NY Times article on Tudor food.  Thought this would amuse.

Isabeau

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30food.html

Thanks for sharing!  I love that the author describes the food
as "nouvelle ancienne cuisine"...that's fantastic. :-)


Vittoria

--- In Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com, "Lady_Lark_Azure"
<jenniferanne21@...> wrote:
>
> NY Times article on Tudor food.  Thought this would amuse.
>
> Isabeau
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30food.html
>

--- In Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com, "glaukopisathene"
<phoenissa@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for sharing!  I love that the author describes the food
> as "nouvelle ancienne cuisine"...that's fantastic. :-)
>
>
> Vittoria

I liked his reaction to the stuff in the Vivendier.  The repeated "Oh,
my God!" was particularly effective.  :)  The "not that I'd ever go to
the extreme of trying it" comment made me immediately think "well,
obviously you're not SCAdian!"

Isabeau

>
>
> > Thanks for sharing!  I love that the author describes the food
> > as "nouvelle ancienne cuisine"...that's fantastic. :-)
> >
>
> I liked his reaction to the stuff in the Vivendier.  The repeated "Oh,
> my God!" was particularly effective.  :)  The "not that I'd ever go to
> the extreme of trying it" comment made me immediately think "well,
> obviously you're not SCAdian!"
>


I don't know.. If I attended a feast where they tortured a chicken, filled
it with steamed mercury, then paraded it around while the neck hole clucked
with bubbling sulfur I'd be more then a little alarmed.

-J


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Lady_Lark_Azure wrote:

> NY Times article on Tudor food.  Thought this would amuse.
>
> Isabeau
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30food.html


Er, I'd like to read it, but have no subscription. :(

Margaret Northwode, who'd love to hear an NYC food writer learn religion
over Tudor food.

I can see it without a subscription.  Also, if you are not adverse, bugmenot.com
has log ins for most newspapers.

Gwenhyfar

----- Original Message -----
   From: Margaret N
   To: Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com
   Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 6:40 PM
   Subject: Re: [Authentic_SCA] NY Times article on Tudor food


   Lady_Lark_Azure wrote:

   > NY Times article on Tudor food.  Thought this would amuse.
   >
   > Isabeau
   >
   > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30food.html


   Er, I'd like to read it, but have no subscription. :(

   Margaret Northwode, who'd love to hear an NYC food writer learn religion
   over Tudor food.




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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi,

I'll be doing a feast at the end of the month, and a German cookbook from
the late 1300's includes rice, which is a nice easy starch.  Does anyone
know off the top of their heads what form the rice took
there/then?  Brown?  White?  Short, long, or medium grain?

--Kareina, who has too much uni work she should be doing so will just ask
in this one place, and if no one knows off the top of their heads will just
go with what is on sale that day...


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/329 - Release Date: 5/2/06

> Hi,
>
> I'll be doing a feast at the end of the month, and a German
> cookbook from
> the late 1300's includes rice, which is a nice easy starch.  Does
> anyone
> know off the top of their heads what form the rice took
> there/then?  Brown?  White?  Short, long, or medium grain?

I think that the long grain American Style rices we are familiar with are a
late hybrid.
Most authorities on Rice indicate that Europe got the idea form the Romans, who
seem to have picked up a south Asian cultivar from their conquests of former
Persia (Persia got it from India).
This is probably the same medium grain cultivar that is used in Arabic and North
African (and therefore traditional Spanish) cuisine.

So, I would go with a medium grain brown or white rice.
(White would be for the wealthier set, as that takes a bit more processing.)

Short grain (such as Japonica or Arborio) is also possible, but I would use it
for mixed dishes where the rice is a thickener, not a main ingredient.

IMHO, you'd be pretty safe to just stick with medium grain rice, brown or
white.
Goya tends to have medium grain rice on sale a lot. and you can get it in
big bulk bags.


