Mi Contra Fa

Something Completely Different: Anglo-French Beef-Cherry Pottage

My first ever (and so far, only) redaction, from 2002.

The Recipe:
An early 14th century Anglo-Norman cherry pottage, translated in Speculum vol 61:4, pp.859-882.

The original:
14. Sirisee.  Let d'alemaundes lye' ou amydoun, siryzees moudre' sauntz les pieres, partie de sucre issi qu'il y eit bon savor des syryzees; char grosse; syryzees plaunte' desuis; colour, vermaille.

The translation:
14.  Cherry pottage.  Almond milk thickened with wheat starch, cherries ground without stones, a measure of sugar to bring out the flavor of the cherries; beef, pork or mutton; cherries set on top; the color, red.

What I cooked:
1 1/4 lb cubed stew meat
oil to brown meat
~ 2 c. almond milk
~ 1 Tb. corn starch in cold water*
1 tsp. cinnamon**
2 c. thawed frozen red cherries

* Substituted for wheat starch. Now that we are in the days of gluten awareness, I can probably discover how to extract wheat starch from flour.

** I neglected to print out the recipe and worked from memory.  The preceeding recipie for strawberry pottage had called for cinnamon.  End result still tasty.

Since the modern cherries were quite sweet and the commerical almond milk claimed to have some sweetener in it, I skipped the added sugar called for in the recipe.

• Browned meat in oil.
• Covered with almond milk, added cinammon and stirred.  When boiling, added corn starch and stirred.
• Simmer 30 min.
• Added cherries.  Simmer 30 more minutes.  Serves 4.

It ended up as more of a beef and cherry stew than how I imagine a pottage (something more uniform).  I think that I ought to grind both cherries  and meat... and indeed, after the fact, I noted that the recipe actually calls for the cherries to be ground.  Stellar reading comprehension, there. 

Reviews from Scadian and mundane test subjects were favorable, and there were no leftovers.

Deer John (and Matthew, Mark and Luke)

Today, while nattering about without discipline or focus, I happened across the Book of Deer.  It's classed as a Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscript - the "insular style."  It may be the earliest surviving  manuscript produced in Scotland. 

More to the point, the evangelist portraits look like this:

That may actually be within my artistic talents. 

The whole manuscript is online here.  There are spots where you can see the illuminator started to fancy up some of the knotwork and then stopped...

Harley Psalter Satchel

Color Plate H in Gale Owen-Crocker's "Dress in Anglo-Saxon England" shows a page from the Harley Psalter.  Specifically folio 66 verso, Psalm 127.  Above the text, the illumination shows builders constructing a house, which makes sense given the psalm begins "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain."  Below, three other scenes are shown: a man washing the feet of three other men, a king and a queen (I think) being served at table by three servants, and a king being handed a satchel by a crowd of men.  I'm not quite sure how these tie in.

But! The satchel!  The Harley Psalter is dated 1020-1030 CE, which is far and away from my usual 7th century garb, but it's the only representation of an Anglo-Saxon satchel I'm aware of (aside from a simple hand-carried sack on the Franks Casket).  It's almost certainly the source of the Regia Angolorum leather satchel shown here. 

I make a quickie trial version.  No measuring proportions or anything clever like that, just found some old cotton duck in my fabric stash and cut out a longer-than-wide satchel with a double-thickness trapezoidal top flap.  Being short on time, I used an old tablet woven belt for the carrying strap, and pinned it on with my two "Arnegunde" brooches.  The satchel is shown with three tassels on the top flap, and since the fabric is black, the pins and red and gold, and the strap is brown and cream and gold, I used some gold 'thread' I had around to make tassels.

I'll post pictures when I get a chance. Not bad for an hour or two's work, and easier to carry than my old basket (which is cracking, has holes, and small things now fall out of.)  I made sure to make it big enough to hold a folder of papers.  Maybe not a 2" binder, but I can slide some documentation in there if I need to.

Arnegundis/Kentish Robe 2

I bought silk and linen something like six months ago.  Trying to scrounge up a few more resources to guide putting them together into something before I cut cloth.  I've become rather enamored of the open-fronted Frankish/Kentish robe, which - if it really is held shut with a pin suite - persists into the 7th-early 8th centuries.

