Our eighteenth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Mistress Sarah Davies of the Barony of Bergental, who introduces us to the surprising world of historical quilting, where we discover some familiar friends and some quite unfamiliar new ones! (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

Early Quilting and Patchwork: A Short Introduction

Silk quilt by Mistress Sarah Davies. Photo by Master Henry McQueen.

The word “quilt” summons a host of images:

• Thrifty pioneer housewives cutting up worn clothing to piece elaborate patchworks for their families.

• Album quilts raffled off for a worthy cause.

• Wholecloth petticoats worn by colonial dames who danced with George Washington, then carefully preserved in a museum.

• Brightly colored feed sack quilts during the Depression.

• Community quilts telling the story of a town from its founding to the Bicentennial.

• Inexpensive versions of patchwork quilts sold in department stores for families wanting that “country look” in the bedroom.

• Cherished art quilts hanging in museums or going for high prices at auction.

The popular image of the quilt is of the quilt is modern, calico, and as all-American as an apple pie.  If the word “medieval” ever comes up, it’s because someone made a Game of Thrones quilt with appliqued dire wolves in the border.

The problem with this familiar stereotype is thatit doesn’t begin to reflect reality.  Patchwork and applique may be most associated the United States, but quilts themselves are anything but modern. Quilted carpets were prized on the steppes of Central Asia, quilted garments padded Crusader mail and protected Elizabethan fencers, quilted coverlets graced Tudor bed chambers, and quilted heraldic tapestries hung in Hungarian throne rooms. The evidence is scattered and sometimes hard to recognize, but quilting and patchwork were hardly alien to medieval Europe. Continue reading →

Our seventeenth A&S Research Paper takes a turn to the lighthearted, and comes to us from Mistress Aildreda de Tamworthe of the Barony of Carolingia. She offers a tabloids-eye view of some of the more ghastly deaths of the medieval period – not necessarily to be considered for our lunchtime readers! (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

You Won’t Believe How They Went! Five Strange and Terrible Medieval Ends

Who is this? Read on to find out the unbelievable truth!

Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it.
– Wm. Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), I.iv.

A person can achieve historical notoriety in many ways; brave deeds, terrible deeds, happy or cruel accidents of birth and geography, or even a greatly distinctive appearance. But one certain way to be remembered for posterity is to die in some memorable fashion. Today, the East Kingdom Gazette brings you five tabloid stories from history, wherein we learn of some of the more notorious exits of the Middle Ages. Please note that some are quite gruesome!

(NB: Like all good stories, these have been embroidered in the telling and the recollection. We have endeavored to provide the true tale in every case.)

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Our sixteenth A&S Research Paper comes to us from Lord Drake Oranwood of the Shire of Rusted Woodlands, who examines the work of the Elizabethan songwriter Thomas Campion, and uses his texts as a way to look closely at the role of women in that complex society. (Prospective future contributors, please check out our original Call for Papers.)

The Double Bind: Thomas Campion and Elizabethan Women

Young Lady Aged 21, possibly Helena Snakenborg, later Marchioness of Northampton. By English School, 16th century [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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

Lemons, preserving. Photo by Aildreda de Tamwurthe.

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

A German heraldic crest for a tournament. Sold at auction by Pierre Bergé & Associés.

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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