Capt Elias Gedney
Dragonship Haven, East
(Stratford, CT, USA)
Apprentice in the House of Silverwing

-Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas

> I don't know.. If I attended a feast where they tortured a chicken,
filled
> it with steamed mercury, then paraded it around while the neck hole
clucked
> with bubbling sulfur I'd be more then a little alarmed.
>
> -J

While I can't see anyone I know dealing with the live chicken, I can
see several people trying to get an already dead one to cluck--not at
an event, but in their own home, just to see if it really was
possible.  Of course, given the chemicals involved, if it did work
they'd probably then try to figure out a foodsafe way to do it for an
event.  Even after having helped my parents raise them, and knowing
what nasty little buggers they can be, I'd be alarmed by torturing the
poor things for amusement too.

I should have clarified that I was thinking of experiments with ones
already neatly packaged from the supermarket (since, lets face it,
most of us (myself unfortunately excluded) have been spared the whole
killing, dressing, plucking experience).

Isabeau

On Wed, 3 May 2006, Lady_Lark_Azure wrote:

> While I can't see anyone I know dealing with the live
> chicken, I can see several people trying to get an already
> dead one to cluck--not at an event, but in their own home,
> just to see if it really was possible.

>sigh<

Yes, it really is possible to get a dead chicken to cluck.

No, we didn't do it on purpose.

Don't ask; you _really_ don't want to know.

> I should have clarified that I was thinking of experiments
> with ones already neatly packaged from the supermarket
> (since, lets face it, most of us (myself unfortunately
> excluded) have been spared the whole killing, dressing,
> plucking experience).

Lucky you. ;-)

Regards,
Lyle
(raised on a farm that had 3,000 chickens at one time)

--
Lyle H. Gray
gray@... -- text only, please
http://members.verizon.net/~vze3wwx7
  --
Shared knowledge is preserved knowledge.

>
>  Of course, given the chemicals involved, if it did work
> they'd probably then try to figure out a foodsafe way to do it for an
> event.
>

Grisly. I'm not a vegetarian, but maybe I'm a bit too urban for that kind of
food play to not seem like Frankenstein. I was never raised with chickens, I
do eat them though.

-J


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> Grisly. I'm not a vegetarian, but maybe I'm a bit too urban for that
kind of
> food play to not seem like Frankenstein. I was never raised with
chickens, I
> do eat them though.

It's a common attitude in our modern world.  Mom & dad kept the
chickens which I took care of, along with the pony & goats I had for
pets (and we nearly had goat stew for dinner after one of them
stripped mom's brand new holly bush!) Gramps retired to VT and raised
Black Angus.  Most of my friends found it highly disturbing that the
eggs for breakfast came from the backyard, and I knew my burger by
name.  I think it's a shame that we sanitize things so much.  When
you're that far removed from the process, you can't appreciate what
goes into things.

My two cents,
Isabeau

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lady_Lark_Azure" <jenniferanne21@...>
To: <Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 3:35 PM
Subject: [Authentic_SCA] Re: NY Times article on Tudor food


>
>> Grisly. I'm not a vegetarian, but maybe I'm a bit too urban for that
> kind of
>> food play to not seem like Frankenstein. I was never raised with
> chickens, I
>> do eat them though.
>
> It's a common attitude in our modern world.  Mom & dad kept the
> chickens which I took care of, along with the pony & goats I had for
> pets (and we nearly had goat stew for dinner after one of them
> stripped mom's brand new holly bush!) Gramps retired to VT and raised
> Black Angus.  Most of my friends found it highly disturbing that the
> eggs for breakfast came from the backyard, and I knew my burger by
> name.  I think it's a shame that we sanitize things so much.  When
> you're that far removed from the process, you can't appreciate what
> goes into things.

I wouldn't be disturbed by eggs from the backyard, but I admit, yes, I buy
my meat products from the grocery store. I had a friend when I was a teen
who raised beef cattle--I'll never forget the day when I asked where one of
them was, and she pointed to the freezer!

I have been known to threaten to make parrot stew, though, when he decides
to take a bath and throw dirty water on me while I vacuum around his cage.

