Hithlonde

## Physical Area

   The Seventh Great Kingdom of Hithlonde covers an area of 94 thousand square miles. Of this, 63% (59 thousand sq. miles) is arable land, and 36% (34

thousand sq. miles) is wilderness.

## Population

The Seventh Great Kingdom of Hithlonde has a total population of 9.4 million people.

## Settlements

The largest city has a population of 49 thousand people, the second largest 29 thousand. There are 3 other cities of note in the kingdom, and 25 towns remaining population lives in numerous small villages, isolated dwellings, etc.

The Seventh Great Kingdom of Hithlonde has 188 active castles and 62 ruined. Of these, 123 castles and 53 ruined are in civilized lands, and 65 castles and 9 ruined are in the wilderness, along borders, etc.

## Military

The introduction of gunpowder affected the conduct of war significantly. The firearms initially had little effect in the field of battle. It was through the use of cannons as siege weapons that major change was brought about; the new methods would eventually change the architectural structure of fortifications.

## Architectural

**Romanesque architecture** is an **architectural** style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this later date being the most commonly held.

Most domestic buildings of the Romanesque period were built of wood, or partly of wood. In Scandinavian countries, buildings were often entirely of wood, while in other parts of Europe, buildings were "half-timbered", constructed with timber frames, the spaces filled with rubble, wattle, and daub, or other materials which were then plastered over. Stone was often used for basements. The building material differs greatly across Europe, depending upon the local stone and building traditions.

While in most countries stone is the usual material for substantial buildings such as castles and palaces, in much of Poland, Germany, northern Italy, and the Netherlands, brick is more commonly used. Where stone has been used for domestic buildings, it is often in comparatively small and irregular pieces, bedded in thick mortar. Smooth ashlar masonry was used where easily worked limestone was available. For defensive buildings such as castles, the walls are massively thick. In all Romanesque architecture, the windows tend to be small. The general impression of Romanesque architecture is of solidity and strength.

    Houses built within medieval cities were restricted in space, often by the fact that the town was encircled by walls. As a response to this, houses in cities were usually multi-storeyed. The simplest of these buildings were extremely cramped for space, having just a single room on each floor, accessible only by steep ladder-like stairs. In some cases, exterior staircases gave onto wooden balconies which served the upper floors of a whole row of tall narrow houses, as is evidenced by the rows of holes and supporting corbels that are found in the walls of a great many Italian medieval buildings. Likewise, small inner courts that provided light and air were communal spaces for surrounding buildings. They also provided for the collection of rainwater. Narrow multi-storeyed houses of the Romanesque period have survived in a number of cities, with the greatest number occurring in Italy, where they are generally built of stone or brick and have often been extended at later dates, or had their Romanesque openings altered, making them indistinguishable from later medieval buildings. Casa Dante, thought to have been the home of Dante Alighieri, in Florence, is a good surviving example. In Germany, the Baumburg Tower in Regensburg is an elegant late 13th-century example showing elements that are transitional between Romanesque and Gothic in its decorative window openings which are different on each floor and contrast with the smoothly stuccoed walls. Another house, at Karden, has similar features but in form combines a tower house and a hall. The extremes of tall city housing are found in San Gimignano and Bologna where families rivaled each other in the construction of very tall tower houses. In Bologna, only the Torre Garisenda, (1100), 130 ft, and the Torre Asinelli, (1109), 225 ft, have survived, but the much smaller walled hill-town of San Gimignano contains fourteen tower and the stumps of very many more, having once bristled with them. It has been suggested that the tall houses of this city served the practical purpose of suspending bolts of cloth for drying, in the shade rather than in the sun.

## Food

**Medieval cuisine** includes foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, which lasted from the fifth to the fifteenth century. During this period, diets and cooking changed less than they did in the early modern period that followed when those changes helped lay the foundations for modern European cuisine. Cereals remained the most important staple during the early Middle Ages as rice was introduced late, and the potato was only introduced in 1536, with a much later date for widespread consumption. Barley, oat, and rye were eaten by the poor. Wheat was for the governing classes. These were consumed as bread, porridge, gruel, and pasta by all of society's members. Fava beans and vegetables were important supplements to the cereal-based diet of the lower orders. (*Phaseolus* beans, today the "common bean", were of New World origin and were introduced after the Columbian Exchange in the 16th century.)

The meat was more expensive and therefore more prestigious. The game, a form of meat acquired from hunting, was common only on the nobility's tables. The most prevalent butcher's meats were pork, chicken, and other domestic fowl; beef, which required greater investment in land, was less common. Cod and herring were mainstays among the northern populations; dried, smoked or salted, they made their way far inland, but a wide variety of other saltwater and freshwater fish was also eaten.

Slow transportation and food preservation techniques (based on drying, salting, smoking and pickling) made long-distance trade of many foods very expensive. Because of this, the nobility's food was more prone to foreign influence than the cuisine of the poor; it was dependent on exotic spices and expensive imports. As each level of society imitated the one above it, innovations from international trade and foreign wars from the 12th century onward gradually disseminated through the upper middle class of medieval cities. Aside from economic unavailability of luxuries such as spices, decrees outlawed consumption of certain foods among certain social classes and sumptuary laws limited conspicuous consumption among the nouveaux riches. Social norms also dictated that the food of the working class be less refined since it was believed there was a natural resemblance between one's labor and one's food; manual labor required coarser, cheaper food.

A type of refined cooking developed in the late Middle Ages that set the standard among the nobility all over Europe. Common seasonings in the highly spiced sweet-sour repertory typical of upper-class medieval food included verjuice, wine, and vinegar in combination with spices such as black pepper, saffron, and ginger. These, along with the widespread use of sugar or honey, gave many dishes a sweet-sour flavor. Almonds were very popular as a thickener in soups, stews, and sauces, particularly as almond milk.

## Tax System

System of raising money for royal and governmental expenses, taxes on personal property and income.

## Faith

Oryjucism is the base of Christendom during the medieval time.

## Law

-Murder

## Entertainment

Jesters (A fool or buffoon at medieval courts), Mummers (Masked or costumed merrymaker or dancers at festivals), Minstrels and Troubadours, acrobats and jugglers and conjures. Games were played by the Upper classes and the Lower classes. By adults and children. Different types of Games and Medieval entertainment fell into a number of different categories including Card Games, Board Games, Dice Games, Sporting Games, and Children's games.

* Chess
* Alquerques - A classic period strategy game, an ancestor of Checkers
* Dancing
* Archery - Archery contests were especially popular
* Bowls
* Colf - the ancestor of Golf
* Gameball - a simple football game
* Wrestling
* Sword Fighting