SCA-Garb group discussing Arnegunde robe interpretations.  The whole "knee length undertunic" thing is interesting, and as far as I know, based entirely on the assumption that the expensive metal leg garter fittings were meant to be seen.  It's not a bad assumption, but I always think about the reverse of the Tara Brooch in those cases...

Saint-Denis website: "The deceased wore a violet-coloured silk skirt, held in place by a large leather belt that had a sumptuously decorated buckle plate and buckle counter-plate. Her reddish-brown silk tunic, decorated with gold braid, was fastened with a pair of round brooches with a garnet cloisonné decoration. Two small pins and a large garnet encrusted pin held her silk veil in place. Her stockings were held up by garters and the straps on her leather shoes were fitted with small buckles, counter-plates and strap-ends with animal motifs.

Two sphere-shaped earrings, in imitation of the then reigning fashion in the Byzantine world, completed the lady's rich gold and silver jewelry. On her thumb, a ring inscribed with a woman's given name, ARNEGUNDIS, surrounding a central monogramme that can be expanded to REGINE (queen). It was this same queen Arnegunde, wife of Clotaire I (511-561) and mother of Chilperic I, whom Gregory of Tours had described in the late sixth century. If we take into account historical data such as the birth of Chilperic around 537-539, and the dating of the most recent clothing items, the queen would have been buried sometime between 580 and 590, aged 70 to 80 years old."

French Wikipedia article on Aregonde, more detailed than the English one. "She was wearing a Chinese silk dyed purple, a veil of silk patterned yellow and red, shoes kid red, and gold and silver jewelry adorned with garnets from Asia"  (Google Translate)  Good references on the page, too (although they appear to also be in French...)

Interesting that it says the shoes were red; reminds me of the red-dyed furs/leathers Aldhelm was telling nuns not to adorn their shoes with.

Forum post with pictures, including the knee-length original Fleury reconstruction, and the new, modern one I saw in someone's set of pictures taken at the museum. Also includes the original sketch showing the disposition of the artifacts in the sarcophagus.

Discussion on the medieval-leather list about Arnegune's gilded belt.  Mentions some of the references commonly cited.

Queens of the Merovingians exhibit in Frankfurt, featuring Wisigarde, Arnegune, and Bathilde. Nice reconstruction art, hoping there will be a catalogue or other information forthcoming.

Not sure what this is, but the right-hand linkset is chock full of huge hi-res pictures of some of the 'Queens of the Merovingians' artifacts, and a PDF of information on the exhibit (in German).

Reconstruction of the shoes and garters for the museum.

Werner, J (1964): "Frankish Royal Tombs in the Cathedrals of Cologne and Saint-Denis". _Antiquity_ Vol 38, 1964, pp. 201-216. - ""Over a fine linen shift [later discovered to be wool, btw], she wore a tunic of violet silk which just covered her knees, and was pulled in at the hips by a gilded openwork leather girdle whose ends probably hung down to the calves and were finished off with the large silver strap-tongues with boar- and bird-head ornaments."  (Link to purchase article)

_Les Tresors Merovingiens de la Basilique De Saint-Denis_, by Michel Fleury and Albert France-Lanord
(1998)

"La fouille en laboratoire: méthodes et résultats," Dossiers de l'Archéologie 32 (1979), pp. 69-91. (Technical analysis of the leatherwork and references to the fittings and metalwork of Tomb 49.).

Martin, Max 1991: "Zur frühmittelalterlichen Gürteltracht der Frau in der Burgundia, Francia und Aquitania." In: _L'art des invasions en Hongrie et en Wallonie. Actes du colloque tenu au Musee royal de Mariemont du 9 au 11 avril 1979_. pp. 31-84.

Laporte, J-P, Boyer, R. 1991. _Tresors de Chelles: Sepultures et Reliques de la Reine Bathilde et de
L'Abbesse Bertille._ (Societe Archeologique st Historique les amis du musee:  Ville de Chelles.)  (Probably source for this picture of Bathilde's funeral garments) (Information on Bathilde's garments and burial.)

Patrick Périn et al. 2008 Le costume d'Arégonde revisité. _Histoire et images Médiévales_ 20. (This issue of the magazine is sold out, no back copies available)

PERIN (Patrick), "La datation de la tombe d'Arégonde, épouse de Clotaire Ier, découverte en 1959 dans la basilique de Saint-Denis" in Archéologie médiévale, 1991, 21, pp. 21-50.

