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[Cronanbor]

I've seen maps of The Eleven Kingdoms, and while I have read on this site that there isn't a one-to-one correlation with countries of 'our real' world, there are 'flavors' of our countries that can help differentiate one Kingdom from another.  I have read on this site that Gwynedd is 'like' England and Bremagne is 'like' France, etc.  I don't want to rehash what has already been outlined, but I do want to ask, how do you know?  I mean after reading the first trilogy of The Legends of Camber of Culdi, I really couldn't tell one Kingdom from another.  They all just blended into one another as just England.  I'm ok with the answer, "Go read more."  But I thought i'd ask.

[Laurna]

Good Question. There are indicators in some of the details of other cultures. In the later novels i.e. The King's Deryni, we  get the feel that the cultures of Bouldour/Torenth, the Forcinn States/Orsalis, and Bremagne are very "Not England". And they each have their own cultural esthetics. When Al-Rasoul ambassador of Torrenth comes to Kelson's court in foreign attire and has cheetah on a leash, we get the since of other cultures. Yet the biggest inductor of culture actually comes from the Codex in the source of Titles and Surnames.

examples- Titles include Kings, but there are also Roi of Bremagne, Grafs of Howicce, Kaissares and AutoKratores of Byzantyn, Hort of Orsal, Emir & Nabil of Nur Hallaj, Shaikh & Sharifa of R'Kassi, Sovereign prince, Grand Duke, Count(Torenth) vs. Earl(Gwynedd), Tanis, Sieur vs. Sir .

And of course with Surnames we have the clans represented with Mac***, There are also Von **** like Von Ostmarcke, Al-**** like Al-Muttalib and Al-Din, names that end in "ouni"like Vastouni, also a Czalsky.

These are the things that give the idea of other cultures in the Eleven Kingdoms without us actually visiting these other places.

[Cronanbor]

Ah!  Well stated.  Thank you!

[DoctorM]

I've always-- all these years! --looked at maps of the Eleven Kingdoms and assigned cultural identities to them. Bremagne would be France and Brittany; Fallon and the Forcinn would be something like Catalonia and Italy, sliding into North Africa; R'Kassi would be something vaguely "Visigothic"-- i.e., Gothic Iberian dusted with something quasi-Islamic; Torenth would be Russia/Eastern Europe; Howicce and Llannedd would be Wales & Cornwall; and of course the Connait is Ireland.

[Cronanbor]

Yes, I like that as well.  The Norselands seem obvious to me they would be Nordic countries.  And "lower" maps of this world seem to have names that are highly suggestive.  Grecia (Greece), Aigyptos (Egypt), Libania (Liberia/Albania), Samisrael (Isreal), and Kibris (possibly Cyprus), Etruskia (Etruscan). I got tripped up on the ones you mentioned, your guidance (and Laurna's) really helps.  Thanks for sharing. 
ps.  It seems Imre/Festil/Furstan's family lineage can be traced back to the Byzantyun (Roman/Byzantine Empire), do you think Torenth may have some specific Byzantine influence as well?  It would make sense, you yourself said Torenth would be Eastern European influence, and Byzantine is considered the Eastern Roman Empire.

[Evie]

I think there is definitely a lot more Byzantine influence in Torenth than in the more western kingdoms, and possibly it's especially strong in eastern Torenth. Byzantyun is also where Teymuraz fled to after the events in KKB, and he had to have felt it would be a safe refuge for him. (And the fact that we see him married to the daughter of the Autokrator and having sons by her in the Codex by 1130, which is very shortly after the events in KKB, makes me think he had already done some advance planning/conniving with the rulers of Byzantyun even before attempting his coup.)

I do see Bremagne as being very similar to France in some ways, but also very similar to Spain. If you look at surnames from Bremagne, you find a mixture of both languages, IIRC. It could be that certain regions in Bremagne are more France-like and others are more Spain-like.

[Cronanbor]

Evie,
I agree with your conclusion that Bremagne is like France.  The first chronological entry of the Codex is Byzantyun invades Bremagne and in 'real-world' history the Roman Empire invaded Gaul around that time, which is modern day France.  So the historical parallels would seem to confirm your conclusion.

[Laurna]

The language and names bring Spain to mind when talking about Bremagne. Spain had a lot of wealth and influence in our medieval world and that is how I think of Bremagne.  Fallon and Fianna makes me think of France with their love of Wine. Logreine, Vazaire and Joux seem Italian. Orsal  and Tralia have a Greek flavor. 

Yet, if you tried to put the map of the Eleven Kingdoms matching the Southern Sea to an area of our world map, it more closely resembles the English channel (which isn't open to the north) than the Mediterranean. In which case Orsal and Tralia would be in the location of the Brittany or the Neitherlands. But that does not fit with the names or other indicators of culture. And the Neitherlands are represented by the Norselands along the North Sea. Therefore it is very hard to do a one to one comparison with our own world.

Byzantyun, which should be Eastern Roman influence, is far to the edge of the map in the east.  Where you see the Great Canal and the city of Rum appears to be an island, I Believe that is  really where the land mass of Italy is, at least in distances equivalent to our world. So in distance, the Eleven Kingdoms is not larger than the Western European continent.

[Laurna]

I had put all six maps in the codex together and made this map which gives a better Idea of what we know so far of the Eleven Kingdoms.

[Evie]

The Norselands would be more like our Scandinavian countries, rather than the Netherlands, which is a completely different culture. I'm not sure if the Eleven Kingdoms has something analogous to the Dutch/Flemish/Low German cultures.

[Cronanbor]

Great map!!  Thanks

[Laurna]

One way to look at it is to eliminate the body of water that we call the Mediterranean Sea and squish the lands of North Africa up against the lands of Spain and France.  then you can imagine a Mediterranean type ocean further south, off the edge of our Eleven kingdoms map, where you see the Jamin Straits. I imagine a seaman can sail through the Jamin Straits to reach Rum and Byzantyun.

[Cronanbor]

Have you seen drawings of Doggerland?  It kinda reminds me of that.

[DoctorM]

I had put all six maps in the codex together and made this map which gives a better Idea of what we know so far of the Eleven Kingdoms.

I hope you'll post this somewhere in a larger format. I do love it. I'm always wild for maps.

[Laurna]

Here is a PDF of my Master map of the Codex map put together.  I put it on a poster size page 36inches by 42 inches. Likely not actually printable unless you have a plotter. Just remember this is copyright material By Katherine Kurtz and her puplisher, so not commercially printable.
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