You're right that the searches can be unwieldy (sometimes millions of hits).
I do frequently narrow it down with "middle ages" or "medieval" or 13th (14th, 15th, etc.) centuries.
But I have to honestly admit I so rarely narrow the search by geography that I'm having trouble thinking of examples, with the exception of looking for old maps (which are usually categorized by region and thus easier to search for by name).
Germany and Italy as we know them (and many other parts of the world), didn't exist in the middle ages, so geographic searches are problematic in that some will refer to them by contemporary names and others (usually historians) by the cultural group or county or kingdom that existed there at the time (some of which were very short-lived).
The big Chinese trading port in the southeast, famous especially for its satin, which was already very multicultural by the 13th and 14th centuries (and on the verge of Mongol conquest), has dozens of names associated with it as recorded by merchants and other travelers, and phonetic equivalents that would be difficult to search. I can't even remember the contemporary name for the city because I've seen it spelled half a dozen ways and it's called something different now. Oslo used to be Christiania, Ireland used to be Hibernia, and Scotland was Albania. In fact, many people misread "Albania" in old texts as referring to what we call Albania now.
Lombardia used to encompass all of Italy with the exception of Rome and Ravenna.
For different historic locations, it's almost easier to search by what they traded (which was based on local resources) and by specific names (rulers or people who traveled there) than by the name of the city or region.
I do frequently narrow it down with "middle ages" or "medieval" or 13th (14th, 15th, etc.) centuries.
But I have to honestly admit I so rarely narrow the search by geography that I'm having trouble thinking of examples, with the exception of looking for old maps (which are usually categorized by region and thus easier to search for by name).
Germany and Italy as we know them (and many other parts of the world), didn't exist in the middle ages, so geographic searches are problematic in that some will refer to them by contemporary names and others (usually historians) by the cultural group or county or kingdom that existed there at the time (some of which were very short-lived).
The big Chinese trading port in the southeast, famous especially for its satin, which was already very multicultural by the 13th and 14th centuries (and on the verge of Mongol conquest), has dozens of names associated with it as recorded by merchants and other travelers, and phonetic equivalents that would be difficult to search. I can't even remember the contemporary name for the city because I've seen it spelled half a dozen ways and it's called something different now. Oslo used to be Christiania, Ireland used to be Hibernia, and Scotland was Albania. In fact, many people misread "Albania" in old texts as referring to what we call Albania now.
Lombardia used to encompass all of Italy with the exception of Rome and Ravenna.
For different historic locations, it's almost easier to search by what they traded (which was based on local resources) and by specific names (rulers or people who traveled there) than by the name of the city or region.