In Tyre, there is trade with the known world but not yet any sense that the world is changing. People do not yet count the years. They still exchange by barter. Solomon is building his Temple but the future significance of that religious tradition is known only to the Time Patrollers and to the readers, not to the Tyrians.
In Harfleur, the rookery of merchant adventurers generates a sense of crackling energy but only Everard knows that successors of those adventurers will sail to the New World - several life-times hence.
In Ys, its ancient isolation ended by King Grallon, new Gods, ways and ideas are welcomed and a New Age is anticipated. Thus, of the three, Ys is the most modern and forward-looking.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But I think the people of Harfleur did have a sense of HISTORY, of the passing of time. For one thing, like us, they used the AD era dating system. And, unlike Tyre, where such notions were only barely beginning, Harfleur and its contemporaries had a long tradition for writing histories, annals, chronicles, keeping of archives and records, etc.
I have translations of quite a few Medieval era histories myself!
Sean
Medieval people in general knew history, but they had very little sense of historical -change-. Eg., when medieval artists showed Classical or Biblical figures, they showed them in the clothing of their own time. Alexander the Great and Judah Maccabee were depicted as knights, and so forth.
It wasn't until the Renaissance that artists started attempting "period" dress, and even then it was extremely generalized.
Tyre had always been in close contact with both Egypt and Mesopotamia, and both those civilizations had long traditions of historical records, king-lists and so forth, and a consciousness of deep time.
Also, Tyreans didn't use barter in the direct sense except with primitives. In their own merchant dealings they used "money of account" -- that is, they calculated values in terms of weights of silver. A large-scale deal would involve establishing values in terms of silver, and then using that to calculate the amount of goods exchanged; the transaction would then involve balancing accounts, and paying either in agreed-upon silver equivalents of goods, or in specie.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree that Medieval era writers had very little sense of "historical change."
I did think of the Egyptian inscriptions and king lists. And I should have remembered the similar kings lists and annals of Mesopotamia.
Sean
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