Ars Gratia Artis

Half-Assed Patterns » Bamboozled

2008-09-08T06:04:00.000-07:00

Half-Assed Patterns » Bamboozled

Trying to learn to knit--want to try this.

In like Manner of the Dudleys

2007-09-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

I have practiced a policy of finding names very near to a given individual's daily name when talking about people who are not a part of the SCA. Most of the time it hasn't been too hard. One of the more difficult things, though, is the prevalence of male names that have derived from family names. It's a little harder to work around names like Keith and Scott and Dudley, because in 16th c. Britain, these are family names, not Christian names. Most female names that come to use after the 16th c. have got some root word connection that makes it easy to find a predecessor name that's sufficiently similar.

As an aside, I have always enjoyed the fact that when I first began pondering a name, I was seriously advised to remain with my modern name, and simply use older spellings if I wanted to register it. Both my current and my birth names are very, very period. It was from that experience that I grew the habit of close-names for the journal. Anyway.

I had some trouble finding something for Ryley. This is an example of a surname that drifted into given name territory. I looked through Oxford Christian names, nothing close... I looked through (sp) OCorrigan, nothing close... finally, knowing that Ryley is a first name derived from a family name, I looked up both Riley and O'Reilly in Reany and Wilson. The irish O'Reilly provided the base name that would become Anglicized as "O'Reily," but the spelling was so far removed from anything that an Engligh woman might name her son that I decided to use the surname Riley, which, interestingly enough, is spelled Ryley in parts of period. I'm basing this choice on the existence of Guildford Dudley, the son of John Dudley and Jane Guildford. It's an atypical practice and I would never suggest registration of the name based on that sole example, but the kid has to learn his name. And I don't have to use Irish spelling.

Calcutta Fruits

2007-09-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

Rosemary sent me the biggest bag of of fresh Jalapeño peppers I have ever had. I've been using them up a little at a time, but they are way hotter fresh than they are preserved--of course, I leave the seeds and so forth in them, increasing their fire. That is, after all, the way I like them. However, there is a limit to just how much heat I can ingest before the ol' GI tract objects to them. So I've had to preserve them; just for fun, I decided to find out if chilli pepers (of which jajlpenos are a type) were know to europeans before 1600. Turns out Leonard Fuchs mentioned some sort of chilli pepper as Calcutta peppers in his works, but I don't want Merouda to be too acquainted with them. So, in her world, they're some fruits that she's not sure she likes.

Turkey Trot

2007-06-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

For the first time, I ran into the issue of combining New World information with the mythical Merouda. See, here's the thing: When I put together foodstuffs for myself to be used in an SCA context, I tend to stick to Old World Foods. I'm not as exacting about whether or not Merouda-myth might have EATEN the food as long as I can document that she might have crossed it in her travels. This is a bonus for being a 16th c. persona--there is a lot of stuff to eat on European tables for a woman whose husband travels as a part of the Spanish ambassadorial "mission." However, I usually try to keep NWF out of my menu.

However, I recently tried a recipe (results noted here) with a substitution of turkey for lamb because, a) I don't much care for lamb, and b) turkey was what I had defrosted. And I really liked it, and it works beautifully as a cold dish for the never-ending quest for tourney food that tastes good cold. So I decided I was going to have to consider including one new world food in my repertoire. At least, for that recipe.

So there I was, faced with another defining moment in this blog/journal. Merouda treats the New Kingdoms as if they are roughly equivalent to European courts, and this makes sense, because this is what she sees. Northshield, in terms of its social and royalist structure, does not look much like the Iroquois Nations in 1520. Northshield would still be sufficiently strange to her, but she'd probably recognize it. There is still a vast and strange territory beyond the New Kingdoms that she's never seen, like walking beyond the boundaries of Plimouth Plantation (or better yet, Jamestown or St. Augustine) into the woods and finding a wildness never conceived.

That, I've decided, is why she's not often exposed to NWF. When she's in the New Kingdoms, she's not necessarily interacting with anything beyond the civilization she recognizes. However, every so often the several worlds collide, and I have to manage that conversation. I spent a lot of time reading about turkeys the other day, about how rapidly they were adopted into Euro cuisine once they arrived, about the idea that the turkeys I see in the woods out here are not the turkeys that we usually eat, nor the turkeys that were brought back to Europe. It was fun. So
I dug up what they were called in period (India hen, Indian chicken) and settled the matter.

Duck eggs clarification for my memory's sake.

2007-04-27T05:12:00.000-07:00

Wenna's eggs were eaten by a coyote. The coyote does not exist in England in the 16th c. After a brief search for an animal that might be roughly equivelent, wolves or something, I decided that Wenna actually dealt with coyotes, which Merouda would not know. So, wild dogs.

Persona Meme

2007-02-24T23:27:00.000-08:00

There are still a few I haven't bothered to answer, mostly because the answer is something I'm not interested in seperating from my personal experiences--I love Pastimes with Good Company and quite a lot of Rennaissance music, love Byrd's music, a bunch of SCA dances like definately post period "Hole in the Wall" and "Sailor's Wife" and "Black Nag" and "Maltese Bransle," and my personal opinions on the causes of criminal behavior are so strong that I'm not sure I can seperate 'em out at this time. But, anyway, this is what I got so far.

1. What is your persona's name? Merouda Pendray

2. What year was your persona born? Varies. My primary focus is 1500-1560, with extentions forward and backwards to go from 1480-1575. My year of birth depends on how old I feel like being in 1554. The thing is, I'm trying to do my persona's whole life span from an adult view point.

3. What is your persona's native country? Born near the Wyle river in Buckinghamshire, grew up in Cornwall. Merouda is Cornish with a good grasp of the English. In this era, Cornwall is effectively a subject country to England, much as Wales was and Scotland would eventually become.

