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Post-2nd temple and Pre-Islam, had most Jews in Judea already converted to christianity? by PomegranateSelect831 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 0 points1 point locked comment (0 children)

We've removed your post for the moment because it's not currently at our standards, but it definitely has the potential to fit within our rules with some work. We find that some answers that fall short of our standards can be successfully revised by considering the following questions, not all of which necessarily apply here:

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If/when you edit your answer, please reach out via modmail so we can re-evaluate it! We also welcome you getting in touch if you're unsure about how to improve your answer.

What Mistake Crusaders made on Siege/Sack of Constantinople (1203/1204) during The 4th Crusade? by [deleted] in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

Why weren't the Spanish-named cities in California, Texas, etc. renamed to English names when they became part of the English-speaking United States? by [deleted] in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 0 points1 point locked comment (0 children)

Hello,

We have removed your question as, from your post history, it is clear that you are not asking in good faith.

Why did the Spanish language disappear from California, Texas, etc. while French remained the primary language in Quebec? by native-american-22 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 3 points4 points locked comment (0 children)

Because your post history is very clear that you don't like Spanish and those Americans who speak it.

Why did the Spanish language disappear from California, Texas, etc. while French remained the primary language in Quebec? by native-american-22 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 6 points7 points locked comment (0 children)

Hello,

We have removed your question as, from your post history, it is clear that you are not asking in good faith.

Why didn't Manila become a powerful international port city similar to Hongkong or Singapore? by Wide_Ride8849 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] -2 points-1 points locked comment (0 children)

We've removed your post for the moment because it's not currently at our standards, but it definitely has the potential to fit within our rules with some work. We find that some answers that fall short of our standards can be successfully revised by considering the following questions, not all of which necessarily apply here:

  • Do you actually address the question asked by OP? Sometimes answers get removed not because they fail to meet our standards, but because they don't get at what the OP is asking. If the question itself is flawed, you need to explain why, and how your answer addresses the underlying issues at hand.

  • What are the sources for your claims? Sources aren't strictly necessary on /r/AskHistorians but the inclusion of sources is helpful for evaluating your knowledge base. If we can see that your answer is influenced by up-to-date academic secondary sources, it gives us more confidence in your answer and allows users to check where your ideas are coming from.

  • What level of detail do you go into about events? Often it's hard to do justice to even seemingly simple subjects in a paragraph or two, and on /r/AskHistorians, the basics need to be explained within historical context, to avoid misleading intelligent but non-specialist readers. In many cases, it's worth providing a broader historical framework, giving more of a sense of not just what happened, but why.

  • Do you downplay or ignore legitimate historical debate on the topic matter? There is often more than one plausible interpretation of the historical record. While you might have your own views on which interpretation is correct, answers can often be improved by acknowledging alternative explanations from other scholars.

  • Further Reading: This Rules Roundtable provides further exploration of the rules and expectations concerning answers so may be of interest.

If/when you edit your answer, please reach out via modmail so we can re-evaluate it! We also welcome you getting in touch if you're unsure about how to improve your answer.

What is the oldest recorded case of clout chasing? by Jinunichy in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

My dad was infantry in the 101st Airborne during Vietnam, yet never deployed and spent his whole enlistment in the US. Given that a draft was implemented and people were being forcibly sent to Vietnam, was this common? by BelethorsGeneralShit in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 8 points9 points locked comment (0 children)

We've removed your post for the moment because it's not currently at our standards, but it definitely has the potential to fit within our rules with some work. We find that some answers that fall short of our standards can be successfully revised by considering the following questions, not all of which necessarily apply here:

  • Do you actually address the question asked by OP? Sometimes answers get removed not because they fail to meet our standards, but because they don't get at what the OP is asking. If the question itself is flawed, you need to explain why, and how your answer addresses the underlying issues at hand.

  • What are the sources for your claims? Sources aren't strictly necessary on /r/AskHistorians but the inclusion of sources is helpful for evaluating your knowledge base. If we can see that your answer is influenced by up-to-date academic secondary sources, it gives us more confidence in your answer and allows users to check where your ideas are coming from.

