>acquired by Henry de Broc (or de la Brook) from Reginald de Mohun (1206–1258), Feudal baron of Dunster in Somerset, who had inherited this land from his first wife Hawise Fleming, daughter and heiress of William Fleming. It then passed by descent through the Brook family, coming into the possession of the wealthy landowner Sir Thomas Brook (c.1355-1418). Due to the exceptionally fine quality of this ring, it was, quite possibly, the wedding ring given by Sir Thomas Brook to his wife Lady Joan Brook for their marriage in 1388

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tbh all gold on Earth is billions of years old

Yes. In contrast to the other Rings of Power, the One Ring bore no gems while the Lady Brook Medieval Diamond Ring has a diamond set in a bezel. Furthermore, the One Ring was famously destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom at the end of the Third Age.

Their faces say: "After all why not? Why shouldn't I keep it?"

Thanks a lot, that was the one detail I was missing, Scouts.

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Wedding ring antique gold is this, hmm?

You can get a Roman gold ring for a very reasonable price

For those who may be interested on this thread, the ring was reported and recorded through the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme as DEV-D1B964, available here:

https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/940786

It matches closely with known typologies of rings (particularly of stirrup-shaped type) from the period of the 14th to 15th centuries. Also the Black Letter script helps date it to this period too.

And yep, the ring was reported and recorded as part of the UK's Treasure legislation and recorded by the local Finds Liaison Officer. The issue may have been that a museum was interested in acquiring the object, BUT the Treasure Valuation Committee price was too high and the museum pulled out, thus meaning the object was then disclaimed and returned to the finder.

The language is old and it wasn't standardized in spelling, as all the "shews" demonstrate. I think the first attempts at dictionaries trying to standardize it were only about 100 years old, but the most successful attempt by Samuel Johnson was contemporary with Hume.

I like Hume a lot, but I wouldn't say it was easy reading and you have to be pretty familiar with Descartes and Berkeley to understand what he's talking about and neither of those are that easy. Descartes has the benefit that it gets translated into English about once a generation, which makes it easier to read.

As far as his English history goes, it's supposed to be very good for the time, but at this point we have such better methods and so much more research to rely upon, and greater access to archives that have been better maintained that I think the only people who really read it anymore are academics studying Hume or the historiography of English history.

I would definitely make an effort to read Hume's Dissertation "Of the Passions" and his two Enquiries. It's better if you can read them as part of a class with an instructor who's taught them before b/c there's lots of context. Reading Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments helps too. But it's a lot to read and none of them are easy going. But it's very rewarding.

Mortality from all wounds decreased dramatically across the 20th century, from 8.5% among US troops in World War I, to 3.3% in World War II, to 2.4% in Korea, and leveling at 2.6% in Vietnam.

The mortality of patients with abdominal wounds in the US army declined from 21% in World War II to 12% in Korea and 4.5% in Vietnam

Also, for most of the history of warfare, at least until World War II, disease usually killed at a higher ratio than battle wounds: nearly 8:1 in the Napoleonic Wars, 4:1 in the Crimean War, 2:1 in the Civil War, 7:1 in the Spanish-American War, and 4:1 in World War I [29, 132]. In World War II, the ratio decreased to 0.1:1; in Korea and Vietnam, to 0.2:1; and in the 1992 Gulf War, to 0.1:1.

The source of these numbers is a great overview of advances in battlefield medicine over the centuries

There is some lost story behind how the ring got there. She probably expected to wear that ring until death, and then maybe be buried with it.

Generally speaking, attacking in marching columns is not a good idea. When attacking, you need to bring the right amount of force to bear against your enemy. A marching column is just a few men wide, a phalanx is dozens of men wide.

Commanders before powered transport usually have some set of scouts looking ahead telling them where the battle is so that they know where and when to get ready. As they get close they will deploy into a battle formation and engage in good order.

Battle is rarely the mass melee that you see in the movies so no, they don’t just show up and attack. Showing up and attacking without a formation or plan is a recipe for getting everyone killed.

Depends on what you consider high-end I guess

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravanserai

The Romans used a great deal of steel weaponry and armor. Especially by the time they were regularly interacting with the Egyptians or the Parthians, etc. And there were multiple times entire legions were wiped out. So, your question really doesn't work as it is.

More broadly, steel was adopted in any culture as soon as it was reliably better (both in performance and overall cost) than bronze. And as steel manufacturing materials and techniques increased both the quality and quantity of producable steel, the use of steel increased (e.g. the gladius is a short sword because in part a longer steel sword was more likely to break. The later spatha is approx 6 inches longer in part because the quality of steel improved to the point that a longer, mass-produced sword was reliable enough to issue to the troops. If the earlier legions could have gotten enough reliable spatha-length swords, they'd have used them in a hot second).

The 'secret' of steel was a combination of different raw material supplies with different unknown impurities (which drastically affect the final steel's properties), and the fact that it takes years to train a single smith and lifetimes of trial and error to figure out improvements. They were gauging temperature by color and beating the thing until it felt right...not understanding what's going on in the metal or that carbon infiltration from the fuel is what makes the steel hard or that ore from that mine but not this one has too much phosphorous in it and needs to be refined and forged differently (as I understand it, not a smith myself). There wasn't a secret, just the general advancement of human knowledge before science was really a thing.

Good point hadn’t considered that

I'm not sure if "weak" is the right word to describe them.

The Romans were a victim of their own success. They were so rich that everyone wanted a piece of the pie, especially internally.

Corruption was normal, and their emphasis on military conquest meant that at any given time you had several very powerful private citizens with armies loyal to them (and their money) trying to carve out their own empire. They were also willing to hire people outside the Roman Empire.

The Romans conquered other people, and there shouldn't be any surprise when those other people try to conquer them back.

So the Byzantines inherited all of this, and they were constantly in some civil war or some coup or they were attacked by multiple enemies at once. Of course, they also were competing with other empires (especially the Iranian-based ones) for the same resources and territories.

“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost."

and plate armor in the middle ages is basically the total sum assets of a upper middle class person.

Two Viking related questions:

Is there any evidence/theories on why the Vikings did not explore further South after landing in Canada/Vinland? I thought Timber was priceless in the Medieval period especially to seafarers like the Vikings? Would they have not explored more seeing how the area of Vinland was pretty barren in terms of forests?

Second, is the Sunstone an actual fact, do we know how it was made or is it existence still debated, how did it work?

I am tickled that you think that a medieval peasant woman could afford a gold ring with a diamond set into it.