Laurensa
>
> My two cents,
> Isabeau
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> This is the Authentic SCA eGroup
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

>
>   I think it's a shame that we sanitize things so much.  When
> you're that far removed from the process, you can't appreciate what
> goes into things.
>


For the most part I agree with you, when oil become $5000 a barrel and we
all have to walk to work and grow our own food, nothing, I mean NOTHING will
keep me from my hamburger addiction, even if I have to raise the burger
myself from a calf.

And actually, I really like the idea of getting my eggs from the backyard.

Maybe it's the food puppetering that is making me wierd...

**** SUBJECT CHANGE because we are getting off topic ****

My girlfriend spins her own wool thread. She is more into spinning and
making of yarn then the actual weaving of garments. We were talking about
how most Medievals wore the same outfit day in and day out until they were
literally falling apart and NEEDED to be replaced. Now back in the day, the
middle classes could buy a new outfit once in a while I suppose, and the
poorer classes had to weave and sew new clothes them selves. I was talking
about what they did with the old clothes and made rags and such, but my
girlfriend suggested that if it was a rarer material or an unusual color of
dye they probably did thread reclaimation and spun up and wove all new
fabric.

I found that idea facinating and I was wondering if there was any evidence
to this in any of the surviving records. I occurs to me this could be the
main source of all the crazy linen/wool blends we keep reading about but
have difficulty defining.

Any thoughts? Information? Web links out there?

-J


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Wed, 3 May 2006, Justin wrote:

> My girlfriend spins her own wool thread. She is more into
> spinning and making of yarn then the actual weaving of
> garments. We were talking about how most Medievals wore the
> same outfit day in and day out until they were literally
> falling apart and NEEDED to be replaced. Now back in the day,
> the middle classes could buy a new outfit once in a while I
> suppose, and the poorer classes had to weave and sew new
> clothes them selves. I was talking about what they did with
> the old clothes and made rags and such, but my girlfriend
> suggested that if it was a rarer material or an unusual color
> of dye they probably did thread reclaimation and spun up and
> wove all new fabric.
>
> I found that idea facinating and I was wondering if there was
> any evidence to this in any of the surviving records. I
> occurs to me this could be the main source of all the crazy
> linen/wool blends we keep reading about but have difficulty
> defining.
>
> Any thoughts? Information? Web links out there?

Thoughts, but no docs to back it up...

Wool, maybe -- I don't work old wool enough to know.

Linen, probably not.  The fibers break down over time (which is a
benefit to me, since I'm collecting linen rags for papermaking
experiments), so I don't think that respinning fibers from the
old cloth would be that useful.

Regards,
Lyle FitzWilliam

--
Lyle H. Gray
gray@... -- text only, please
http://members.verizon.net/~vze3wwx7
  --
Shared knowledge is preserved knowledge.

<snip>>
> I found that idea facinating and I was wondering if there was any
evidence
> to this in any of the surviving records. I occurs to me this could
be the
> main source of all the crazy linen/wool blends we keep reading
about but
> have difficulty defining.
>
> Any thoughts? Information? Web links out there?
>
> -J
My thoughts are that it would be more trouble than it would be worth
to pick apart wool or linen and reweave it.  Far more likely that the
garment was altered or remade into something else.  Given the textile
finds of seams and ends in middens, this has some potential.  See MOL
Cloth and Clothing.

Silk might be a different matter.  Given how rare and costly it was,
you might pull apart cloth and remake the threads into ribbands.  Or
keep the treads for embroidery.

I know gold was reclaimed.  Am thinking that heavily embroidered
areas could easily be appliqued on a new outfit.

BTW, am more familiar w/ textile production than costuming.

YMMV,
Cassandra of Glastonbury

"Kareina Talvi Tytär" kareina@... wrote:
>  I'll be doing a feast at the end of the month, and a German
>  cookbook from  the late 1300's includes rice, which is a
>nice easy starch.  Does anyone  know off the top of their
>  heads what form the rice took there/then?  Brown?  White?
>   Short, long, or medium grain?

