerant, here’s something for the monotheists as well :wink:

"«Have an awesome zombie Jesus day.»

“1 Jesus was a Lich not a zombie 2 It always bothers me when Christians celebrate Easter before Passover”

No comment.

"The king spake, and said, «Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?» While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, «O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.»" (Daniel 4:30-32)

Can you put up some examples of sentences or parts of dilogues which feel that way?

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An example would be nice.

That said debate, reforms and criticism from all layers of society was sort of common in the era.

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@ProkyBrambora @Dushin, this guy has made several threads now with the purpose of stirring shit up, i would just ignore him.

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I think he was referring to this:

a local lord telling a priest off over dinner [as seen in the first live-streamed video]

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Well this is just one example which might or might not indicate how rest of the game will look (or feel).
To me it is completely plausable, not everyone was devout christian.

Still I think it would take more than one example of “anti christian” evoking elements to prove the point.

Never feed the Mogwai after midnight Proky.

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Interesting that after King Nebuchadnezzar (sp?) recovered from his 7 times of eating grass, acknowledging that God is the one and only, he then wrote part of the book of Daniel.

i donr know what historians say but I as a historian of art must say; this game is more than helpful for my job actually. I can go arround looking at reconstructuons of a valid medieval world, im actually writing a paper on video games as a form of an eternal museum

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Well I love the work they done until now. Being able to look at a church and have the feeling that Iam looking at a real church in the past. with frescoes and everything.
(And I got a BA in medieval archaeology… where I wrote my exam about medieval gunpowder weapons)

I can see this technology being a usefull tool for archaeologist trying to reconstruct how a ruin looked or how a church that exist to day looked earlier. (before it was rebuild, enlarged and similar)

SigsmundOfHungary
I would love to read your paper at some point.

Reenactment as a hobby is common today… but VR will properly be a huge area in the future in how you teach history and how history can be used as tourism…

Imagine getting WH to recreate a castle (that is today a ruin with a museum) and surrounding area and allowing people explore the castle when it was in use…

(watch a PH.d defense yesterday about wwii reenactment. And this was something that was debated a bit… how technology will allow us to emerge us in other times… )

This is extremely entertaining information. The author of the comment basically states that Hus was burned at stake at random and only after his burning at stake did the major wave of anti-Catholic dissent come up in Bohemia. In reality it was that very dissent that lead to Hus being burned at stake.

Anyway, Hus would not be that influential if it wasn’t for the first complete Czech translation of Bible at ca. 1360. Until that moment the Latin speaking clergy had monopoly as regards what is right to do in God’s eye. The moment the “Word of God” become accessible to any literate person inevitably lead to falling out of the Bible readers with the Church, which at the time had such practices as selling of pardons (i.e. you would pay at church for absolution from a sin which you were at the moment planning to carry out).

The time of Bible translation also lead to slow but steady rise of literacy among common folk to the point that by 1420, foreigners who were visiting Hussite War Camps were completely dumbstruck by the fact that even many common women were completely literate (not to mention that they were full fledged part of fighting force who, thanks to firearms and crossbows, were capable and did kill the best professional heavy armored knights that the Catholic Europe could throw at them - which had same demoralizing effect on them as Kurdish female snipers have on ISIS members - but that is different issue altogether).

By 1403, when the game is taking place, things were already set in motion as regards anti-Catholicism, although it took some more doing before they reached the point of breaking in 1417 when Hussites started ordaining their own priests (i.e. completely moving away from the authority of Roman Popes and the Catholic teaching that salvation may only be reached through membership of Christ’s=Catholic church).

For fuck’s sake, 1403 was the year when Czech translation of Wycliffe’s works was actually banned in Bohemia, which only made it that much more popular!

This would require further elaboration from the author. As a general statement, it is BS, but he may be referring to some particular part of the several decades long conflict, so I will leave that open.

Oh, what the fuck?

What were the nations at the Charles University in Prague?

Bohemian/Czech (which were in Latin synonymous), Bavarian, Polish, Saxon.

Wouldnt bring this necro to life, see a Warriant’s post.

Or at least wouldn’t bring it to life in original meaning, maybe someone else than OP can say something to the topic, or maybe someone can hijack this thread :slight_smile:

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