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Just a short documentary entry for a little textile shenanigan:
I could not resist executing another reconstruction from a great written source for my #pluckingroses Challenge.
My reconstruction is based on a court file from the end of the 13th century. The case was revolving around a Ms Bertolina, nicknamed “Guercia” from Bologna who was charged with sodomic practices (meaning sexual practices that were considered to be abnormal). I can’t tell her story any better than this amazing Podcast here (transcript can be found in this article here). I can really recommend this read, because Guercia seems to have been a very unusual woman and in my opinion a great example of women’s emancipation in the middle ages.
One can absolutely not have enough leather bags for all the small items of everyday Hobby use. And since I have a lot of free time at hand at the moment, due to Lockdown measures, I finally made this project happen as well, making my own leather bags.
When reconstructing medieval life, especially medieval clothing, one needs to maintain a fine balance. Especially if one is not 20 any more, you have more options for going about your impression. Because there were without question those who did not follow the latest fashion, those who work hard, who are very religious or who generally follow more conservative views of fashion. We know of those people when we read moral texts from our period, when we read sumptuary laws, inheretance registers and mundane letter correspondences.
But the decision, which elements to choose for a certain point in time and a certain region in order to appear conservative or fashion-forward, is difficult. You choose between profane and religious art, between what moral writers condemn and what they propagate, between local tradition and foreign influence.
At the moment I am planing a very unusual surcot for my 1350s wife of a well-off crafter. When researching, I did however come across many overdresses that were quite conservative, loose cut and not exactly what other countries in this time already had to offer. So without question, there was still a large trend for that kind of clothing in my area as well.
So I decided, in order to extend my repertoire, i should also make a version of a surcoat that mirrors this world view and started an inbetween project.
I have written some articles about filet netting already, so I dont have anything to say in particular. A few impressions of a dark red (cochenille dyed) silk hairnet and its beautiful new owner. Silk as always is from Marled Mader – Archäotechnik texitle Fläche.
‘t was the year of our lord 2020 when all the reenactors came together in the village of Hohenwang to enjoy their life, fill their bellies with delicious food and wash their mortal bodies from all sins in the waters of the Günz, so that the horrible plague would pass them. It was there I was witness to the maiden Helena who was filled by the fire of the holy spirit fighting the devil himself in the body of a horrible beast not unlike a badger and executed the victory of light against the darkness and the heavens against the fires of hell. Awestruck, I could get hold of a piece of her bloody dress and I took it home to Vienna to create a vessel, worthy of the miracle. See here, what I contrived…
More pictures, less text this time:
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Short and sweet this time: I made a new hair ribbon, inspired by an extant ribbon from the London finds from the first half oft he 14th century.
The original, Nr. 451 was pink and yellow striped, made from silk and woven with 12 tablets, which (as far as I could see from the quite bad quality black and white photos in „Clothing and textiles) were Z-directed on the left half and S-directed in the right half of the ribbon.
I exchanged the colours into indigo dyed blue and reseda dyed yellow and worked with only 10 tablets that I directed in S and Z interchangingly.
This was a little training for me since I want to do one or two more difficult tablet weaving projects in the future.
The silk I bought – as always – from Marled Mader.
I would like to give a special shoutout here to Silvia Ungerechts. I am only a tablet weaving noob that does the craft only because I sometimes need a tablet woven ribbon for another project. But she is a constant inspiration and help to me that I really look up to
My original plan was to make a “normal” round-knit hairnet for a man. I had seen the hairnet exhibited in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, which was described to be a Men’s hairnet . I made a joke about it to my colleague Karl (“Höhö, a men’s hairnet, I will make it if you wear it!”) and became dire reality when Karl agreed to let his hair grow so we can try this.
But when I researched the original more, the museum told me, that there had been a flooding of the particular tomb this hairnet was found in and that all the contents got mixed and that one could not be sure this is really a man’s, which is also written in the newest publications on the piece. But the hair was grown and it wanted to be held!!
You may or may not remember my first approach at a men’s hairnet for my colleague Karl.
Back then I wasn’t really happy with the shape of the net. After some tests and discussions with other netting-nerds in this awesome Facebook group here I finally figured out the right shape that the netting needs to have to fit the original illuminations.
