culture
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This interesting article by Deanna Rodriguez gives details of many of Christine’s works, some of which are readily available to the modern reader in translated form. Christine de Pizan (or Pisan) was born in Venice but moved to France at an early age and spent the rest of her life there. After her husband’s death,…
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Throughout history Easter has been the most solemn time of the Christian calendar, a time when sorrow and death are vanquished by triumph and life, of Christ rising from the tomb and ascending to Heaven. But in these more profane modern times, the sacred side of the great festival has been rather pushed aside by…
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Medieval cooking is always a fascinating subject, and I don’t doubt that we’ve all seen the word “coffin/coffyn” applied to pastries and pies. Well yes, coffin is a coffin in the usual meaning, but it also seems a sensible enough word to use for a well-filled pie! What we call raised pies, e.g. pork pies…
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While I am no Marilyn Monroe, nor ever have been, in one respect I am just like her….beneath my (faux!) fur coat, I am likely to only be wearing one perfume. In her case Chanel Number Five; in mine Diorissimo. I have worn it since I was sixteen and still love it. It’s been…
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The treasures of the West Riding
armour, Charles “III”, Chatsworth, Claire Cross, Colonel Blood, Earls of Harewood, Edward Duke of Kent, Edward IV, Gawthorpe Hall, Harewood House, Harrogate, Headingley, Henry Earl of Huntingdon, Leeds, Leeds Dock, Lumleys, main roads, motorways, Pennines, Powderham Castle, Reformation, Royal Armouries, weapons, YorkshireWhile I have visited Yorkshire reasonably frequently in the past, there is one patch with which I was unfamiliar. The Leeds sub-region is south and a little west of York, where a significant branch line bifurcates at Doncaster and goes through Wakefield, whilst a suburban line from Leeds passes through Harrogate and returns to York.…
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The general belief is that the dreaded sweating sickness arrived in England along with Henry Tudor and his French army. Maybe it did. Certainly it became rife after Bosworth and he entered London. It was a fearsome disease, worse even than the Black Death, for you could be hale and hearty at breakfast and dead…
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I love the little incidents that I come across in my research ramblings. While trying to find a particular 1377/8 date in Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, I found myself reading about a banquet held in France by ‘a certain Vidame de Chartres’—a vidame being a noble rank, I understand. This was quite some banquet, and…
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Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @ sparkypus.com Illustration from Livre de chasse c.1387-1389. Gaston Phébus, Count de Foix It’s obvious from the amount of depictions of dogs from the medieval period they were highly prized by our ancestors, both for work and play. They are everywhere! Their delightful little figures pop up on tombs, heraldry and manuscripts regularly.…
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Further Royal ancestry – twice over this time
Alexander Armstrong, BBC1, Bear Grylls, bigamy, Bruce Forsyth, Canada, cellists, Chris Ramsey, Chris van Tulleken, Claire Foy, Clare Balding, composers, Danny Dyer, Dev Griffin, Emily Atack, Henry III, honours, Josh Widdicombe, Julian Lloyd Webber, katherine Willoughby, Kevin Clifton, Lancastrians, Lesley Manville, Lloyd Webber, musicians, Netherlands, Richard Bertie, royal descent, Scotland, Scouts, Sir Matthew Pinsent, Sir Peregrine Maitland, USA, Waterloo, Who do you think you are?, Xand van TullekenWho do you think you are, the celebrity genealogy show with some surprising results, has returned to BBC1 on Thursday evenings. The twentieth series, of nine episodes, began with Andrew, Lord Lloyd Webber, whose parents, cellist brother Julian and late son Nick were also known to be musically talented, but makes some uncannily similar connections…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 