4. What is your persona's current country? At some point in her life, she has lived in Flanders. She also travels a fair bit as her husband is a member of the Spanish Ambassador's household.

5. What are the climates of your persona's native and current countries? Cornwall is temperate and warmish, with a good breeze off the gulf stream. Their winters are not as harsh as ours in WI in the modern era, but may have been worse in period, d/t the Little Ice Age,

6. What are the terrains of your persona's native and current countries? The central areas of Cornwall tend to be uninhabited, as the land is generally not farmable. It is used for cattle grazing. Costal areas have the most settlement and most of the major manors.

7. In what city/town/barn was your persona born? Born near Chepping Wycomb (Now called High Wycombe) in Buckinghamshire.

8. What city does your persona currently claim as "home"? Merouda is an only daughter and heraldic hieress; she owns two small manors, one near ST. Ives, and one near Pendeen.

9. What are/were your persona's parent's names? Mother: Luvday Rhyswall. Merouda's mother is directly related to the mother of Lord Lisle (a woman unknown to history, as Arthur Plantagenet was the illegitimate son of Edward IV--there are at least 3 women who could be his mom), and through this connection, Merouda has the opportunity to serve in greater households than her own, fostering with the Greys and the Lisles, depending on the political situation of the time. Father: Sir John Pendray, a landholder in Cornwall.

10. What are/were your persona's parents' occupation(s)? They held manorial lands, father was a minor courtier and made money off of the tin trade and land use.

11. Does your persona have any siblings, and if so, are any still alive? No.

12. Is your persona married? Yes.

13. What are the marriage customs and typical age of marriage for your persona's culture/time-frame? Marriage is for life; marriage for most people in in their late twenties, although not necessarily for wealthier famlies when politics, social climbing, and other stakes get placed into the marriage game.

14. What type of building does your persona currently live in? Manor House

15. With whom does your persona live? Husband, servants.

16. Are there members of your persona's household that are not related to your persons (servants/retainers, wards/fosterlings, guests, etc.)? Yes.

17. Were pets kept during your persona's culture/time-frame? If so, what kind, if any, does your persona have? Yes; Merouda has a monkey and dogs.

18. What is your persona's occupation? She runs her household; she also does some service as a scribe and has worked as a secretary and lady's maid.

19. How old is your persona? Generally, Middle adulthood.

20. How long do people like your persona tend to live? If she survives childbirth she stands a good chance of living to 45-70.

21. What is your persona's ethnicity? I say again, she is Cornish.

22. Who is your persona's current employer? She works for various nobles higher up the social ladder; she's spent time in the households of the Grey's, the Carew's, the Lisles.

23. Would your persona have been literate in your chosen culture/time-frame? Yes.

24. What level of education does your persona have? She is well-educated.

25. Where was your persona educated? With the children of the households in which she fostered.

26. What languages does your persona speak? Cornish, English, Latin, Spanish.

27. What units of measure were used by your persona's culture/time-frame? I can't write this all out, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_unit

28. What type of money did people of your persona's culture/time-frame use? Standard English system, shillings, pennies, pounds.

29. What kind of legal system exists in your persona's culture/time-frame, and who make the laws? There is a well-developed law system in Tudor England, and laws are made at the local and the royal levels.

30. What is the status of women among your persona's culture/time-frame, and can they own property or conduct business? Women are fairly powerful at this particular time, although women are, ultimately, still under the male rule. Yes, they can own property and conduct business, although usually as unmarried/widowed women.

31. What major events have occurred during your persona's lifetime? (Natural catastrophes, wars, revolutions, discoveries, etc.?) The reformation, exploration of the North American continent, the prayerbook rebellion, Henry Viii's wifely mess.

32. Does your persona fight? If so, where did your persona learn to fight? No.

33 What type of armour and weapons were used by fighters in your persona's culture/time-frame? By now, we have gunpowder. Gonnes were not accurate enough for hunters, but the sure worked for killin' people!
34. List your persona's skills and hobbies. For each, write down where your persona learned them. Merouda makes money writing and limming. Writing was part of her education, limming she learned from Leveena Terlink. Merouda can also dance, compose sonnets, play a psaltery, embroider, sew, bind books, draw maps, perform simple medicine, sing, hunt, shoot a bow and arrow and a gun, cook, dye, do beadwork, make cord via lucet, bobbins, braiding; play chess and nine-man-morris, other games, garden, understands blacksmithing, understands pottey making, understands some woodworking and practices some few things that are considered "wood embellishment" in the SCA, and knows a great deal about heraldry. Most of this was simply a part of her education, part of growing up noble with the expectation that she would run the family manor in due course of time. Some things she learned via reading; this is the era of print, and she had acess to a variety of period how-to books.

35. What "class" is your persona? (I.e., royalty, nobility, merchant, middle, artisan, slave, etc.) She's a low-end noble.

36. How widely has your persona traveled? All through what woiuld become Great Britan, the Low COuntries, the German states, the edge of the Ottoman Empire, and to the new Kingdoms (The SCA).

37. In what capacity has your persona traveled? (I.e., military, sailor, rich person's hobby, etc.) Generally related to the movements of the houses she was fostered to or as part of her husband's travel. Merouda is married to Miguel de Montoya el Artista, a Spaniard who is a part of Charles'/Phillip's ambassidorial cadre.

38. Who is your persona's current monarch? My focus is the whole life span of Merouda, so she has lived during the reigns of Henry VII through Elizabeth I, and occasionally I decide to be old enough to have been exposed to Richard III.

39. Who is the current Pope during your persona time? Again, it ranges, from Pius III to Pius IV--there were a number of popes during that time.

