Have you watched going medieval? Which area of the world at which time is also good to be known, cause even today etiquette in the Bay Area is not the etiquette of Appalachia.
I'll have to watch Going Medieval again. I tend to forget things I'm not specifically looking for at the moment. But hey...any excuse to watch a Mike Loades documentary.
I'll have to check out Terry Jones' Medieval Lives again, too. Didn't think about that one.
I suppose 13th century is what would be most useful for me, since that's the period I portray. But if anything exists for other medieval periods as well, I wouldn't say no to them. Location's a little harder to narrow down since, like you said, one area of the same region might have different practices than another. In general, western-ish European. England, France, Germany/HRE...I'm mostly curious if the medievals even left us any kind of record on that kind of thing, so I'm not too concerned with a specific area yet.
Not sure on any books, but curious too. I've always heard that the shaking hands on the forearm was not about courtesy, but about checking to make sure the other person doesn't have a dagger hidden in their sleeve.
That's what I always thought, too. I guess I just kind of assumed it evolved into a regular custom.