LA RECONSTITUTION DU COSTUME D'ARÉGONDE NOUVELLES PROPOSITIONS, PERIN Patrick ; BAYARD Didier (Editor) ; NICE Alain (Editor) ; Journées Internationales d'Archéologie Mérovingiennes, 29, Marle (Aisne), FRA, 2008-09-26; in French, order here.

Linked Pin Sets

I want to send a brief note to KASF on my linked pin findings.

Owen-Crocker:

"this woman evidently wore a circle of beads at the neck and below it, probably attached to the costume by means of a small silver pin at each end, a festoon of beads and pendants."  (p. 101-102, referencing Kentish Finglesham Grave 203, date not given but appearing in the 5th-6th century section).

"The excavator, Sonia Hawkes, suggested to me that the brooches [of Finglesham Grave 203], which were small square-headed ones, had been used to pin down the two sides of an open robe." (p. 99)

"An open over-gown is more often associated with the Renaissance than with the Dark Ages, but the 'Arnegundis' robe was of this kind, and it is in fact a feature of folk costumes of various nations that one garment is worn over another in such a way that there is only partial overlap. In the context of folk costume, the style may arise from necessity - if skins or the available pieces of woven cloth were not sufficiently large to cover the body it may have been essential to overlap more than one. At a higher social level, the open robe would show off another luxury garment beneath it, and it would eliminate the awkward bulk which the straight peplos-type gown must have had round the narrower parts of the body, but it would not need elaborate tailoring..." (p 99)

"The seventh-century 'pin suites' normally consisted of two pins, usually of precious metal, their heads usually ornamented by garnets, and linked by a chain. There is a more elaborate example from Roundway Down, Wiltshire, in which two garnet-headed pins flank a roundel set with blue glass placed at the centre of the chain." (141)

"exclusively female jewellry and have been found in the graves of both adults and children" (141)

"They appear to have been worn at the neck. They are dainty little things; the pins are only about 4 cm long and they could have only fastened light fabrics."

"It is possible to interpret this costume as an open overdress, with decorated edges, over a pleated underdress" (referencing fig 110, Mary and Elisabeth on the Genoels-Elderen Diptych - the source of "the only possible depictions in English or Anglo-Saxon-influenced art" (p 150)) (p 150)

"We have already seen that dainty pin suites are a feature of the richer female graves of the conversion period, and it has been suggested that these, and also the matching (but not conjoined) pairs of pins found in contemporary graves, were fasteners for veils." (157)

Gail Drinkall, Martin Foreman. "Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Castledyke South, Barton-on-Humber." Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998. Accessed at http://books.google.com/books?id=4OzoLMVVnxUC

"Three pins, those from Graves 15, 46 and 183, belong to the group of linked pins; the classic example came from Roundway Down, near Devises, Wiltshire [references]. Two 43mm gold pins are linked by a 140mm long gold chain with a central roundel decorated with a moulded glass cross. Another gold parallel came from Bateman's excavations at Cow Lowe in Derbyshire [references]. Silver garnet-set parallels came from Butler's Field, Lechlade, Oxfordshire, graves 14 and 138. The pin from Grave 138, like the grave-group as a whole, is closely paralleled by grave 39 at Chamberlain's Barn, Bedfordshire [ref]. Grave 55 there also included a pair [ref]. Less ornate examples have been recovered [ref]." (268)

"The silver pin from Grave 183 is a variant fo the type (LXIV i.e.). This pin with its raised boss and fastening loop attached to the back of its head can be paralleled by finds from Winnall, Hampshire and Kemble, Gloucestershire. The pin from grave 10 at Winnall II was originally part of a suite, but its partner has been lost. This 50mm long pin with a suspension loop at the back of the head-plate probably had a garnet setting fixed on its face [ref]. Below the head three lines formed a double incised ring collar. A 53mm pin from grave 1 at Kemble [ref] has a small garnet set on its face and a loop behind and was recovered near the left clavicle.  Other parallels came fromgrave 79 at Ozingell, Kent [ref] and Bidford-on-Avon [ref]." (268-269)

 

 

Or - 2" long pins connected by 5.5" of chain, worn at the neck/throat area.  May have fastened veil or gown/robe, but probably not thick cloak.  Gown/robe hypothesis field tested and approved. Veil hypothesis as yet untested.