"gedney@..." responded:
>I think that the long grain American Style rices we are familiar with are a
>late hybrid.

True...

>Most authorities on Rice indicate that Europe
>got the idea form the Romans, who
>seem to have picked up a south Asian cultivar from their conquests of former
>Persia (Persia got it from India).

That's not quite true. The Romans didn't get much
rice. It was so rare it was not even considered
to be a food. Like sugar, which was also very
rare in Rome, it was considered to be a medicine.

The oldest found evidence of rice cultivation is
8500 BCE in the Yangtze River basin, but it may
have been cultivated earlier. Because it can be
tricky to grow, its cultivation moved slowly. By
2000 BCE it had reached North India, South and
Central China, and all of Southeast Asia. Rice
moved slowly to Japan and the Middle East (i.e.,
Southwest Asia), where it arrived sometime
between 300 BC and 200 AD. At that time it was
not considered a basic food stuff in the Middle
East - it was still something of a luxury.

Rice finally made it to Egypt in the 6th or 7th
century CE. Muhammed considered it a favorite
food and Muslims took rice cultivation with them
as they moved westward, to Wesetern North Africa,
and to Sicily and Spain.

It was being imported into Europe by the 13th
century. In the 15th century it was finally being
grown in North Italy.

The author of the article in The Oxford Companion
to Food (D.E.) speculates that the Medieval
Blancmange developed as a way to join two
expensive luxury food items: rice and sugar

>This is probably the same medium grain cultivar
>that is used in Arabic and North
>African (and therefore traditional Spanish) cuisine.

I agree that a medium grain rice would be a good
choice. According to the Oxford Companion to
Food, however, it is not what is commonly grown
in Spain - the preferred rice in Spain is a short
grained rice marketed as "Bomba". The rice
industry in Spain is very different today from
what it was in SCA period. The Muslims brought
wet rice cultivation (yes, there is such as thing
as dry cultivation). But after the Christians
completed their Reconquista at the end of the
15th century, they gradually stopped cultivating
rice because they noticed a correlation between
wet rice cultivation and malaria, and most of it
was stopped by the 18th century. The modern
Spanish rice industry was rebuilt in the late
19th and 20th century.

I, too, would recommend staying away from short
grain rice. It was less commonly grown than
medium or long grain and in rather specific
areas. Japanese table rice is short grain. It
tends to be a bit stickier than medium or long
grain. It is not what is or was eaten in the
Middle East or the Near East and therefore not
what would be grown in or imported into Europe.

>So, I would go with a medium grain brown or white rice.
>(White would be for the wealthier set, as that takes a bit more processing.)

Brown rice would NOT be used. Brown rice was not
even in common use in rice growing cultures.
Brown rice is disdained and is only for people
who are so poor they cannot afford to take their
rice to a miller.

Rice was an expensive luxury food in Europe if
you didn't live in Muslim Spain or Muslim Sicily.
Rice was for the wealthy. White rice.

I won't recommend a particular brand, since i
don't know what's available where you are - are
you still in Tasmania? If you can't find medium
grain, use long grain.
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

Justin wrote:

>Now back in the day, the
>middle classes could buy a new outfit once in a while I suppose, and the
>poorer classes had to weave and sew new clothes them selves.
>
Actually, I believe _weaving_ was done by professionals for most of the
middle ages.

--
Adele de Maisieres

-----------------------------
Habeo metrum - musicamque,
hominem meam. Expectat alium quid?
-Georgeus Gershwinus
-----------------------------

--- In Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com, "Lyle H. Gray" <gray@...> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 3 May 2006, Justin wrote:
>
[...] but my girlfriend
> > suggested that if it was a rarer material or an unusual color
> > of dye they probably did thread reclaimation and spun up and
> > wove all new fabric.
[...]
> > It occurs to me this could be the main source of all the crazy
> > linen/wool blends we keep reading about but have difficulty
> > defining.

