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Comment by Rd6n6 | Hacker News Reader

I’m actually beginning some informal research on 17th century Europe for a small game right now. There are some village life and village builder aspects.

It’s the beginning of the “modern” period and just after the renaissance. What is life like for the local business owner? Who would they be? What extent is it still feudal serfdom in <country> during <year>? It’s an interesting time with massive social, scientific, and religious change, it’s been really fun to read about so far

Edit: if anybody has books or articles to recommend, I’d love to hear about them

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17th century Europe was quite modern with for example long distance power transmission. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/01/mechanical-transmi...

The spinning wheel similarly had already transformed transformed the making of cloth and rope. By the 1700’s cottage industries where setup to leverage the free time of village workers on an industrial scale. Communities would specialize based on local resources including transportation networks.

Also, rivers where the medieval equivalent of highways and railroads. A 500 mile journey by waterways was generally cheaper than a 50 mile trip by land.

According to AcoUP, transport cost over land is five times that over rivers, and twenty times that over sea.

https://acoup.blog/2019/07/19/the-lonely-city-part-ii-real-c...

That’s a reasonable estimate, however the Edict on Maximum Prices was issued in 301 AD so it’s quite outdated by this time period. Also it’s important to separate navigating rivers upstream vs down, long journeys generally involved both and possibly loading cargo multiple times.

Rome and the Middle Ages both had a systems of canals which are neutral to navigate. They always require something to pull, but there isn’t any current.

ACoUP is incredible, though not specific to that time period: https://acoup.blog/resources-for-world-builders/

I was waiting for ACOUP to pop up in this thread - surprised it took so long :D

Elizabeth Norton's Lives of Tudor Women overlaps somewhat with the period that you're interested in.

History of Private Life, edited by Aries and Duby - volumes 2 and 3 cover the medieval and renaissance period.

Don't forget Renaissance was the peak witch burning period. Have some witch burning while you're at it!

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