The late 1500s TTRPG has been my white whale: an idea I keep circling, chasing, then pulling back from just when it feels close. Four times I’ve written rules. Four times I’ve walked away. The reasons? All ghosts I know…
Hans Bol (1534-1593), a master of miniature landscapes and everyday scenes, painted the vibrant and often harsh world of the late 1500s. Here he captures ganstrekken (“goose pulling”) a blood sport where riders raced by to rip the heads off…
In 1566, Dutch nobles demanded tolerance from Spain, but an insult gave birth to a rebellion. Here's how the Geuzen were born from a royal dismissal.
England’s role in the Dutch Revolt is often overshadowed by the Armada of 1588. This article explores the English soldiers, diplomats, and merchants who shaped the conflict.
The Boys, making plans to quit their jobs and sail the seven seas. The New Flagship, by Frank Moss Bennett (1874–1952). He was a British painter of portraits and architecture, but also remembered for his scenes of historical settings from the…
The life of Flemish printer Christophe Plantin (c. 1520–1589) has long been a curiosity and inspiration to me. He was a master of navigating a a society unraveling at its very seams: the escalating, bellicose rhetoric of both the traditionalist,…
A form of black powder firearm best identified by its sharply curving butt stock. Popular in the sixteenth century, it can be considered an antecedent or subcategory of the caliver, a lighter weight firearm contrasted against the musket, which was…
🕮 Book review: The Bones of Avalon (John Dee Papers #1) by Phil Rickman I’m (obviously, if you’re here reading this) a fan of 16th & 17th century media, including historical fiction. But in some stereotypically red-blooded, hetero male ways,…
An academic term that defines the transitional period between the medieval era and modernity, roughly spanning circa 1500-1800. Like any attempt at historic periodization, defining exact start and end dates is not an exact science, however, and you will always…
It is a popular misconception to think that the idea of chivalry and chivalric tournaments were entirely old-fashioned and viewed with scorn by the sixteenth century (too many overly literal readings of Don Quixote for that, I think). While the…