40. What religion is your persona? She was born Catholic, would convert to Lutheranism willingly and Angelican forcibly.

41. What kind of religious duties would be required of your persona? Attendance, good works.

42. How did people of your persona's culture/time-frame deal with trade? It's a business.

43. With respect to international relations, does your persona favor colonization, isolationism, conquest/conversion, open trade, etc.? Merouda doesn't much care about international relations. She has travelled and traded, she is aware of the New World (and travels in the New Kingdoms thereof to make connections, like a smart noble would), but on the whole, she just wants the world to keep turning. She understands the importance of negotiation and alliances, but tries to keep out of political intruiges, particularly in these dangerous times.

44. How does your persona personally obtain goods (food, drink, clothes, etc.)? Some things she obtains on her own, by arranging for it via letters, et cetera, some things are obtained for her by her servants. Merouda is trying to keep the manors as self sufficient as possible, but things like paper, vellum, better cloth, books, pots and pans, spices, some foods, et cetera, must be purchased. These may be bought from specific businesses/merchants, for instance, paper and books from the stationer, cloth from the mercer, pigments from the apothocary. Jost Amman's The book of trades is a decent indication of businesses to be found in a Western European 16th c city.

45. How did people of your persona's culture/time-frame tell time? Weight driven clocks. Spring clocks appear in Germany in 1510, and would quickly become popular among wealthy people, as they can be portable. Merouda is also familiar with sundials.

46. How did people of your persona's culture/time-frame keep track of days? Calendar.

47. What type of clothes does your persona normally wear? shift/shirt/slip, kirtle, overdress, coif, veil/hood at the beginning of the era, adding corsets, farthingales, petticotes and more as the era progresses into the early Elizabethan era.

48. What type of clothes does your persona wear for special occasions? Elaborate versions of daily wear. More rigid undergarments, as needed.

49. Are there any (sumptuary) laws restricting what your persona can wear? Yes. Merouda doesn't generally violate them, and pays her fines if anyone makes a fuss about it if she does.

50. What does your persona eat in a normal day? 3 meals. Middle meal is largest, eaten in mid afternoon.

51. How is food prepared and preserved in your persona's culture/time-frame? There are a variety of cookery and household books describing food preperation and preservation in print across Western Europe. Foods are salted, dried, pickled, smoked, stored in honey or oil.

52. What spices were available to your persona and how expensive were they? Saffron, cloves, ginger, lovage, yada yada yada: see the herbals and cookery books in my library.

53. What were the eating habits of people of your persona's culture/time-frame? They ate food. The repetative nature of some of these questions begins to irritate me, but to give lipservice to this question, I refer to "Dining in Tudor England," a book in my personal library. I also refer to the many, many, many illuminations in my C&I book collection showing people dining.

54. What are the cleaning/bathing habits of your persona's culture/time-frame? They bathed. http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tudor/96379 is a glancing introduction, although I also have a bunch of receipts for "toothpastes," soaps, perfumes, cosmetics, et cetera, in the various books of reciepts in my library.

55. What types of wildlife live in your persona's area? Usual English fauna. Introduction here:http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=13129 Also, nice photo galleries of Cornish wildlife and landscape here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/content/image_galleries/wildlife_gallery.shtml

56. Name your persona's favorite musicians/artists/dances.

57. What political figure/party/movement does your persona support? Dood. She is a Tudor Era Person. She tries to keep out of court intrigues, having been in the households of several great families and having see what happens when you are on the wrong side.

58. Who is the most significant thinker of your persona's time? Among others, Erasmus, Sir Thomas More.

59. What does your persona consider to be the greatest social problem their country? Religious persecution, issues related to the reformation.

60. What is most likely to cause your persona's death? Disease (smallpox, sweating sickness, bloody flux, et cetera), childbirth. However, Merouda dies of old age.

61. What type of medical aid is available in your persona's culture/time-frame, and does your persona have access to it? There are physicians in the Tudor era but they were as likely to kill you as cure you. Merouda's rich, and so can afford

62. List at least three of your persona's goals in life. (Learn to write, become apprenticed to a craftsman, visit the "big city", take over the family business, go to the Holy Land, usurp the crown, etc.) Merouda's goal is to continue to run the mannor successfully and continue to travel with her husband and into the New Kingdoms as an observer for the Tudor court.

63. What does your persona know of history/science/medicine/geography? About as much as a well-educated Rennaissance woman can be expected to know.

64. What's the most striking scientific achievement of which your persona is aware?

65. Does your persona consider the Earth to be flat, round, or hollow? Round

66. Does your persona believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun, or vice-versa? The earth is revolved by the Sun at the time Merouda is born, but Copernicus will reveal that the sun actually is the center during Merouda's lifetime. It will shock and rock her, but what the hell, she made the jump to Protestantism, too.

67. What does your persona consider to be the causes of criminal behavior?

68. What does your persona consider to be the true measure of a man?

69. Who has most influenced your persona's thoughts on these questions? She thinking about it for herself, and has come to no conclusion.

70. Did your persona's culture/time-frame have heraldry? Yes.

2007-01-07T12:39:00.000-08:00

Trying to talk about the holiday season was interesting. I'd really like to get to posting in Dame Merouda Pendray daily, as I think it will force me to think abiut how equivalant needs and tasks might have been dealt with in 16th c. Cornwall, but I haven't gotten to it yet.

Some of the things I've been considering:

Titles for Non-SCA people. Occasionally, I'd like to use a title for the folks I deal with, but at the same time, I don't really want to use SCA titles. I've drifted into Goody or Goodwife for married women and Goodman for married men, and have settled on Marchioness for the woman who owns the business I work for as a sort of sly reference to Anne Boleyn, the only woman to have held the title (she was the Marchioness of Pembroke) in her own right in the Tudor era. Seems appropriate to pretend that the woman I'm several layers of management underneath is also a peer in her own right.