> Wool, maybe -- I don't work old wool enough to know.
>
> Linen, probably not.  The fibers break down over time (which is a
> benefit to me, since I'm collecting linen rags for papermaking
> experiments), so I don't think that respinning fibers from the
> old cloth would be that useful.

I know when I was a child (back before the earth cooled, as my mother
used to say) you could buy garments made from "reprocessed" wool.
IIRC, this was wool from old garments which had been processed back
into fiber, respun, and woven into new cloth. This is why you get
labels on things saying "100% *virgin* wool" (ta-da! whoop de do!) to
indicate that none of the fiber in the garment, blanket, whatever, is
reprocessed. Actually haven't seen the reprocessed label in a while,
still see the virgin wool label.

Reprocessed wool was scratchier and less desirable, but cheaper.

Were the blends we are discussing here, *spun* blends (linen and wool
spun into one yarn) or wool one way and linen the other (warp/weft?) I
knew that about linsey woolsey for about 5 seconds once :-)

If spun together, blending might make the yarn, and hence the fabric,
stronger -- since re-carded wool would have shorter fibers and be less
strong.

Gillian [talking through her hat] Durham

>
>
> >Now back in the day, the
> >middle classes could buy a new outfit once in a while I suppose, and the
> >poorer classes had to weave and sew new clothes them selves.
> >
> Actually, I believe _weaving_ was done by professionals for most of the
> middle ages.
>


Knitting is as old as mankind, weaving too, do you think it was a guild
issue that had professionals making fabric? I don't think it could have been
a know-how issue that would prevent the masses from making their own clothes
and fabric.

I would think that it would be difficult for poor serfs and peasants locked
in communal strip farming would be able to go out and get fabric, wouldn't
it be more feasable to have access to raw wool or flax and then make the
stuff your self during the long winters when all the boys are off fighting
wars?

I know some fabrics were imported, but I'm talking about day to day wear of
the lower and middle classes mainly. I'm looking for books on the matter
because it is my current obsession.

-J


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com, Justin <warriorneedsfood@...> wrote:

> Knitting is as old as mankind, weaving too, do you think it was a
> guild issue that had professionals making fabric?

Spinning requires a drop spindle or at best a spinning wheel. Weaving
fabric of any width requires a *honking* big loom -- not the sort of
thing you have room for in a one- or two- room hovel :-)

But that's a good point, did people who spun their own yard then farm
it out to someone with a loom? or did they just make not-very-wide
strips of cloth on a tabletop loom of some kind?

Gillian [envisioning something like a potholder loom or an inkle loom,
only slightly bigger] Durham

--- In Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com, "msgilliandurham"
<msgilliandurham@...> wrote:
> I know when I was a child (back before the earth cooled, as my
mother
> used to say) you could buy garments made from "reprocessed" wool.
> IIRC, this was wool from old garments which had been processed back
> into fiber, respun, and woven into new cloth. This is why you get
> labels on things saying "100% *virgin* wool" (ta-da! whoop de do!)
to
> indicate that none of the fiber in the garment, blanket, whatever,
is
> reprocessed. Actually haven't seen the reprocessed label in a
while,
> still see the virgin wool label.

The first time I'd seen a reprocessed label was on a fairly new Army
blanket a couple years ago.  Had to explain to my mother
that "contains reprocessed fibers" is NOT the same as "not pure
wool."

>
> Reprocessed wool was scratchier and less desirable, but cheaper.
>
> Were the blends we are discussing here, *spun* blends (linen and
wool
> spun into one yarn) or wool one way and linen the other
(warp/weft?) I
> knew that about linsey woolsey for about 5 seconds once :-)

I THINK linsey-woolsy is linen one way and wool the other, but I
can't recall where I read that and I may be confusing it with
something else.

