Gloria Harchar

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January 30th, 2012 by gloria harchar

Clothing for Anglo-Saxons

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Seventy Century Anglo-Saxon

Not only was wool the cornerstone of early British economy, it was also the resource for everybody’s wardrobe, whether you were an aristocrat or a tradesman, tenant, etc. I thought it strange when I found out that flax was used to make underclothing. I use flax seed when I make bread, and I’ve used flax seed oil.

But when I researched it, I discovered flax was used for fabric in ancient Egyptian times. Flax is grown both for its seeds and for its fiber. According to Wikipedia, various parts of the plant have been used in the past to make fabric, dye, paper, medicines, fishing nets, hair gels, and soap. Flax seed is the source of linseed oil, which is used as an edible oil, as a nutritional supplement and as an ingredient in many wood finishing products. Flax is also grown as an ornamental plant in gardens.

Silk for undergarments was very costly and hard to come by since it was imported from China, and only the aristocracy could afford the smooth fabric. I’m not sure whether or not it was illegal for a low-born to wear silk. The high-born would bury the sainted in silk. Isn’t that a waste? It isn’t as if God would care–or the deceased, for that matter. Most people had to wear wool right next to their skin, which would be scratchy and irritating to the skin!

Women wore cloth over their heads, held in place by a slim metal or cloth band tied across their foreheads.

In the early Anglo-Saxon period, women wore their hair loose, plaited, or caught in snood-like nets.  Simple caps have also been found at archaeological digs.  By the 7th century veil-like head coverings become more popular, and a grave close to Kent is where archaeologists discovered brooches and pins in an Anglo-Saxon grave.

11th Century Anglo-Saxon Women

Curling tongs were in existence, so some hair must have been meant to be seen beneath the headgear.  As the period progresses women show less and less of their crowning glory because of the growing grip of Christianity and St. Paul’s injunction that women keep their heads covered. By the 11th century, a headdress nearly envelopes the head and neck in a nun-like wimple. If a woman did not wear a headrail or wimple, she was considered a heathen.

Reference

Owen-Crocker, G. (1986). Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester University Press, The Boydell Press. Suffolk, UK.

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January 18th, 2012 by gloria harchar

History of The Sock

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Sock. Hose. Stocking. However we define these related words today, or however we use them in a sentence interchangeably, one thing is for sure. These items are not the same as they are now. For example, the sock in Roman times was a soft leather slipper Roman women, and some high councilmen, wore. Hose covered the leg, but not the foot. The term “stocking” didn’t even relate to clothing apparel until the sixteenth century, and its evolution up the leg from the foot took hundreds of years.

The history of men’s and women’s “socks” begins with the birth of garments that were “put on” rather than merely “wrapped around.”

Greek women in 600 B.C. first put on a low, soft sandal-like shoe that covered mainly the toes and heel. They were called sykhos, and if a man wore them others thought it was a sign of shame. Sykhos became a favorite comic theater gimmick, guaranteed to win a male actor laughter.

Roman women copied the Greek sykhos and Latinized its name to soccus. it, too, was donned by Roman mimes, making it for centuries the standard comedy apparel, as baggy pants would later become the clown’s trademark.

The soccus was the forerunner of the term sock and the mid-calf sock. The soccus fashion was picked up by the British where the Anglo-Saxons shortened the word to soc. The Anglo-Saxons discovered that a soft soc worn in a rough-feeling boot protected the foot from blisters and abrasions. Too, the soccus traveled to Germany, where they were also worn under boots. Germans shortened the word to socc. Until the nineteenth century, socc referred to both footwear and a light-weight shoe.

Reference

Panati, C. (1987). Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, Harper & Row Publishers, New York, NY.

 

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January 11th, 2012 by gloria harchar

Domesday Book

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Doomesday Box and Book

In December 1085 William the Conqueror commissioned the book to be written. William invaded England in 1066 and defeated them during the Battle of Hastings, where he killed King Alfred with an arrow to his eye. The first draft was completed in August 1086 and contained records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble and Tees (the border with Scotland at the time). The system of landholding as depicted throughout the Domesday Book was based on a rigid social heirachy called the feudal system which was imposed on England after William took over the country. This is what my heroine is resisting by becoming the Saxon Shadow.

“Dom” in the name is an older form of the modern word “doom.” Today the word is mainly used in a negative sense, but originally it was more neutral and meant essentially “judgement” or “reckoning.” So Domesday meant in the Day of Reckoning. The accounts set down in the Domesday book were considered to be accurate and final, with no possible appeal.

The original Domesday Book has survived over 900 years of English history and is currently housed in a specially made chest at The National Archives in Kew, London. This site has been set up to enable visitors to discover the history of the Domesday Book, to give an insight into life at the time of its compilation, and provide information and links on related topics.

 

Reference

(1999). Referred by http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/index.html.

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December 11th, 2011 by gloria harchar

Forgotten English

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Intoxicants & Potions Knowledge Cards

The Box

Years ago when I was in New York City, I found these wonderful knowledge cards by Jeffrey Kacirk that tests a person’s familiarity with British historical facts about every day stuff. On the back of the box (which is the same size as a box of playing cards) it says:

When you’ve learned from these Knowledge Cards what people used to drink, wear on their heads, or stick up their noses, you’ll understand why European history has unfolded in such a peculiar fashion. Ale in which a rooster has been steeped for a week, rainwater collected from lead roofs; such potations might have been drunk from a tankard lined with pitch, or forsworn in favor for a glass of soot.