The Mythical location of both the Near (also known as Marihaus) and the Far (also known as Wycliffe) manors: Michael and I have obtained a country house not far from the banks of the Mississippi river, and so, to differentiate between that property and this property I've taken to calling them "Near" (as in, CAM) and "Far" (as in, Rokecliffe). I decided I needed real geography for this persona thing. Thus, as CAM is located at the SW shore of Lake Michigan, and Viroqua is SW of here and near to the Mississippi River, I looked over the geography of Cornwall and realized that if the Near manor was vaguely near St. Ives, and the far manor was vaguely near Pendeen (or perhaps St. Just), it would mimic not only the geographical movement (and, in a very small way, the waters and the topical features of the precise WI locations), it would also put me as having to travel through areas of WI that were settled by Cornish tin miners in the 1800's. It also creates a sort of myth for getting to the New Kingdoms--Merouda simply travels across some of the water surrounding Cornwall and she's in the New Kingdoms, and never mind the fact that crossing the Atlantic was actually a months-long proposition. 'Course, this speed crossing myth works better if Merouda lives off one of the Islands trailing away from Land's End, but it's not enough of a trouble to be bothered with it. .... Hm, just as an aside, the Far Manor could be called Pendray's Carn. LOL. There is one hell of a cliff on the property. Maybe it should be Wycarn... Wylie's Carn. IRL, Michael is completely insistant upon the designation "Wylie's Cliff" in the same way I sometimes call this place Marihaus.. Mary's house, or Merry House.

Temporal use: I've been trying to mention dates according to Saint's days and festivals. I figure if I stick to the Anglican saint's days with an occasional reference to the Catholic saints (as "Merouda" would have been born at a time in which the Catholic practice was still well known and officially still in use at some times) I should do pretty well and not have to make reference to any reign dates, either for historical or SCA rulers. However, the holiday season just passed was pretty interesting; it took me a little while to wrap my head around the concept of the 12 days of Christmas. The Tudor holiday season starts with All Hallows Eve and kicks into full swing with Christmastide -- the 12 days of Christmas. The Tudor new year does not occur until 25 March, making our observation of 1 January well outside the Tudor mindset. Furthermore, different branches of the Christian Church count the 12 days of Christmas differently. However, and I don't recall when I picked this up so don't take it as perfect fact, the nights of Christmas precede the days (in America, demonstrated by the tendency to celebrate on Christmas eve, New Years Eve, and Halloween) , so Twelfth night is 5 January and Twelfth Day is 6 January, Epiphany, the day the 3 wise men arrive at the Christ Child's side. Following this time schedule, New Years eve falls on Seventh Night. This may change as I learn better. This shouldn't be hard to grasp, but different sources define it all differently.

Sctuff

2006-10-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

I recently received a letter from a friend who wants to make herself a girdle book. I intend to help her, of course, but it's an opportunity to do a kind of copy cat project that I have been wanting to do for a while. Kundrun the Pilgram--what the heck is her modern name, anyway?--copied a bunch of stuff worth reading to calligraphy paper/parchment and bound it into her own small book for carrying to events. I've been thinking of doing something similar for years, except I'd like a compendium of fairly useful things... things like this pamphlet, just put out free for personal use.

http://walternelson.com/gamester.pdf

Rules for pre-20th c. card, dice, and board games, many of them 16th c. Useful to cart about to events, don't you think? I can play chess, nine-man-morris from memory, but I need rules to prompt me for anything else. I just can't get card players with me often enough to learn much else by heart.

The practical pursuit of persona.

2006-10-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

I spoke to Valarius about my persona project white at Michaelmas a couple of weekends ago. He seemed to enjoy the idea, and promptly asked me ''who is the Pope?” I wasn't able to answer immediately, in part because my persona is a Protestant. I mentioned that; my friend responded with “You would still know who the pope is.”

I'm not sure I would. I hardly know who's the pope now that JP2 is dead. I know that it's some conservative German guy, but after that, I could not tell you the name he now uses as Pope, much less his birth name. I only know JP1 and JP2. I don't recall their predecessor. Nor their successor. Who before JP1? Who after JP2? Considering that we are only talking about 4 men in my lifetime, it seems to me even less likely that my persona could recall all the Popes between Pius III and Pius IV, the majority of the life span of Merouda were she to pass away in the 1550's (I.e, presuming outside maximum of about 59 years of intellectual awareness, assuming that Merouda knows nothing of politics in the earliest years of her life).

As a sidebar, this brings up my approach to aging. "Merouda” lives in the 1550's, and I don't care to move farther forward in time. Therefore, Merouda's year of birth moves backwards. It's reasonable that Merouda would remember that Clement was a pope during her lifetime, and that

Anyway, after Valarius mentioned the pope thing, I remembered Caradoc's Persona worksheet. I dug it up on the Internet and was shocked to realize that I know most of the information the questions prompt you to research. At least as far as this measuring tool goes, I'm pretty close. I guess my vision of what I need is bigger than many other people's.

I did my first little in-persona stint @ Michaelmas. It was brief and personal. I ate lunch in persona. No biggie to others, but I enjoyed it. This experience, also, helped convince me that knowing who the pope is may be of less value than expected, mostly because I'd been shopping the night before, trying to find a reasonable cold meal. What, I asked myself, would 16^th c. me have available in the autumn as a cold lunch to be eaten while traveling? The best I was able to do with the knowledge I have was smoked pork chops, apples, farmer's cheese with caraway, and cauliflower. As I walked about, I asked myself: Which of these cheeses were available in the 16th c.? Which of these varieties of apples? And that little hour of shopping was far more useful on a persona study basis than all of Caradoc's questions.

