For Honor...and Intrigue: Links

Here is an assortment of useful links for historical fiction in the 17th century.

Calendars

Calendar by Year and Country

The Time and Date web site allows you to create monthly calendars by year and country. These calendars also show the date for the phases of the moon. Very handy to know when the Heroes are looking for a moonless night to climb the Baron's Chateau walls. I use these calendars a lot. Here's the Calendar for 1624 France.

Multi-country historical calendar

Historical calendars for the years 1000 to 2100 for 13 different countries. The calendar in use for a particular year varied from country to country for many centuries and this is a handy way to sort out the difference between Julian and Gregorian dates. (http://www.arc.id.au/Calendar.html)

Six Millennium Catalog of Phases of the Moon

Phases of the moon from (2000 BCE to 4000 CE).

Moon Phases by date and location

This allows you to generate a lunar calendar for a date and location. Here is the lunation for Paris, France in the year 1624. The site can generate lots of other useful stuff.

NASA List of Lunar and Solar Eclipses (2000 BCE to 3000 CE)

For those Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court moments in gamging.

US Navy Observatory

Generate Rise/Set/Twilight tables for Sun or Moon from 1700 onwards .

Money and Costs

Databases on Money and Pricing for the Early Modern Period. This provides a source for actual prices of some things, while many prices are for commodities, there are some useful prices for things an adventurer or noble might buy.

History

The total population of France circa 1600 was 20,000,000

The Huguenot population circa 1610 was just under 1,000,000

The Huguenot Population of France, 1600-1685: The Demographic Fate and Customs of a Religious Minority, by Philip Benedict, Publisher: American Philosophical Society, (ISSN 0065-9746) page 75, Table 18.

http://books.google.com/books?id=m0sLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=lyonnais+huguenot&source=bl&ots=cgfyuw8VVC&sig=eStc21g_3gcasp5hk3vSZ1uGnKM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D1IVUeSAKKPO0QHd44HIBA&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=total%20population&f=false