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Historical accuracy? Absolutely. It only takes one wrong reference to throw me clean out of the book and remind me that I'm not living in the Nth century, I'm just reading a book about it, and a book by an author who gets things wrong at that -- or, worse, a book by an author who doesn't even care. If there is a fact, an attitude, an event, even a reaction by one person to another, it needs to be accurate. I read historical fiction (note: not romances!) for periods I'm familiar with, and if something's noticeably wrong, it's going to rankle.
On the other hand, I also don't want lectures. No lectures, no infodumps, and especially no demonstrations of how much the author knows. Take the guy whose alternate Civil War book I ragged on so much a while back: I read (or tried to read) the excerpt, and it was horribly bogged down by painful detail, notably the biographies of various characters (even the minor ones). He had clearly done a great deal of research for the book, and wanted to make sure the reader knew it. That's not the way to do it either. A historical novel should have the same level of detail and background as any other novel, just different details. The period, and the attitudes of that period, should influence the characters' actions just as modern ones do characters of today.
Also (and creators of the first D&D movie, I'm talking to you here!) there's no art to sticking a modern character, acting exactly like a modern person, into a historical era and having nobody notice. EileenG's Irish example is exactly the kind of thing I mean. A large part of the enjoyment of a period piece is seeing the characters react as characters of the time rather than the people next door. Modern characters in theater costumes are no fun at all. So get it right, people!
Incidentally, I would have put down that story that EileenG is reading. I wouldn't be able to finish it. Yeah, it bothers me that much. The information is available -- nowadays, even primary sources are more available than they once were, thanks to the Web and universities digitizing their collections. There is no excuse for crud.
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