Caradoc's (and others) various questions to help develop persona:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/little_things.html
http://www2.kumc.edu/itc/staff/RKnight/Persona1.htm
http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/persona.htm

Wikitionary

2006-06-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

I blew a lot of time loooking for where Port Washington falls in the Knowne World; had I not gotten my geography confused, it would have been no problem. Somehow, I got it into my head that Ozaukee county is north of Sheboygan county. There is one sure flaw with the Northshiled website: groups are only listed according to the primary city in the area they serve. So If you're looking for the group that serves an unnamed city and your grasp on local geography has gone the sleep, the website is worthless. I also blew a lot of time trying to chase down the entymology of "Washington" when I realized that Port Washington was within the bounds of CAM and so eligible for renaming as part of the mythical territory surrounding a time-warped Cornwall. Blew some internet time trying, as I said, when really, what I needed was to grap my copy of Reaney & Wilson's English Surnames.

Look, there it was, 3 pre-1500 spellings of Washington. It's all good.

However, for future reference:

Wiktionary

Compact OED

Gerard's herbal to the rescue.

2006-05-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

I am feeling pleased with my solution to a small difficulty. I wanted to make a brief entry about utilizing Peapod, as in the modern era, this is how most of us bring the concept of servant into our lives: we pay someone to perform a service for us, on an as-needed basis. I paid someone to shop for me and bring my food to me. This is, at its most basic, having a servant to do my shopping for me.

However, the name "Peapod" doesn't work for me. I thought about describing the driver as "one who doth wear the pea-rise badge" or "from the inn at the sign of the broom-plant" or some more elegantly worded variation on those themes, but I couldn't come up with a satisfying usage.

However, Gerard's Herbal has a nice little story, recorded in 1555, of a field of wild peas that saved local poor-folk from dying of hunger. "Pulse" is a 16th c. alternate word for "pea" and so Pulsefeld Market was born. :-)

Ongoing thoughts regarding this project.

2006-05-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

I finally updated DMP here. I last updated in November (yes, that's not the date on the entries, but that is the point in time when I got around to copying them out of the blank-tables book.) In modern blogging, people typically say something like "sorry been away so long" or "sorry I haven't updated recently" or provide long, long explanations regarding their whereabouts or whatever, but I have not noticed anything like this in period journals/diaries. They just resume without apology or drawn-out explaining. So that's what I did, I just resumed. It took me a long time to decide on that as a course of action, but that would be the action that is truest to the information I have. :-)

One of the things that is difficult about this journal is the three sort of realities that have to be melded. There is the idea of Merouda as a 16th c. woman--and while I a) try to focus on her place in time as being about the reigns of Edward VI, Jane, and Mary I, b) try to keep drift consistently to earlier Tudor reigns based on the idea that it's reasonable to expect her to have access to knowledge and inheritances from the recent past, the fact of the matter is that I am sometimes forced to go even earlier and often considerably later to find something that is both historical and relevant to what I am trying to express. That's reality #1, the idea of Merouda as a 16th c. woman.

The second reality that has to be blended into this is the idea of Merouda as a woman living in the "current middle ages." She does exist, and what she does as a part of the culture and scope of her participation is also relevant to this diary. It is the closest thing to a court that is ever going to be a part of this experience. It is impossible for me to go back in time, assume the mantle of a mythical life, and show up in Edward's court. However, this also creates a paradox, the idea of Merouda living in a world where she owes allegiance to two kings. I've been trying to separate activities that are part of the SCA by referring to them as things happening in the New Kingdoms. I don't generally have a reason to refer to a historical monarch, so I've been using kyng/king/Kyng/King and the feminine counterparts willy-nilly through the diary, but I think I'd like to go back to the place the diary first started. In earliest entries, Merouda was well aware of the historical Monarch in a far distant place, always well away from her holding in Cornwall. She had no dealings with him, but she was well aware of him, and to him she'll owe ultimate fealty. Easy enough, since no Tudor-Era monarch is around to demand anything of me unless I chose to work it into the story and thus, find it all nicely under my control.

Henceforth, I think I'll use kyng/Crown/queen/ for SCA monarchs and Kynge/Quene for historical monarchs. I don't expect to use prince/baron, et cetera in relation to historical figures. Furthermore, there is the land paradox; Merouda-historical lives in Cornwall and Merouda-SCA lives in CAM, and, of course, Elise lives in Milwaukee. I've been sort of considering my personal property as a substitute for an estate in Cornwall, the Milwaukee metro area as a sort of mythical town within reasonable travel, and anything beyond the 5 county area as part of the New Kingdoms. The Milwaukee Metro area is a part of the New Kingdoms only when specifically dealing with SCA activities.

The third entity, of course, is Elise, the person who actually exists and tries to hold down a job and have a fun, fulfilling Life. Mostly what I'm thinking about here is dealing with a good way to reference my employer. The single entry that references the job at BLHS merely has a vague mention of traveling to an office away from the estate, and the entry today refers to the new job as "my new Lord," but I'm not happy with that. I've been thinking, and it seems to me that, based on the fact that I am now working as a case manager--doing a lot of writing and passing out of benefits--that subcontracts from the Milwaukee County Department of Aging, I'm thinking that I'll start referring to my employer as "ye Earle's Chancery." You don't see "Earl" used too much in the SCA, so it seemed to me a decent way to indicate a governmental clerical post without committing it either to the SCA aspect or the historical aspect. If it doesn't work for some reason, I can always change it.

I'm so glad I got around to writing this structure out for myself. It helps to know how I've defines things--in fact, as the included subjects get more diverse and the number of entries grows, some structure becomes imperative.

Just for fun.

2006-03-21T19:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not the only joker out there doing a blog in an historical voice. LOL.