There are 48 cards. I will share some of them with you from time to time.  Here are some of the terms with their definitions.

Aurum Potabile: Among chymists (apothecaries or pharmacists), a rich cordial liquor with pieces of gold-leaf in it.  ~Nathaniel Bailey’s Etymological English Dictionary, 1749.

Three-Threads: A corruption of “three thirds” the term denoted a draught, once popular, made up of a third each of ale, beer and “two-penny,” in contradistinction to “half-and-half.” This beverage was superseded in 1722 by the very similar porter, or “entire.”  ~Roberty Chambers’s Encyclopedia, 1874.

Thelygonum: An herb, which, steeped in drink, is said to make a woman conceive a girl.  ~Nathaniel Bailey’s Etymological English Dictionary, 1749.

Bridge Over Water

Unspoken Water: Water from under a bridge over which the living pass and the dead are carried, brought in the dawn or twilight in the house of a sick person, without the bearer’s speaking either in going or returning.  ~Alexander Warrack’s Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911.

Sometimes the invalid takes three draughts of it before anything is spoken; sometimes it is thrown over the house, the vessel in which it was contained being thrown after it. The superstitious believe this to be one of the most powerful charms that can be employed for restoring a sick person to health.  ~John Jamieson’s Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808.

Tincture of the Moon: A dissolution of some of the more rerify’d parts

Chemist Writing Formulas

of silver, made in spirit of wine, and whetted by alkali-salts.  ~Edward Phillips’s New World of English Words, 1706. This name probably was derived from some notion of the old chemists about the influence of the moon in the preparation of dissolvents.  ~Samuel Johnsons’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1755.

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October 20th, 2011 by gloria harchar

Dagwood or Whippletree?

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Interesting how one takes things for granted. For instance, bushes. There are all kinds of bushes in my area—bottle brush, poison ivy that grows on stumps, honey suckle, crabapple. I was writing and just said something about her hiding behind a bush. Then I started thinking, what kind of bush? Are there even any bushes in Northern Great Britain?

I started researching and found out dogwood is popular in the area. But the name “dog-tree” entered the English vocabulary by 1548. My story is set in 1067. So that isn’t good. FYI, dog-tree had been further transformed to “dogwood” by 1614. Once the name dogwood was affixed to this kind of tree, it soon acquired a secondary name as the Hound’s Tree, while the fruits came to be known as dogberries or houndberries (the latter a name also for the berries of black nightshade, alluding to Hecate’s hounds). There is another theory that “dogwood” was derived from the Old English dagwood. Warriors used the slender stems of its very hard wood for making ‘dags’ (daggers, skewers, and arrows). I couldn’t find when dagwood was used.

Dagwood

So what to use—dagwood or whippletree? The Canterbury Tales were written in the fourteenth century which is two hundred years after the setting of my novel. So. I think I’ll use dagwood, although all I can find as reference is that dagwood is from old English, which is older than fourteenth century.

And I think my heroine can hide very nicely behind a dagwood like the one pictured here!

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September 18th, 2011 by gloria harchar

Economy

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Merchants Bartering

After the Roman empire left Great Britain, the British reverted to bartering. Even though coins were minted, they didn’t become common until after the 12th century when the British monetary system became fully functional.

Throughout the period, fairs as well as peddlers played important roles. During the early part of the century, roads were full of potholes and crumbling, and traveling was dangerous because of renegades and bandits. Even so, courageous merchants ventured out to ply their trade. At

Medieval Cart

first, merchants used mules and horses to transport their goods. Carts were reserved for farmers–besides, the disrepair of the roads caused carts to turn over easily. Another disadvantage of using carts was that any good that fell from a cart could be claimed by a Lord. In the 12th century, merchants began using carts, and as trade increased, lords began repairing their portions of the roads to help bring goods to their castles. One rule of the road was to take the left side when they saw somebody approaching.

As the times settled, fairs became more important to the medieval economy. Once they started gaining popularity, a variety of levies and taxes became common to use against travelers and merchants. Some lords even forced travelers to pay for protection–something of which they never really got.

With the rise of trade during the 11th century, guilds became more prevalent, which were first formed by the clergy a century earlier. Guilds played an important part in trade because they controlled the quality of the goods and the price. Apprentices were assigned on to a trade or skill early in life for seven years at which point they would become a journeyman or a journeywoman.

Depending on their contract, a journeyman would have to pay a small or large fee before he could leave. Women apprentices usually stayed on with their masters until they married. To gain mastership a journeyman/woman would have to produce a masterpiece of workmanship. Only if the guild deemed it worthy could the journeyman/woman become a master.

Though there were several women dominated guilds such as weaving, brewing

Masonry Guild

and spinning, most of these were overseen by men. Guilds provided protection for the workers, similar to unions today. For various reasons, not all trades formed guilds.

Guilds gave town the power to barter their freedom from the lords or king who ruled them and allowed them to form their own laws.  Because of this power, some lords refused to relinquish control so there were also towns that never had guild merchants.

Traditionally, guilds aligned themselves with the church and chose a patron saint. Most of them held religious ceremonies at the beginning of their meetings. Again, people then as now were motivated by a variety of reasons to form and get involved in guilds and guild ceremonies. The agenda and function of each guild depended on the aldermen leading it.

Reference

Kenyon, S. (1995). Everyday Life in the Middle Ages: The British Isles from 500 to 1500; Writer’s Digest, Cincinnati, OH.

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