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All posts from the category "Reconstructions".
A new project is done! (more…)
Today I would like to show you a new piece from my collection on the topic of women in the middle ages. I recently worked on a display table on the topic of women for an event. I already had a lot of pieces from my prior work, but there is loads of more pieces to explore!
If you have contact with modern neopagan circles, you might get the feeling that christian people in the middle ages completely refuted magical applications, but the truth is way more complicated, because magic – as we understand it today -, medieval medicine, medieval science and christian belief can’t even clearly be separated. (more…)
Hold on, you are not on the blog of my dear friend and colleague Niklas, der Girdler! No, this time, I will tell you about this belt myself, even if Nikolaus did have his fair share to do with this piece.
My impression of a wealthy crafters wife is slowly but surely being finalised. One large project that I had postponed for a long time and which I was working on for far too long, is finally finished. A belt suitable for this ensemble.
Go on, this last one I still need to do for the #pluckingroses Challenge. :-D
Here is my impression of a “secret woman” from the second half of the 14th century.
For years I have been wearing my natural coloured, practical wool dresses to do the dirty work on events, I wipe my dirty hands in them and do not have to take care of them a lot except when darning moth holes.
But someday, I said, I wanna be just as pretty as my colleagues and so I have been announcing that I will make myself a citizen’s wife dress very soon…. for years. My colleagues made fun of me whenever I would bring the topic up again. “Yeaaaah, sure, you and the citizen’s wife…” But it bugged me and after having some major hassle with the fabric orders I made for the dress, I could finally start.
When you imagine a medieval man or woman, what do you see? Foul teeth? Greasy hair? Dirty, bumpy skin? Hairy armpits and sweat stench?
Well, for some of them, this might have been true. For some people today, this is still true. But medieval sources prove, that it could be and has been different for large parts of the population. Medieval people know far more than we think today.
In this article I want to talk about aspects of (female) beauty routine and cosmetics, as we find them in medieval sources (mainly the Trotula).
Enough is enough! Throw your iron Toilet-paper-roll-burner (yes, that totally is a thing), your lamp oil covered torches and your stupid Visby lanterns out the window! This is not your allday Hollywood-dungeon, we are recreating the civilisation of late medieval times!
Here we will show you some of the numerous possibilities to light your medieval house, tent or road in a historical way.
Interpretation work is an enduring effort to question everything that is taken for granted in your modern life. One question we have been asking ourselves is, weither flower vases were common on the 14th century table.
Let’s have a look at the sources….
Slinging has followed me for a while now since I discovered the pages of Ottonenzeit about the topic.
I was fascinated by this “simple” technique. Although a woman would probably not have practiced slinging in medieval times, I really wanted to try it for myself, even if it may not be presentable in my all-day impression.
You can see slingshots in original pictures of shepherds or in use during the hunt ( here, a model with a stick attatched and here and here) and of course in pictures of David and Goliath (here and here and here and there and here). But also in military context. There are two types, one using only strings with a pocket attatched and one using an additional staff or stick which serves as an extension of the arm. The techniques for using them vary. You can find more on slinging pages on the web.
Here is my first reconstruction attempt. I used a pocket made of leather as can be seen in the Schleswig leather finds. The leather in the finds had been cut several times to allow bulging of the leather depending on the size of he stone. As strings I used linnen threads which I simply braided and tucked into a loop and a knot on the ends.
So, I’ll go find some nice pebbles in the Danube river and see if I am any talented :-)
Edit: Thanks a lot to Singa Lu for sending me his collection of original sources showing slingshots!!