Chaucer: http://houseoffame.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/

Swynford: http://dolante.blogs.friendster.com/le_blog_de_une_dolante/

::snicker::

Testing the photo function of blogger/picasa.

2005-11-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

This would be a scroll I did for 12th Night 2005. Italian whitevine, which I love. I'm thinking of different ways to re-do the portfolio pages. A blog would be a sweet and easy way to do it, but it would appear that picasa/blogger collects the picture off of your machine, unless there is some magic that goes on after I post this puppy.

Nano is coming, and I don't want to lose this list

2005-09-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

I did a sheet from personal experience, just things I
found worked for me. The second sheet was some links I
located from here and there. Here's from the second
sheet:

Here are some (possibly) useful links you might want
to check out:

Whats in a name?
http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm
Random name generator uses data from the US Census to
match first and last names with differing degrees of
probability
http://www.20000-names.com/
Names from around the world
http://www.behindthename.com/
Etymology and history of first names
http://genforum.genealogy.com/surnames/a.html
Surnames
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
Evil name, planet name, angel and demon name
generators. Plus lots of links
http://nine.frenchboys.net/country.php
Place name generator

Where am I?
http://www.erikbenson.com/nanowrimo-report-card.xls
A phenomenally complete Excel spreadsheet that helps
you keep track of your progress. It could save you
time, unless you use it obsessively just to watch the
charts and graphs change. Includes a morale tracker.

What AM I doing?
http://www.thescriptorium.net
It may be a bit late muck around with plotting, but
you never know what youre gonna need. This is where
our character worksheet came from. The site also
includes character biography worksheet, fantasy and
sci-fi world-building forms, and story starters.

Is this for real?
Check out the Character and Plot Realism thread on the
NaNo forum. This is the place to go for the skinny on
weight-lifting, Italian folk magic, creative
assassinations, or summoning angelic beings. Its also
a great place to mess around when all you really want
to do is, well, procrastinate.

Theres lots of other information out in the big, bad
world of the rest of the NaNo site. If youve got some
time to kill, dont hesitate to check it out.

-------
oh, and I remember that one of the Austin nanos
tweaked the spreadsheet. If I come across it with the
changes, I'll let you know. also, I haven't checked
these links to see if they still exist....

----------------

Austin Texas Municipal Liaison
sister cities! houston+austin=1,882,590 words in 2004!

Modern: Elyse C. Boucher (West Allis, Wisconsin)
SCA: Merouda Pendray (Caer Anterth Mawr, Northshield)
Per pale sable and Or, a gryphon segreant counterny within an orle of feathers counterchanged. http://www.merouda.com

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com

Spiff Courtesy Reference

2005-07-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

Presented the persona diary at the Masterwork challenge; I did not do a good job of explaining what I was trying to do, but that's okay! I did get myenthusiasm for the project across!

So, now:

an article about the construction of the blank tables book. Ths is fairly complex and should likely be broken into a couple of parts?
an article--research article, woo-hoo!--on the construction of period diaries
class for Pennsic

TONS of stuff to do by 4 August

More referenced books and timeline

2005-06-25T00:44:00.000-07:00

More books I've looked at for inspiration/persona information/material information.

Books I own:

Tyndale's New Testament. (Online Version Here) See also: British library online page here.
Leaf from The Great Bible, ca 1539. From First Kings. Online example (leaf from Romans) & background here.
Harrison's Description of England. Online etext here.

The Babee's Book. Online PDF here. Nice collection of period etiquette books!

The Art of Limming. Online version here.

The Collected Works of William Shakespeare.

The Craftman's Handbook.

New online transcription and translation of period diary:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/gouberville/

And a few etiquette articles I furled; I'm too tired to look them up specifically now.

More leather dye refs.

2005-06-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

Dye recipies on Drea's page. I have the book she's referencing, but this is a handy printable version.

Painted leather binding

2005-06-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

Grolier commission features 16th c. painted leather book binding. There are also examples of dyed leather in other sections of this site.

http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/cases/collectors/index.html

Several issues continued.

2005-06-19T06:58:00.000-07:00

This is supposedly polychromed leather from about 1500. I'm not sure that it is a correct assessment: the style of the art looks too old-fashioned for 1500. I'd have to have more than the antique dealer's word for it to believe it to be what she says it is. It may be earlier, or it may be neogothic. ::shrug:: I have no way of knowing, but it is a very nice piece, no matter what its age.

Here is the surface of the blank-table after having been written upon with graphite, walnut ink, and leadpoint. I tried the ink first, and it wiped off but for the ghost writing seen here. Graphite not only wiped off easily, it smeared when rubbed, making it a less-than-optimal choice, as well. However, the leadpoint worked exactly as how described in the period instructions for use: wet your finger and rub it out. Poof, it was gone but for a faint impression left by the pressure of writing. Sweeeeeeeeet. Modern gesso is pretty much the same thing as period gesso, but for the glue base, and it's my feeling that the PVA is probably an improvement over the hide glue that one uses in classic gesso, because this way, you don't really need to let the pages dry for a long period of time before closing the book. The glue does not soften after wetting.

I did try slight sanding of the page to remove the ghost of the walnut ink, but I would have had to remove too much to allow it to be reused. However, that might be the key to reconditioning the pages: remove the top layers and regesso once the tables have been so used that they can no longer be read when written upon.

Regarding blank signatures of vellum: I finally got around to digging out the blank signature I owned, purchaed from C. E. Puckett several years ago. It's still got traces of the binding, a heavier vellum wrapper and 6 bifolia that once had manuscript cuttings glued to the pages. There is also traces of glue on the inside of the wrapper vellum, so all pages of this signature were itended for use; however, a couple of pages are apparently untouched. Based on the appearance of the dried glue, it's some kind of organic: it looks exactly like dried mucilage or dried rabbit skin glue.

