Poll!

[zeborah]

(Not having a paid account, I'm opting for a do-it-yourself kind of poll: just comment...)

So, early 16th century Denmark, on the cutting edge of the Reformation. Noble maidens are getting married in their late teens or so; noble men in their 30s. My question: during their hormonal teens and twenties, are these "noble and wellborn knights":

a) living like proverbial monks(1)
b) sublimating their frustrations into politics and war
c) visiting those women about town who by law have to wear red hoods
d) visiting other lower class women(2)
e) visiting other lower class men
f) visiting their unmarried female friends and promising to be really really careful(3)
g) visiting their married female friends(4)
h) visiting their male friends
i) other ____________

Yes, obviously, "all of the above"; but I'm wondering about percentages here. If Alfred Kinsey had a time machine and a good working knowledge of late medieval Danish, what book would he be writing?

(On the plus side, it's also the start of the Little Ice Age, so there's a plentiful supply of cold water.)

(1) I have my suspicions about literal monks.
(2) King Christian I and Dyveke. Søren Norby and his long-term not-wife, IIRC. And come to think of it, Lady Inger of Austratt's husband had an illegitimate son, mother unknown to me.
(3) I know of at least two cases of this one: in one they desperately wanted to marry but fell within the proscribed bounds of consanguinity, leading to scandal and his execution... accidental death... murder... well, he ended up dead; in the other he offered to marry her but her outraged father refused, leading to scandal, his exile, and her immuration. The 16th century has the best scandals; see also (4).
(4) Bishop Stygge Krumpen in Børglum lived openly with the married Elsebeth Gyldenstjerne at the monastery in Børglum. See also (1).

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

If there's any continuity in Danish culture with the 19th and early 20th Century, then based on the older Danish books I read as a child, there'd be a fair amount of c) and d). Young nobleman charming the socks of some poor young maiden and then leaving her an unmarried mother is a trope of the period. Of course, this could partly be because the evidence is so obvious. There's a general discovery of "maybe the nobility isn't so perfect after all, and poor people deserve more than they have".

Also, I will admit that during the period I was reading these books, I was more or less oblivious to the possibilities of same-sex entertainment. My memory of medieval Danish song cycles involves a lot of young noblemen boldly setting forth to prove themselves in the big world, often in pairs, i.e. b) and h) I guess. I didn't read much of those, and it'd be a hard slog through all the epic story telling for the little nuggets of cultural assumption.

So, actually I dropped by (and discovered I could provide input) because I've just critted a short story by a friend, and it turns out I completely misunderstood the premise of the story. Based on some comments you've made in rasfc, you'd be much more likely to spot that premise, or at least provide the writer some helpful hints about how to add more clues so that even stupid people like me (and we suspect, the editors of Strange Horizons) can tell.

Idunno if you'd be willing to help, and what you'd like in exchange.