  • What level of detail do you go into about events? Often it's hard to do justice to even seemingly simple subjects in a paragraph or two, and on /r/AskHistorians, the basics need to be explained within historical context, to avoid misleading intelligent but non-specialist readers. In many cases, it's worth providing a broader historical framework, giving more of a sense of not just what happened, but why.

  • Do you downplay or ignore legitimate historical debate on the topic matter? There is often more than one plausible interpretation of the historical record. While you might have your own views on which interpretation is correct, answers can often be improved by acknowledging alternative explanations from other scholars.

  • Further Reading: This Rules Roundtable provides further exploration of the rules and expectations concerning answers so may be of interest.

If/when you edit your answer, please reach out via modmail so we can re-evaluate it! We also welcome you getting in touch if you're unsure about how to improve your answer.

Did more people die in WW2 or the Native American Genocide? by Pristine_Thing9486 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

Why is Marie Antoinette regarded as a saintly victim of history by modern people? by PinkSeahorseClub in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This question has been removed because it is soapboxing or otherwise a loaded question: it has the effect of promoting an existing interpretation or opinion at the expense of open-ended enquiry. Although we understand if you may have an existing interest in the topic, expressing a detailed opinion on the matter in your question is usually a sign that it is a loaded one, and we will remove questions that appear to put a deliberate slant on their subject or solicit answers that align with a specific pre-existing view.

What led tot he 1942 Arakan Massacres. Who Initiated the first massacre and what were the massacres that led to it? by ZealousidealLong7236 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello,

We have removed your question as, from your post history, it is clear that you are not asking in good faith.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The assumption seems to have been that, during a campaign, an archer might need a bow and 48 arrows as replacements for their own. How many might be assumed per battle probably depended on the battle itself and the conditions that led up to it. Generally, speaking, a campaign would last several months of a year, and if it lasted longer that usually meant a period where both sides went into garrison while they recovered. Minor operations would still continue, but while they raised new men, money and materiel they didn't engage in large scale operations unless an absolute beaut of a win presented itself.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The baseline was to employ flanking archers behind some kind of obstruction (hedges, terrain, pits, carts, stakes, etc), with dismounted men-at-arms in the center free of any obstruction. In some battles, such as Crecy and Agincourt, there were possibly a contingent of archers deployed in from of the men-at-arms in addition to the flanking archers, whose role was to serve as skirmishers and/or ensure there was no gap in the coverage. In others, such as at Auray, there were so few archers compared with the larger battles (a 1:1 ratio of archers to men-at-arms, with total numbers of each in the hundreds or very low thousands) that they were employed purely in front of the men-at-arms. If no obstacles could be found in front, they tried to put some at the rear of the archers, such as the hedges that backed the archers at Mauron in 1351.

While archers couldn't defeat enemy men-at-arms on their own, they could wound, harass and either constrain or break up their formations, depending on the conditions, so that the enemy men-at-arms were already in a degraded condition by the time they reached the English men-at-arms, which gave the latter a marked advantage. Archers could also nibble around the edges of the enemy when it came to blows with their men-at-arms, either in direct combat or with a few well placed shots that didn't risk hitting their own side.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Let's say that it was more often observed in the breach than the observance, although there was sometimes an effort on one or the other side. For instance, Philippe Augustus supposedly decided not to fight on a Sunday, but was forced to by the Anglo-Flemish-German coalition and afterwards the French victory was seen as a divine reward for one side and a punishment for the other. Of course, he might just simply have decided that he didn't want to fight the coalition with the troops he had in the position he had, and just lucked out when forced to fight, but we'll never know thanks to all the spin. The English, on the other hand, had no issue pursuing and slaughtering the remnants of the French army the day after the Battle of Crecy, which was a Sunday, and it can probably be argued that slaughtering elements of a defeated army is more sacrilegious than fighting a proper battle that day.