-- Kelyn

speaking from a Scandinavian perspective here and generalising
heavily:

>Spinning requires a drop spindle or at best a spinning wheel. Weaving
>fabric of any width requires a *honking* big loom -- not the sort of
>thing you have room for in a one- or two- room hovel :-)

it doesn't need to be honking. A warp-weighted loom takes up little
room and we know was a feature of many farms for a very long time -
right up to modern times in places like western Norway. During the
early period most fabric was home-produced - as the economy changed
and the introduction of the horizontal loom industrialised the
production of cloth,  more clothing fabric was purchased as prices
came down and availability went up, but things like blankets and
packing cloth were still produced at home. Perhaps the fabric for the
sunday best was purchased at the local market, or perhaps even
ready-made, but undoubtedly fabric ultimately meant for every-day
clothing was also produced on the farms.

When things were utterly worn out, fabric was used for all sorts of
other things; insulation in walls, ships, as toilet paper, as
footwrappings (Bocksten man had a part of an old tunic wrapped around
his foot), as padding, remade into childrens' clothing, nappies...
There were no paper products around like today, and just like
horn/antler was that day's plastic, fabric rags were the paper towels
of the time.

The urban situation is a bit different, and the urbanisation somewhat
coincides with the industrialisation. I think there's a stronger
stratification in the urban setting, but you also have to remember
that there was a flourishing trade in second-hand clothing, and while
your servant-classes probably couldn't afford to buy new fabric or
clothing, they a) were usually given clothing as part of their
payment, and b) had access to second-hand traders. I think it more
likely that they got their clothing that way than from reconstituting
old clothes themselves.

>But that's a good point, did people who spun their own yard then farm
>it out to someone with a loom? or did they just make not-very-wide
>strips of cloth on a tabletop loom of some kind?

Spinning was contracted out - the professional weavers purchased the
work. So it worked the other way around.

/maggie

At 12:01 AM -0500 5/4/06, Justin wrote:
>Knitting is as old as mankind, weaving too,

Um, not quite. Weaving is quite old, but humans had clothes before
weaving (think animal skins, bark cloth etc.).

Knitting, on the other hand, was a "hot" new technology in the Middle
Ages -- probably invented somewhere in the Mediterranean area after
the Moslem conquest (the earliest dated pieces seem to be around the
9th to 11th centuries). There were other textile technologies earlier
that may _look_ like knitting or crocheting, but aren't either one.

>do you think it was a guild
>issue that had professionals making fabric? I don't think it could have been
>a know-how issue that would prevent the masses from making their own clothes
>and fabric.

No, as I understand it the primary reason for ordinary people not
doing their own weaving is that a loom was a big capital investment.
Production looms for making yardage were also big and took up space,
and the sort of horizontal-beam loom used "industrially" in the
Middle Ages was something of a high-tech instrument requiring
specialized parts. People certainly understood how weaving was done,
and had simple "heddle" looms for making belts and straps, but not
usually anything big enough to make clothes out of.

People do, on the other hand, seem to have done spinning for
themselves fairly often. My understanding is that it was fairly
common for people to spin up the yarn for a blanket, say, and take it
to a weaver who would weave it into cloth either for money or for a
percentage of the spun yarn as their fee.

Another often overlooked factor is that people in much of medieval
Europe had ways to buy used clothing -- cities in particular had
thriving markets in secondhand clothes. So all but the poorest could
purchase _some_ clothing.

>I would think that it would be difficult for poor serfs and peasants locked
>in communal strip farming would be able to go out and get fabric, wouldn't
>it be more feasable to have access to raw wool or flax and then make the
>stuff your self during the long winters when all the boys are off fighting
>wars?

On the other hand, they demonstrably _did_ go to local markets and
fairs within a few miles of their homes, on a pretty regular basis,
where they would indeed have been able to buy cloth. I suspect a lot
of less well-off people may have _sewed_ the clothing for themselves
and their families, but weaving their own cloth for clothing is much
less likely.

The evidence from American pioneer and European farm families in
later centuries, BTW, is that they may indeed have been weaving
_some_ cloth at home, but that it was almost entirely for furnishings
and home textiles rather than clothing -- things like towels,
blankets, and linens.

