Medieval London records

Just a quick little link here, found via medievalists.net: medievallondon.co.uk. This site was started last year by Robert Ellis and explores the extant textual records from medieval London, in particular the late 14th C record Letter-Book H which contains copies of various documents such as petitions, wills, mayorial proclamations, etc.

There is a nice option which takes you to a random entry. This took me to Entry 7, a mayorial proclamation from November 1375 which is rather preoccupied with poultery sellers (poulterers), but contains some interesting points:

1. Many of the crimes listed result in imprisonment in jail as well as a fine, even comparatively minor ones. My previous reading had led me to assume that imprisonment was a very rare form of punishment in medieval England and mostly used as a way of holding suspects of major crimes (e.g. treason, murder) until the annual crown court in the area. Maybe the greater use of imprisonment is a London/large city-specific thing?
2. There is a nice example of one of the many rulings that disprove the old myth about medieval people eating rotten meat. Namely: "and that no-one, of whatever condition that he should be should carry nor put {for sale} any manner of poultry that was rotten or stinking or not acceptable to the body of man, on the loss of the same poultry and upon the judgement of the pillory." (Interestingly, this is the only part of this entry that proscribes the pillory as punishment.)

Women, history and the default narrative

Sometimes, something wonderful comes to your attention which makes you challenge your thought processes and reassess your views. This morning, such a thing occured, via Katrin Kania of 'A Stitch in Time', who linked to the following blog post, which in turn links to the latter.

"'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative" by Kameron Hurley

"PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings are Not Apolitical" by Foz Meadows

Both of these essays, though written primarily for a writer/author audience are wonderful resources for the individual who is interested in history. Personally, it was as if a little lightbulb had gone off in my head ... Oh! Oh, how stupid of me.

See, the more I read about my favourite little corner of history (namely late 14th Century England), the more I had begun to think "Wow! Women actually did so much then!". There is the (initially surprising) incidence of women in trades, including those typically thought of as incredibly masculine such as blacksmithing or butchery. Then, the Hajnal Line was brought to my attention (thanks Juli!) and its implications for marriage, and thus life, for lower and "middle" class 14th Century women.

But all this time I'd been taking in these revelations and thinking of them as something unusual, something unique. What was it about the late 14th Century that had allowed these comparative freedoms for women, this comparatively modern life? I'd theorised maybe it was the Black Death, which caused so many other sweeping social changes and put some of the first big cracks in the feudal system.

No. Nothing so complex. It is, instead, rather simple. We are simply not taught about the contribution of women (or non-white individuals, or non-cis-gendered individuals). Our society has spent so long erasing the history of these people that it is only when you start doing more serious research that you see the traces ... the bits shoved under the carpet ... the pale, ghostly grey smear, near invisible, that was left once the eraser had done its work.

There is nothing special about the late 14th Century. 

There are interesting, strong, powerful, intelligent, diligent, benevolent women throughout history. And there are stupid, narrow-minded, purposefully ignorant, brutish, cruel and despicable ones too. The same goes for every other classification of the human race. It's just that most of that has been systematically ignored.

I hope this is a small wake-up call for some others too. Let us all try to remember that history is only what information was recorded about the past, not a true representation of the past. And let us remember the biases of those original record makers and all the subsequent copiers and interpreters of those records. And let us try to give our ancestors some credit when we interpret them, particularly for those of us who re-enact and thus have an educational as well as entertaining role.

Teasels: a quick note

I wrote before about my theory that teasels being used to card unspun wool was a myth (at least in medieval England). I've come across a few more pieces of evidence which I thought I would share with you:

Teasels for carding - a myth?

As you may soon realise, if you haven't already, I'm terribly flighty when it comes to crafts and projects. I've put down my needle and thread for the time being and dusted off my spindle and spinning wheel for the first time in ages. With that, I got to thinking about fibre preparation in the medieval period, and so to that oft-repeated 'fact' that "teasels were used for carding wool".

The 14th Century bust: an aside

Sometimes it's nice to discover that you are not the only one thinking about things in a certain way. From Kass McGann's "Women's Kirtle or Cotehardie or Medieval Dress" pattern description (my emphasis):

"At right is a reproduction of three characters from a 1350s copy of the Roman de la Rose -- two women flanking a man ... The women’s garments are similarly tight although they retain a high neckline. This is interesting to note because it is not the depth of the neckline that is villified in the accounts but the width.

Another illustration from the Roman de la Rose, reproduced at left, shows an interesting feature of this garment. This character is turned to the side, so we can see the silhouette of her body. Her garment is painted to look tight-fitting -- there are even some stress wrinkles on her back where it bends, showing us how tight the garment really is. And yet there is absolutely no indication of her bust. There is no roundness in her upper torso. There are simply no breasts depicted

... 

There is a trend currently in the historical costuming community to create 14th century kirtles that lift the bust into an unnaturally high position, like that seen in marginalia of the Wenceslaus Bible, the famed “Bohemian Bathhouse Babes”. The argument made is that this lift is indicative of medieval bust support. However, the fact that the figures are not anatomically correct in any other way is ignored ... Why should we accept this bust position as fact when so much else in the paintings of this era is disregarded? We must be careful not to create a medievaloid answer to a modern fitting problem. This might answer the question of what should modern women do for bust support under their kirtles, but it cannot answer the question of what medieval women did without concrete evidence."

Easter

Yesterday was Easter, which meant one thing for me - finally! no more Lent! Huzzah!

I officially made it all the way through, though. Himself was not quite so good, succumbing to a milky tea a few weeks ago. ;)

The 14th Century bust: part 4

So, last time I finished up covering the female silhouettes we see in manuscript illustrations and effigies in the 14th Century. Now, drawing heavily from various websites and blog posts regarding the Lengberg bra finds, I'm going to discuss the few textual sources I'm aware of.

(Please note: being an amateur enthusiast, primary texual sources are one of my weakest points and I am currently reliant almost totally on other bloggers as I do not own or have access to the relevant books. In many cases, I don't even know what the relevant books would be! I am also a monoglot English speaker. Despite  because of this, if you have any further sources that could add to this topic, I would love to hear about them.)

~ Part 4: The 14th Century bust in text ~