The signature is purported to be from 1475-1500 France, and if it is the sort of blank signature referenced in Stationer's inventories of the era, then they were careless with the creation of such things. The page cutting is uneven and there are still lead lines along the cut edges. The lines do not smear when rubbed with a dry finger, and a plastic eraser only works partly; there is still a distinct lead line. The cut edges are very ragged.

The binding has partially disintergrated; the thread doesn't feel as if it has been waxed.

The cuttings were supposedly added in the 19th c; a collector of some sort. I don't know if the collector obtained a sheet of 16th c. vellum and cut and bound it him or herself, or if he/she acquired a signature as part of his/her collecting activitiy. The interesting thing about the binding is that it is insufficiently distinct to be able to tell. The binding holes pierce the entire signature, cover included, are unevenly spaced, much like that odd little commonplace book at the Yale library (referenced in this entry).

However, Puckett guarantees the authenticity of his stock, so it's reasonable to presume it is what he's telling me it is: a sixteenth c. signature that was used to hold cuttings that have since been removed.

Leather

2005-06-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

I want to bind the blank writing table with leather, and I'd like to paint some minor heraldic decoration upon the leather. I didn't even think about this until recently, when it hit me that I have no reason to believe that painted leather is period. I may have run across something in all my paint research, but it didn't stick with me well enough to allow me to proceed with confidence.

So, first, some simple web research.

Marc Carlson, whose research I tend to trust: Medieval Leather Working Techniques

A Hungarian site that implies that leather was painted: Heraldry and Self-Representation...

The Met mentions painted leather armour here: Decoration of Euro...

Museum of Arts & Crafts has some 17th c. gilded and painted leather wallpaper (!?)

Greydragon's article on chests mentions chests covered in leather that was then gessoed and painted.

I'll have to dig through my books upstairs for period receipts for leather painting. Most of the colored book bindings that are coming to my mind's eye are, like, inset enamels and that sort of thing. I'll have to check.

God Bless the internet wayback machine. Most old articles can be found. A Valentine for Melody was always one of my favorites, although I understand why Randy mayn't want it on his site anymore.

Some consulted books and some notes.

2005-06-05T21:01:00.000-07:00

One of the more interesting aspects of this has been replacing modern names with period names. IN the case of people who are in the SCA, I just use their SCA names, of course, but when it's a modern family member, not so easy. I've been relying on Withycombe's Dictionary of English Christian Names mostly, and it's been expanding my recognition of what is and what is not period from an English perspective.

Since "Merouda" is English and living in the 1550's, I try to rename everyone according to English practices appropriate to that area. Thus, while Jason is a period name for Greek men, it's not really found in England in this era, and so my daughter's friend Jason became Joseph.

Another interesting thing brought up by the June 2 entry: Merouda knows of an herb called rosemary, and frets that she has no cuttings of it, but my mother-in-law, named Rosemary in the 21st century, has to be referred to as "Rosemund" by my 16th century self because "Rosemary" was not in use as a name for a human.

I would love to be writing this thing with an OED beside me; I may, in the distant future, start making a thesaurus of obsolete words. A quick web search did turn up this site: William Shakespeare Elizabethan Dictionary. A start, now we just need to make it into a format useful for substitution rather than definition.

I have a theory about the construction of personal diaries in period.

One of the things that struck me as odd is how the ones I have had the opportunity to read have not been writing with immediacy. They mostly have the flavor of something recopied. I think one way people must have written their chronicles is by first writing on a wax tablet or a blank-tables or maybe even cheap scratch paper--hell vellum was recycled into plamplisets to write new books, so why not a constantly scrapped vellum notebook for personal use? Aside from the fact that it would be something of a pain in the ass to scrape it all the time when compared with a wax tablet, it could be done.

Anyway, I think it went thought-tablet-paper/vellum base. Binding; I'm thinking that there is evidence of simple bindings that educated people could have created on their own. I received a helpful quotation from Nancy Spies:

Sister Anna Neuper, aged 70 and writing in 1517 in the St. Clare Convent in Nuernberg, wrote her patterns for brocaded tabletwoven bands into a small 17.5 cm x 14.0 cm book that, according to the conservator at the Herzog August Bibliothek, had probably been put together by herself. The leaves of the book were sewn together using twisted linen thread: generally 5 or 6 leaves were folded together and then sewn to the cover. The cover of the book is made of a flexible brown leather, so-called 'koperte'. A picture of the Christ child in a border of flowers, probably done by another nun in the same convent, has been glued inside the front cover. The caption reads, "Dominus kindlein hatmagdalenn lengen gemacht un gemalt" (Magdalena Lengen has drawn and colored the Christ Child.).

Is this the sort of information you are looking for?

This information comes from my book, "Anna Neuper's Modelbuch".

Nancy

My wax tablet, made by Master Hal Raeburn/Gary Link

A coptic bound book; I made this under Gary's direction.

A simple leather binding, similar to that described in the Spies quote, made by Meisterin Katarina: directions for such a binding can be found on her page, here.

Other books consulted so far:
Gerard's Herbal.
Shailor's The Medieval Book
and a bunch of others; I have to go to bed so I have to stop writing this.

Reseach: Technology and process

2005-06-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

So, I have received of Nancy the word that the woman writing in the book is also from the Letters of Ovid, and it appears in one of the Medieval Women calendars. I have some more information on this particular manuscript in Creating French Culture; it's essentialy a manuscript comprised of fictional letters written by women to their unfaithful lovers. No wonder so many images of writing women, yes?

The website for the exibition is still up at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bnf/bnf0001.html.