--
____________________________________________________________

O   (Lady) Christian de Holacombe , Shire of Windy Meads
+    Kingdom of the West - Chris Laning  <claning@...>
         http://paternoster-row.org - http://paternosters.blogspot.com
____________________________________________________________

--- In Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com, "msgilliandurham"
<msgilliandurham@...> wrote:
> Spinning requires a drop spindle or at best a spinning wheel. Weaving
> fabric of any width requires a *honking* big loom -- not the sort of
> thing you have room for in a one- or two- room hovel :-)
>
> But that's a good point, did people who spun their own yard then farm
> it out to someone with a loom? or did they just make not-very-wide
> strips of cloth on a tabletop loom of some kind?

They set the loom up outside, where they had more space and better
light to see by, too.

-- Kelyn

>
>
> >But that's a good point, did people who spun their own yard then farm
> >it out to someone with a loom? or did they just make not-very-wide
> >strips of cloth on a tabletop loom of some kind?
>
> Spinning was contracted out - the professional weavers purchased the
> work. So it worked the other way around.
>


Do you think that the need for utility rags kept people from deconstructing
and respinning the fibers of clothing into new thread or yarn for making new
fabric or knitting (respectively) ?

-J


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>From: "Justin" warriorneedsfood@...
>Date: Wed May 3, 2006 10:06pm(PDT)
>
>Knitting is as old as mankind, weaving too, do you think it was a guild
>issue that had professionals making fabric?

Naalbinding and sprang examples exist since at least late Iron Age (Roman)
times in N. Europe. Knitting, however, is much later. The earliest that I
have heard of in N. Europe (Baltic) is 13th C.

It is not a guild issue that restricted weaving to professionals through
most of the SCA period. Guilds were relatively late (with the horizontal
loom)  and were an urban organization.

>I would think that it would be difficult for poor serfs and peasants
>locked in communal strip farming would be able to go out and get fabric,
>wouldn't it be more feasable to have access to raw wool or flax and then
>make the stuff your self during the long winters when all the boys are off
>fighting wars?

There are two distinct periods to weaving wide goods and the social
structures relating to it in N. Europe:
1) The time of the warp-weighted and two-beam looms: at this time weaving
is a women's and primarily domestic craft. Excess production and
specialties were traded (in some cases extreme distances) but were usually
traded as garments rather than "yard goods". These included tunics from
Egypt ("Coptic") and the famous "Frisian Cloaks".  Charlemaine ordered
cloaks from England.
2) The time of the horizontal loom: We don't know exactly when this loom
came to N. Europe but at least by the 13th C. (some authors put it as early
as the 9th C). It was a man's urban trade and production of yard goods was
the goal. This lead to the guilds.
Women and girls spun. They did it every free minute that could be found. If
they did not have fiber of their own, they were hired at piece-work and
were supplied. Serious source of family income in urban and rural areas.

>I know some fabrics were imported, but I'm talking about day to day wear of
>the lower and middle classes mainly. I'm looking for books on the matter
>because it is my current obsession.

After the horizontal loom, large quantities of cloth were trades
international distances. The cheaper grades of cloth were usually sold
closer to production, but starting in the 14th C increasing amounts of low
cost fustians (lined warp/ cotton weft) were produced in N. Italy (later in
Germany) and shipped everywhere. I strongly recommend that you read

The Italian Cotton Industry in the Later Middle Ages, 1100 - 1600.
Mazzaoui, Maureen Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981 ISBN: 0521230950.

There are many books examining the textile industries of the middle ages
from an economics viewpoint. Most research has focused on the luxury trade
(ie silk and high grade wool). If you want some titles, let me know.

Beth of Walnutvale

--- In Authentic_SCA@yahoogroups.com, "kelyn_of_broceliande"
<kelyn_of_broceliande@...> wrote:
> I THINK linsey-woolsy is linen one way and wool the other, but I
> can't recall where I read that and I may be confusing it with
> something else.

According to the Hamilton Dry Goods page (and I trust them to know)
" What is Linsey-Woolsey? Our Linsey-Woolsey is a reproduction of an
original 200-year old fabric and it has flax-linen threads in one
direction and wool threads in the other direction."

