Happily Morbid Research
18/2/02 23:41![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienOkay. So, I admit it. One of the reasons I like Medieval History so much? It's colorful, darnit.
I mean, "The Black Plague"? Even diseases were cool.
And so, when I saw this quiz, about medieval torture instruments, I had to see it. But here's what worries me: I wasn't really interested in the results. I wanted to read through all the twenty or so different options, complete with interesting engraving reproductions.
And all this I do in the name of "research." Well, maybe not quite research. I *am* shortly, I think, going to write a story where part of it is set in a Medieval or Renaissance prison. So I do need to know about this kind of thing.
But personally, I think a lot of it stems from that silly article I read at about 5 or 6 about the Black Plague in Smithsonian magazine. When one finds out that the rhyme "ring around the rosy" actually stems from practices believed to ward off the plague only a year or two after they've stopped singing the rhyme, it's bound to do small morbid things to one's psyche.
(And yes, I have heard the other arguments that the rhyme isn't about the plague at all. But I continue to abide by the theory that it is, because it a.) makes sense to me, and b.) doesn't take into account the amazing capability of story to continue being passed down for hundreds of years even after the original meaning is almost lost.)
And a final thought: how bad can a small obsession with Middle Ages forms of death and the various ways of achieving it be, when the little blurb for the "hot iron" selection on the quiz explained a question I had about one of my "Medieval Court Culture" readings, when the article in question was exploring the political ramifications of skipping out of this very same torture?
I mean, "The Black Plague"? Even diseases were cool.
And so, when I saw this quiz, about medieval torture instruments, I had to see it. But here's what worries me: I wasn't really interested in the results. I wanted to read through all the twenty or so different options, complete with interesting engraving reproductions.
And all this I do in the name of "research." Well, maybe not quite research. I *am* shortly, I think, going to write a story where part of it is set in a Medieval or Renaissance prison. So I do need to know about this kind of thing.
But personally, I think a lot of it stems from that silly article I read at about 5 or 6 about the Black Plague in Smithsonian magazine. When one finds out that the rhyme "ring around the rosy" actually stems from practices believed to ward off the plague only a year or two after they've stopped singing the rhyme, it's bound to do small morbid things to one's psyche.
(And yes, I have heard the other arguments that the rhyme isn't about the plague at all. But I continue to abide by the theory that it is, because it a.) makes sense to me, and b.) doesn't take into account the amazing capability of story to continue being passed down for hundreds of years even after the original meaning is almost lost.)
And a final thought: how bad can a small obsession with Middle Ages forms of death and the various ways of achieving it be, when the little blurb for the "hot iron" selection on the quiz explained a question I had about one of my "Medieval Court Culture" readings, when the article in question was exploring the political ramifications of skipping out of this very same torture?
