Our fifteenth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Edmund Beneyt of the Barony of Endewearde, who demonstrates that the delicious preserved lemons of the Middle East have a very long history indeed! (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

On the Preservation of Lemons

The preservation of food has been an ongoing struggle against Nature since man first started storing food for later use. There is evidence of the most basic form of preservation being used 14,000 years ago in the Middle East[1], and many different strategies have been discovered.

Pickling, the process of preserving food by either anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in a liquid of pH 4.6 or lower, is in use by most cultures across the globe. The range of pickled foods is astounding, from meats and fish to grains. The only limit on what can be pickled seems to be what is available to pickle.

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Our fourteenth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Lady Angela Mori of the Barony of Bhakhail, who demonstrates and explains the process of making one of the splendid helm crests so familiar from manuscript illuminations of tournaments. (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Making a Leather Swan Helm Crest

How to Model Crests or Helmets: “Whenever you have occasion to make a crest or helmet for a tourney, or for rulers who have to march in state, you must first get some white leather which is not dressed except with myrtle or ciefalonia, stretch it, and draw your crest the way you want it made. And draw two of them, and sew them together; but leave it open enough on one side so that you can put sand into it; and press it with a little stick until it is all quite full. When you have done this, put it in the sun for several days. When it is quite dry, take the sand out of it . Then take some of the regular size for gessoing, and size it two or three times. Then take some gesso grosso ground with size, and mix in some beaten tow, and get it stiff, like a batter; and put on this gesso, and rough it in, giving it any shape of man, or beast, or bird, which you may have to make, getting it as like as you can. This done, take some gesso grosso ground with size, liquid and flowing, on a brush, and you lay it three or four times over this crest with a brush. Then, when it is quite dry, scrape it and smooth it down, just as you do when you work on panel. Then, in the same way, as I showed you how to gesso with gesso sotile on panel, in that same way gesso this crest. When it is dry, scrape it and smooth it down; and then if it is necessary to make the eyes of glass, put them in with the gesso for modeling; do modeling if it is called for. Then, if it is to be gold or silver, lay some bole, just as on panel; and follow the same method in every detail, and the same for the painting, varnishing it in the usual way”

– From Chapter CLXIX, Il Libro dell’Arte (The Craftsman’s Handbook), Cennino D’Andrea Cennini

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Our thirteenth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Lady Raziya bint Rusa, of the Barony of Carolingia. She examines a question that troubles many people working with illuminated manuscripts: what exactly are those plants in the illuminations? Are they fanciful or are they plants that really existed in history? (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Persian Plants in Miniature:  What are the Plants in Persian Illuminations?

Four years ago I bought a book of Persian miniatures for reference to help me sew garb.  As I paged through over breakfast one illustration caught my eye – a hollyhock.  I am a gardener by trade, and thought it out of place that a hollyhock, a staple of the English country garden, would be found in Persia.  To satisfy my curiosity I did a quick web-search into Persian Plants.  This line of questioning would be the undoing of my motivation to sew; two years later I had a seven thousand entry horticultural database and no new garb.

Continue reading “Arts & Sciences Research Paper #13: Persian Plants in Miniature: What are the Plants in Persian Illuminations?” →

Our twelfth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Condêssa Violante do Porto, of the Shire of Quintavia. She examines a kind of puzzle that is all too familiar to the student of historical crafts: What do you do about problems arising from trying to do a historical craft with our more modern tools? (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Untwisting the Answer: A Trick for Tablet Weaving on Modern Portable Looms

Our eleventh A&S Research Paper comes to us from Lord Gideon ha-Khazar, until very recently of the Barony of Dragonship Haven and now of the Barony of the Middle Marches, and who did most of this research while he was a citizen of our fair kingdom. He examines the history of a group of people many of us know very little about – European Jewish freeholders who fought in battles alongside their non-Jewish counterparts – and provides fascinating historical support for medieval Jewish fighting personae. (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

 Jewish Carolingian Fighters: The Jewish Fighting Freeholders of Carolingian Southern France

Our ninth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Lady Adrienne d’Evreus, of the Province of Malagentia. She turns to the flora of her woodlands to learn ways that medieval painters made green pigments. (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Making green paint medievally with spring irises and fall buckthorn berries

Our eighth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Sir Michael of York of the Barony of Carolingia. He examines a catastrophic climatological event with both modern and historical records, and in the telling introduces us to a very interesting chronicler. (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Matthew Paris and the Volcano

Our seventh A&S Research Paper comes to us from Baroness Charitye Dale, of the Barony of Settmour Swamp. She examines a question that would have affected our personas practically every single day – how did people manage before toilet paper? (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Life Before Toilet Paper

Our sixth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Hypatissa Anna Dokeianina Syrakousina, of the Barony of Stonemarche; she is using the lens of literature to further our understanding of the perception of Greek women in history. (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Good Wife; Bad Wife:  The Perception of Greek Women through Archaic and Classical Literature

There is a great deal to be learned about previous cultures through the literary evidence they have left behind. In the case of the early Greeks, classicists and historians have a remarkable amount of material to work from, ranging from epic poetry to political discourses. Within the confines of poetry and theater, a great deal of information can be extrapolated about society, including the contemporary points of view on women and their roles. This paper will argue that the female characters in the works of Homer, the Homeric Hymns, and Aeschylus, are portrayals of the contemporary ideal Greek woman and her insubordinate opposite. Examination of these characters begins with the “good wife,” in which the women of Greek literature take passive roles, “the bad wife”, the characters that take on aggressive roles, and an analysis of the Greek audience, and the messages they could have been receiving when experiencing these bodies of work.