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Children’s Toys Not Always Fun and Games
Children in the past played with many of the same toys children of today play with. The origin of many of these toys date back to ancient times. Toys were so important, they worked their way into the legends of the saints. One story about St. Elizabeth tells of her bringing glass playthings to poor children. She was riding up a hill with the toys folded in her cloak and hit a bump. All the toys fell onto the rocks, but none of them broke. Toys also served another purpose, to train boys and girls for their roles as adults. Toys that make noise have always been popular with kids,…
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Women and Sexual Inequality
It is pretty much common knowledge that women throughout history were, for the most part, living in a man’s world and unjustly treated in accordance with today’s standards. Although most of us have a basic understanding of how women have been mistreated, it may not be common knowledge of how women’s sexuality was viewed during medieval times in England. Let us first consider the options a woman in Medieval society had. First, and foremost, a woman’s life was almost always dictated by a man, whether it be her father before marrying age, her husband, a widow (where she would still carry her dead husband’s title, debts, etc making her still…
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Surviving life in the Past- Eating utensils or why your fork is the gateway to Hell
Our first eating utensils were our fingers- utilitarian and simple. However, as manners and class distinctions developed eating with our hands became more complex. By the 1500’s, it was socially desirable to use only the first three fingers. Only the lower classes used their whole hand. This is one of the origins of “pinkie up” as being high brow. Hands were cleaned with a napkin or finger bowls. Erasmus, the Dutch humanist, wrote one of the first modern book of manners, and instructed diners to never lick their fingers. Use a napkin or if that was unavailable the tablecloth. It was also frowned upon to blow one’s nose in the…
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Merry Medieval Christmas
The first recorded use of the word Christmas was in an Anglos Saxon book in 1038 referring to “Cristes Maesse”. It took a backseat in significance to March 25, the Annunciation, and Easter, but was still an important holiday. The forty days prior to Christmas, people prepared for Christmas by fasting for Advent. This time of preparation and penance, traditionally began on November 11, the feast of St. Martin of Tours. The faithful were expected to fast, pray and abstain from weddings, love making, games and unnecessary travel. Fasting did not mean abstaining from all food. A good Christian would abstain from meat, cheese, fat, wine, ale and honey…
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Medieval Beauty
As a re-enactor portraying a wealthy medieval lady, one of the most common questions that you can be asked is “did they wear make-up?” Well, the simple answer is yes, but not in the way that we are familiar with today. It’s well known that the ancient Egyptians, both men and women, wore make up: we are all familiar with the images of them with heavily made up eyes, so why should your fashion conscious well to do lady in the Middle Ages be any different? We have an abundance of sources available to us today in the form of documents, effigies, illustrations in manuscripts, portraits etc. to help us…