So the linen isn't spun *with* the wool, to make that yarn stronger.

Gillian Durham

Sorry to those who get this more than once (I've sent it to 2 other lists),
but I'm trying to catch as many people as possible. Has anybody bought silk
taffeta from Silk Connection?
http://www.silkconnection.com/products/fabric/silk/taffeta/ they describe it
as spun silk which immediately triggers alarm bells for me because when I
think of spun silk I think of Dupion and similar lumpy silks. If it does
have slubs it would not be appropriate for either of the uses I have in mind
(a Tudor kirtle and a mid 19th century ball gown) unless the lumps are
infrequent enough that you could avoid them (or hide them in the seam
allowance). The really cheap price (it's even cheaper than their dupion)
seems to reinforce this suspicion. I tried emailing this question directly
to them but the email address listed on their site came back as 'user
unknown'
thanks
Elizabeth
--------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Walpole
Canberra Australia
ewalpole[at]tpg.com.au
http://au.geocities.com/e_walpole/

Good morning my lords and ladies,
Most of you will remember my last appeal on behalf of 'Am I Period
or Not' (or AIPON for short) but recently the flow of new photo submissions
has all but stopped (we've had one new photo in the last three months),
so for those who have joined the list since I last sent a request and those
of you who have forgotten please consider submitting a photo of your work to
us so you can enjoy the virtual adulation of people all across the globe.
The re-enactment season is starting up soon in the Northern Hemisphere
(although for some it never stops) so if you've been working hard on a new
outfit for the summer (or you've been making winter woollies for the
Southern
Hemisphere) send us a photo while it's still pristine so in a few years time
you can show people how good it used to look before you lost weight, it fell
into the mud, you tore the hem and had to patch it up etc. ;-) If you've
been inspired by a new book (like the new 'Tudor Tailor') you could make a
note of it in your description so people can see what different people can
do with the same basic information.
If you have a photo of a costume you have made, from any period of history,
please submit it to 'Am I Period Or Not'
http://au.geocities.com/amiperiodornot/ . The 16th century costumers still
seem to be the most productive set (with more photos submitted than any
other era), submit your 16th century creations if you want the 16th century
to maintain it's lead (the 19th century is a close second in numbers). But
if you're a time period magpie (like me) it would be fabulous if we could
see what costumers have been doing in all eras (even ones that never really
existed like Lord of the Rings). Our Dark Ages and Byzantine section remains
sadly empty almost a year after the site began, but I know there are people
out there doing this era, like all those Vikings I see running around at SCA
events (if you know somebody who has an interesting Dark Ages outfit offer
to take a photo of them and ask them to send it to us, though please don't
submit photos of other people's work).
Please pass this on to anybody you think would be interested, after all it's
much quicker and simpler to email a photo to us (see
http://au.geocities.com/amiperiodornot/photos.htm for submission rules) than
setting up your own webpage (even if you do have your own webpage you can
always put photos of your work on AIPON and include a link to your webpage
(or blog) to give people all the gory details like how much was finished in
the car on the way to the event and how much swearing was involved).
If you are unfamiliar with the concept here's a brief summary: People send
in photos of the historical costumes they've made, the photos are loaded
onto a website where people can view them, vote on how period accurate they
are (or in the case of fantasy creations how creative or accurate to what
they are recreating) and leave comments. While the original site (run by
Kirrily Roberts a few years ago) was for pre 1600 costume only The New Am I
Period Or Not website covers the fashions of any era you like, from the
first civilisations to the day before yesterday (plus imaginary eras).
The comments on the website are monitored and we (the moderating team) jump
on any offensive content as soon as we are aware of it, we can't guarantee
that such comments won't be posted but we can guarantee that we will do our
best to keep on top of it and remove comments as soon as possible.
I hope to see a flood of new and interesting photos in response to this
email.
Elizabeth
--------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Walpole
Canberra Australia
ewalpole[at]tpg.com.au
http://au.geocities.com/e_walpole/