I never, ever thought I'd regret not having been educated at Harrow circa 1910.

Anyone out there in WW-land with a Classical education? I need to know what a late-medieval princeling would have been made to read as part of his professional education in ruling a state. I know some names - Herodotus, Cicero, Caesar's Gallic Wars - but not who's suitable (or, indeed, what he'd have access too, but I'm assuming all the big names now were the big names then).

Help!

Emma

Shame you can't put it in the renaissance and have him reading Machiavelli ... oh what fun.

Yes, he would be fun. And we could have an interesting discussion about to what extent the Rennaissance had reached England in 1480, and the broader question of the dangers the periodisation of history presents to the novelist and...

But maybe I'll get on with Chapter Four.

Emma

Try looking up Margaret Beaufort - Henry Tudor's mother (future Henry VII) - wasn't she learned and didn't she set up some colleges? Bet she gave him a reading list?

Floundering here - off the cuff suggestion!

Sarah

That's a good idea, I hadn't thought of her.

She needed all the piety she could summon, too, because what they don't tell you is that she was an absolute terror: 4ft 9" which was small even then, married and widowed at 12 to Henry V1's illegitimate brother, gave birth to a posthumous and unimportant shrimp called Henry Tudor at 13, saw off two more husbands (including getting one of them to abandon Richard III at Bosworth and go over to her son's side) and ran the women's side of Henry's court so completely that she saw of her fellow mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law the Queen.

Emma

Hi Emma,

A few suggestions as to what they might have read: Livy, Aristotle's treatises on ethics and politics, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, etc. Treatises on politics and statecraft by the Greek and Roman 'masters' were always popular. Petrarch's Commentaries on the classics were also very influential.
You might want to check out anything by Christine de Pisan, who wrote philosophy and poetry in the 14th Century.

A bit off the cuff and random, so sorry for that. Hope it helps a wee bit.

All the best,

Iain

Iain, you're a star, that's just the kind of thing I wanted to know. WW to the rescue again. I'm tackling Christine for other purposes, so I'll keep an eye out for something appropriate.

Emma

Quite alright Emma, glad to be of assistance - that course in in historiography I took a couple of years back has finally found a use!

Iain

One of the fun things about being a writer is that you end up as such a magpie, and in some ways historical fiction writers are the worst, because we have to check not only when magpies were introduced to England (and which county - medieval county, of course, none of your Humberside nonsense - and don't forget Rutland) but also exactly which kinds of shiny thing was available in which street in old London...

No doubt I'll badgering you again, I fear.

Emma

Confession time: I have to admit to being an academic, so there is a little cheating going on there. More than happyy to help, though my specialty is Australian history of the 19th century, so that might be a little outwith your timeframe.

But you're definitely right about being a magpie - I'm constantly amazed by how much I remember from past studies in the medieval period, or in South America and the Ottoman Empire.... A brain and a bookshelf full of useless information can often be quite handy!

Research can be fun, though. Honest! (Am I trying to convince myself, here?)

all the best,

Iain

Research is fun - I'm a historian manqué myself, but as a novelist I can switch specialities with shameless abandon, which is more fun still. And I never get rid of books, because you never know which will have just the answer one midnight. (Though the net's rather wonderful for that, too). I think I keep Ikea in the bookshelf business more or less singlehanded.

Emma

Exactly - you never know when that book on the later Roman empire by a soldier is going to come in handy...

Historical novelists definitely have the best of both worlds - they have the sources but can use them in lots of new and interesting ways. Though part of my thesis is on historical fiction, so I'd better get off my hobby horse before I go off on one....

Emma - I'm no expert but late medieval would have been very influenced by Catholic philosophy, like William of Occum and Thomas Aqunias. Basically Catholic philosophies on the Pslams and biblical studies really, which were then put into practice in the educational, social and political atmosphere of the time.

Aquinas especially was a major influence, writing many works asking the truth of several questions: The Principles Of Nature, and works on essence, truth, Kingship. You name it, he wrote something about it, and the Catholic world went "oooooh" and followed every word until Luther decided to decorate his church door with some alternatives.

As Iain says, I think much of this was really based on Aristotle anyhow.

I'm sure there are many people out there who know loads more and are reading this going, ooh no that's wrong, but I'm sure it all helps!!!

<Added>

That terrible last sentence was supposed to read something more along the lines of "but I'm sure it will stimulate debate and it all helps"

Davy is bang on. Aquinas and all the Church Fathers would be pretty much required reading (things like St. Augustine's City of God, for example.

I thought I'd forgotten all this stuff....

<Added>

Except, depending on the time you're writing in, the increasing interest in humanism might be superseding the Catholic influences....

Aquinas is a very good thought too, thanks Davy.

part of my thesis is on historical fiction,

Iain, so's mine. I'll WWmail you before the rest of WW starts accusing our hobby horses of biting them. I'm still ashamed of the outbreak of photo-nerdery on the Creativity thread in the Lounge!

Emma