If it takes twenty minutes to heat enough water over the fire to have a wash (been there, done that)
You must lead an interesting life. :P
I lived in the back cabin of a narrowboat (helping to work the boats) for a while. No electricity, no bottled gas, no refrigeration, no flush toilet, just paraffin lamps (including the boat's big tunnel lamp up at the front that you had to light before entering tunnels so that you could see where you were going -- and be seen by anyone coming the other way!), a bucket in the engine-room which was emptied out every few days, vegetables stored under the back counter where it was cool, and a little coal-fired range for cooking and heating, which would just about stay alight all night if you knew how to manage it (I didn't, so it had to be relit periodically).
I know a lot about polishing brass, shutting up all the hatches to strip off and wash all over with a flannel and a single kettle of boiling water to dilute a dipper of cold canal water, and using the soapy remains to scrub the coal-dust from the floor in an effort to keep the inside of the cabin spotlessly clean. (If you don't, you end up with black soles to your feet pretty quickly; when you live in a very small area - about eight foot by seven -- you have to be meticulous.)
It's very educational (though I didn't do it for that purpose) for any historical fiction writer to live without modern conveniences for a while... and to learn that things which might seem like a massive deprivation are actually quite easy to cope with. I've done a manual pump-out on a modern canal boat, for example, and I can assure you that a nice clean easy-to-empty bucket dosed with formaldehyde 'blue' that lives among the welcoming oil- and machine-smells of the engine room is infinitely preferable to using a foot-pump to eject the macerated contents of a flushing toilet tank that has hung around long enough to start fermenting :-P
Lady Rosesong also thinks boys learned to be knights at knight school and that illegitimate sons could become knights
Quite a lot of illegitimate kings' sons became high nobles, so I wouldn't rule out illegitimate nobles' sons becoming knights, if their father acknowledged them and/or they distinguished themselves in service. It's not a period I know in great detail, and it may vary according to which bit of 'the Middle Ages' you're talking about, but I don't think the whole illegitimacy thing was that important compared to facts on the ground -- note that Henry VII took care to dispose of the illegitimate son of his predecessor along with all the other Yorkist heirs... his own claim to the throne being derived from being descended from the illegitimate son of a younger son through the female line :-p
(That actually sounds like an interesting fic. If I didn't start screaming and flailing like Philbin!Christine at the mere thought of E/C, I'd probably write it someday.)
What, the Christine-as-noble's-daughter about to marry the mysterious Sir Erik? I'm sure one could find a more appropriate fandom to insert that particular scenario in -- I really don't see much relationship between that and any area of POTO canon :-D
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Date: 2018-04-07 11:21 pm (UTC)I lived in the back cabin of a narrowboat (helping to work the boats) for a while. No electricity, no bottled gas, no refrigeration, no flush toilet, just paraffin lamps (including the boat's big tunnel lamp up at the front that you had to light before entering tunnels so that you could see where you were going -- and be seen by anyone coming the other way!), a bucket in the engine-room which was emptied out every few days, vegetables stored under the back counter where it was cool, and a little coal-fired range for cooking and heating, which would just about stay alight all night if you knew how to manage it (I didn't, so it had to be relit periodically).
I know a lot about polishing brass, shutting up all the hatches to strip off and wash all over with a flannel and a single kettle of boiling water to dilute a dipper of cold canal water, and using the soapy remains to scrub the coal-dust from the floor in an effort to keep the inside of the cabin spotlessly clean. (If you don't, you end up with black soles to your feet pretty quickly; when you live in a very small area - about eight foot by seven -- you have to be meticulous.)
It looked almost exactly like this, down to the rug on the floor, the control rods at head-height and the ticket-drawer on the cabin roof over the stove: http://www.canaljunction.com/narrowboat/boatmans_cabin.htm
It's very educational (though I didn't do it for that purpose) for any historical fiction writer to live without modern conveniences for a while... and to learn that things which might seem like a massive deprivation are actually quite easy to cope with. I've done a manual pump-out on a modern canal boat, for example, and I can assure you that a nice clean easy-to-empty bucket dosed with formaldehyde 'blue' that lives among the welcoming oil- and machine-smells of the engine room is infinitely preferable to using a foot-pump to eject the macerated contents of a flushing toilet tank that has hung around long enough to start fermenting :-P
Quite a lot of illegitimate kings' sons became high nobles, so I wouldn't rule out illegitimate nobles' sons becoming knights, if their father acknowledged them and/or they distinguished themselves in service. It's not a period I know in great detail, and it may vary according to which bit of 'the Middle Ages' you're talking about, but I don't think the whole illegitimacy thing was that important compared to facts on the ground -- note that Henry VII took care to dispose of the illegitimate son of his predecessor along with all the other Yorkist heirs... his own claim to the throne being derived from being descended from the illegitimate son of a younger son through the female line :-p
What, the Christine-as-noble's-daughter about to marry the mysterious Sir Erik? I'm sure one could find a more appropriate fandom to insert that particular scenario in -- I really don't see much relationship between that and any area of POTO canon :-D