I got started with making a first blank-tables book, covering some bristol board with gesso. I am sure it will work with proper India ink--essentially, gum arabic and lamp black, but will be interested to see if it works with walnut, sepia, oak-gall inks and leadpoint. Gesner's pencil shows up in 1565, as earlier mentioned, and that should work, too. But the tables need several layers of gesso, and will take several days to dry.

Pictures by Testard

2005-05-31T21:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, the “to be identified” picture is from MS Fr. 875, fol. 124V, Les Epitres d'Ovide, in Bibliotheque Nationale. I know of a certainty that I've a copy of the picture in my 1997 Medieval Women Calendar. The 1996 calendar also has a woman writing from that same manuscript, and this site, http://www.siefar.org/IndexLegend.html, features a detail from yet a third writing miniature. The important thing is to realize that these are all single-sheet writings, from the turn of the 16^th c. The illuminator is believed to be Robinet Testard; his style is quite distinct. There is another painter of the same name, born 1611; not the same man, obviously, but something to be aware of when searching for images and info.

another Woman Writing by Testard: http://gallica.bnf.fr/themes/Illustrations/StGelaisOvideDeta.jpg)

Interesting look at writing technology, but none of it is in blank table-book or blank bound books.

More research

2005-05-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

In replying to Elizabeth Blatt, I looked up the "Jane Austen Word Processor" blurb. Sections of that letter are excerpted here:

****

The Austen article is here quoted in its entirety: it was just a very fun blurb that got me thinking about portable writing devices some time ago. I stepped off that path to pursue heraldic display for a while, but when I decided I wanted to do a persona diary, I moved back into the arena for which I am better known within the SCA.

Because, you know, Gesner was not using his pencil to write on a wax tablet.

Anyway, the article:
_______
Culture Corner:
Jane Austen's Laptop Word-Processor

This rec.arts.sf.fandom posting by James Follett tickled me greatly, not least because -- like so many others -- I had always taken the Austen line about writing on two inches of ivory as some kind of obscure metaphor. Now read on:

On Wednesday I paid a visit to Jane Austen's house at nearby Chawton in Hampshire. Unfortunately she wasn't in but a nice lady in the front parlour selling souvenirs allowed us to look around on payment of £2 each. It was very strange looking over this modest little cottage where Miss Austen spent the last years of her short life, and where she completely revised and finally agreed to have published the most-read and best-loved novel in the English language.

One of the many items on display that belonged to Miss Austen caused me considerable astonishment. My mother-in-law died ten years ago and among the odds and ends in her writing box, that had belonged to her grandmother, was what we, including my mother-in-law, had aways assumed to be a fan. A somewhat clumsy fan because it onsists of a swatch of ten thin rectangular ivory panels held together with a single rivet. Each panel measures approximately five-inches long by two-inches wide.

It isn't a fan, it's a late 18th-/early 19th-century word-processor. Paper was expensive, therefore those who used a good deal of it first composed their paragraphs on these wafer-thinivory panels before making fair copies on paper. Pencil could be erased with one's fingertip, ink erased with a damp cloth. The order of paragraphs or sentences could be changed depending on which panels were exposed from the main swatch. Other advantages were portability -- it could be carried in a pocket and used on one's lap because the wafers were sufficiently rigid to make a desk unnecessary.

The fan explains a paragraph in one of Jane Austen's letters to her sister, Cassandra, which has always puzzled me, in which she refers to `The little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work ...'

Out of curiousity I composed this entire post on the fan using a pencil. The efficiency of the device is remarkable. Each of the above paragraphs is written on an individual wafer. The post actually started with the second paragraph with the opening:

`An item on display in Jane Austen's house at Chawton caused me considerable astonishment ...'

I moved it from first to second place simply by switching the wafers around. Longer paragraphs were continued on the reverse. I've taken to carrying the `fan' with me and jotting notes on it. Although it's 200 years old, I think it'll last out my lifetime. If it inspires me to write a tenth as well as Jane Austen I shall be well pleased. -- James Follett

quoted from: href=http://www.ansible.co.uk/cc/cc141.html

[nb: a "writing fan" of the late 1800's may be seen here]
____
Yes, yes, yes. I'll be at Pennsic from the first weekend through about the last Thursday; I have to return early for a wedding. Darn it. I was just getting around to bookmarks, myself, and have been looking at chemise/belt bindings on and off for a
while. Also looking at book boxes & satchels.

One of the more interesting things I have come across online, in terms of bindings the educated can produce on their own, is a folio of 1561 bound in a leaf from what apears to be a Carolingian-era book leaf. The whole collection seems just fascinating to me, and I wish I had the academic credentials needed to have a look. I guess I'll just have to go back to school, LOL. Oh, poor me. ;-)

The whole process of producing a diary in period, or a commonplace book, just interests me tremendously. And love the CA on your site about writing letters, another topic that fascinates me. I'm sad that so many scribes seem content to just do books-of-hours pages with commericaly-produced paints when, nowadays, there is so much better information and period-like materials may be so easily acquired. There are so many interesting things to be researched.
:-)

****

Anyway, after sending the letter, I had a vague recollection of running across an ivory book at the Met.

Popping over to the Met site to have a look, I re-discovered that it wasn't just a devotional book (as is the ivory book at the V&A that can be accessed through Images by searching for item #11-1872), it's also a writing tablet. Probably a wax writing surface, but still!

Some other ivory writing tables from a French site, woefully under-described:

The Hunt
Loving Couple
Two Games
Tables, Virgin & Child

And, just because it interests me and I'll want to recall where I saw it:
Book box
Ink "box"

More Ivory tables:
With insides pictured
Six tables in a leather box

An article [PDF] on writing tables
A glossery including a definition of writing tables: doesn't specify date at which ink is in use.

Just what was Gesner writing on?

Off to the books.