culture
-
While searching around for an illustration of an English cherry tree in blossom in the late 14th century, I happened upon this link which opens with “….Lavishly illustrated manuscripts known as the Tacuinum Sanitatis were first commissioned by northern Italian nobility during the last decades of the 14th century….” So I looked further, and…
-
If there’s one thing that I loathe, it’s wriggling, wormy, serpentine creatures. Worst of all, I’m ashamed to say, is the humble garden worm. Ugh! I don’t harm them, I simply avoid them. Eels are on my list as well, especially when they used to writhe and slither up the little streams and ditches (as…
-
Here is a quote from this article: “….Some say Humpty Dumpty is a sly allusion to King Richard III, whose brutal 26-month reign ended with his death in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. In this speculative version, King Richard III’s horse was supposedly called “Wall,” off of [sic] which he fell during battle.…
-
Every so often a book comes along that really doesn’t fit into any genre…except perhaps history in general. “Medieval Woman: Village Life in the Middle Ages” by Anne Baer is fiction, and yet not, because the author has done some splendid, detailed research, and then put it all together around a year in the life…
-
Medieval childbirth was a fearful time for women. Dangers were many, and little could be done if there was any kind of medical problem. Women routinely wrote their wills prior to going into labour as the death rate was so high. Out of this fear came the use of many charms and rituals meant to…
-
“Until relatively recently in human history nobody saw the color ‘blue.’ “ and “the evidence for people not seeing blue dates all the way back to the 1800s.” Um, I don’t quite understand these statements. If they couldn’t see blue, what did they see when they looked up at the sky on a clear…
-
It seems to me that the poor old mule is seldom spoken of with the same ringing tones of admiration that is used of horses, and yet according to this site the mule was greatly prized during the medieval period. The article is very interesting, and certainly opened my eyes to the amazing qualities of the…
-
What was the lifestyle of medieval monks in Britain? What went on in those wondrous abbeys that ruled their neighbourhoods, often with fists of iron? They had some harsh rules, not least that the people they lorded it over had to pay exorbitant sums to have their grain milled by the abbey. Woe betide…
-
According to The Folklore of Gloucestershire by Roy Palmer, there was a traditional dish in the south of the county known as whitepot, and it was served at Whit Sunday “revels”. The ingredients of whitepot were: “….four quarts of milk, a pound of flour, a pound of golden syrup, eight eggs, two ounces of butter,…
-
I have watched a documentary about these skeletons with stones in their mouths. Sorry, I can’t find a link to it online, but it was fascinating. While looking around Google for more about this, I came upon another site which explains more. And another, not otherwise worth the link, which contained the following tantalising passage:…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 