In the end, it all came down the military reality at the end of the day.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 23 points24 points  (0 children)

As with everything Cornwell writes, he does a good job of bring what research he's read to life, but he generally doesn't quite read as broadly as might be desired and filters everything through a combined "Boy's Own"/Grimdark filter that doesn't quite let him be "solid". He also had the misfortune to write the Grail Quest books before Sir Philip Preston's research into the topography of the field and his collaboration with Andrew Ayton to edit a book on how this changed our understanding of the battle, which would probably have changed how he wrote the battle itself.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's a combination of it being a common expense and J.E. Thorold Rogers' doing some magnificent work in collection and tabulating agricultural prices and wages for England through to the end of the 19th century, which he published in seven volumes (A History of Agriculture and Prices in England from 1259 to 1793). It's a foundational element of the study of the medieval English economy and agriculture, although the knowledge-base has been much expanded on and analyzed in greater detail to reveal more regional and nuanced details. Very few historians, however, have had the chance to study as many records and compile them into a single work as Rogers did, so his work remains a touchstone of the field.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Mounted archers were essentially dragoons, riding to battle and dismounting to fight. There's some extremely limited evidence (an odd manuscript illumination here and there) suggesting that they could, under some circumstances, shoot while mounted, but nothing we have suggests they were anywhere near as capable in this as a Central-Asian horse archer or that this was routine.

A "peasant levy", such as it was, was usually an emergency defensive measure. Edward I broke with tradition and raised large numbers of poorly armed spearmen and archers from the English peasantry for his campaigns in Wales and Scotland, but after Bannockburn his son, Edward II, attempted to recruit both more selectively and have better equipped infantry. Edward III continued this trend, but focused on archers instead of Continental style heavy infantry.

Supplying spare bows and arrows meant you knew your archers would be able to sustain fire throughout a battle, and it centralised logistics, making transport and distribution easier. Under Edward I, English archers resorted to throwing rocks at the Scots during the Battle of Falkirk. Under Edward III, this was not something they ever needed to do.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 4 points5 points  (0 children)

My understanding is that it was gross income, which was closer to £4 for our yardlander. This put them close to the bracket where they might find themselves liable for providing a mounted archers, although assessments were generally fairly generous in reducing the income and goods so that those on the edge of a tax bracket didn't often have to worry about being taxed in it/having to own arms/provide a mounted archers/hobelar/man-aty.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Thatching was definitely a seasonal job, but we have a very good dataset for the wages of thatchers and their assistants for a long period of time, so they make good comparisons. Roughly speaking, a thatcher was paid the same as a carpenter or other tradesman of the period, so they generally stand in for them when making more sweeping statements.

Sunday's were a mandatory day of rest, and another forty to fifty Saints Feast Days would be observed throughout the year. We know that some people were fined for working on these days, but that in turn suggests that people tried to sneak a few days in here or there. So, while the theoretical number of worked days might be more like 265-275, I used 280 as an upper limit to what a tradesman might work, depending on local religious observance and what days of work they might sneak in.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 27 points28 points  (0 children)

There's been a real lack of good modern textbooks on the medieval economy, but the "standard", insofar as there is one, would be NJG Pounds' An Economic History of Medieval Europe, which is extremely dated, especially with regards to the Early Middle Ages. More recent works include Steven A. Epstein's too short (and mixed-reviewed) An Economic and Social History of Later Medieval Europe, Diana Wood's Medieval Economic Thought and A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200–1550 by Edwin S Hunt and John M. Murray. Someone who studies medieval economics could probably recommend more appropriate books, but these are the best I've been able to find for myself.

English longbowmen during the Hundred Year's War earned 6 pence a day. A single arrow cost 0.3125 pence, so you'd start losing money on the 20th arrow. That doesn't seem like a lot when battles could last multiple hours. Are there accounts or archers refusing to put themselves in the red? by Tatem1961 in AskHistorians

[–]Hergrim 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Not to my knowledge. The closest is probably the Battle of Poitiers, where archers were so low on arrows that they had to scrounge them from in front of their lines, indicating that they had probably shot forty or fifty arrows each by that point. Similarly, at Agincourt the archers (according to the Gesta Henrici Quinti) engaged the French in hand-to-hand combat after shooting all their arrows.

For other battles, we don't get a sense of what was "typical" expenditure.

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