Beowulf Birthday Bash

First, before I forget - one of the reasons "Veni" was giving me such a headache was that I had it in the wrong mode. It's Mixolydian, not Lydian.  Now that I'm starting on the right note, it works great.

I've had the week from Introvert Hell (four 10-11 hour days of business conference) so I was not as well-practiced, well-rested or even coherent as I might have been.  But!  I had a lovely time.

Got to sit with the Bright Hills Bards, who are always awesome. 

Entered a bunch of old stuff into the Northern European A&S display.

Showed a few interested folks the lyre; Mistress Molly very generously gifted me with veil pins for the demonstration.

The Anglo-Saxon poetry class had four! students, who followed right along and said I was making sense.  We didn't do a writing exercise, at least partly because I forgot to bring paper and pens for it. D'oh.  So (since at least 3/4 were performers) we talked performance modes instead.

Also in good scop fashion, after I performed "Beocat," I was asked to do it again for the kitchen folks.  Kitchen folks approved and offered me a small measure of mead. Yum!

Got to geek out a bit about my garb with Aaradyn.  Possibly a bit too much...  ("Why did you pick purple and red?"  "Oh! Blah blah Arnegunde blah blah round pins blah pin suite blah blah")  Pleased to report that the chained pin suite/belt combo works very well to  hold the coat/robe in place in lieu of the round pins.

Ooh, also on the costuming front: Since it was chilly, I wore the wool veil I made originally to go with this ensemble.  As it is a bit heavy, I put on my gold-threaded headband (just for bling), then over it put a linen cap from Revival Clothing.  I pinned the heavy veil right to the cap instead of to the headband.  Worked like a charm!  (Got the idea from this book, I think. Or possibly this one.)

I went outside to say hello to Aaradyn and Baron William, and Aaradyn introduced me to her Highness, who was lovely.  We spoke for a bit about poetry and music, and Baron William said some very nice things (apparently I wrote a poem about armoring? And he's kept it?  Very sweet!)

Finally: the performance!  It was not error-free, unsurprisingly, but I think it went very well.  I was not pleased with myself for being on-book, and my eye contact for those pieces was sketchy at best, but life's life.  Despite all my good intentions, practice has just not been happening - although I wonder if it may, soon.  It feels sort of like my energies are swinging back into this.  Still, self-care first - work has picked up with a lot more responsibilities and I need to do things like get exercise and play with the kids.  All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.  One thing at a time.

New garb plans

I ransacked my fabric stores and turned up some pink linen.  It's actually almost exactly the same color as the madder-dyed linen I see here, so score!  I admit I was vaguely planning on woad-blue, but since I've already got the pink, pink it is.

This polyester "china silk" looks to be about the right shade of purple.  My nearest good fabric store has real silk of a similar shade, but lighter intensity.  On my last garb project, an Aregunde robe, I used polyester for the silk when the "100% wool" I ordered online was nothing of the sort.  I wasn't going to put real silk on fake wool! 

(Heh.  I was looking at pictures of the San Vitale mosaics yesterday, and I notice the museum reconstruction of Aregunde's veil is a red version of Theodora's lady-in-waiting's.)

Given how little I'll need if I just trim the sleeves, and since the polyester has a minimum 10-yard order, it may be cheaper to go with the real deal this time!  If the color ends up being good.  Maybe I'll go over there tonight and have a look.

Performers need clothes, too

It's time to buy or make some new clothes.

I'm going to go off of the 7th century description of naughty nuns who dress too well, as given in three translations by Gale Crocker-Owen in "Dress in Anglo-Saxon England."  Fine linen undertunic, red or blue overtunic, sleeves striped with purple silk, bright or colored veil (showing hair around the face) held in place by a fillet. 

I already have my Desborogh necklace-inspired necklace (A Met Museum repro, different mostly in being more symmetric and lacking the central cross) which is also 7th c.  I may attempt a pouch  like the Swallowcliffe Down burial one.  The lyre still wants a fur-lined bag like the Sutton Hoo lyre had; I doubt I can swing beaver but sheep fleece is possible.

I'll try to do some amount of research into the appropriate shades of color.  Amazingly, Wikipedia was actually concretely helpful in giving an example of Tyrian purple.  (Whelk-dyed purple may be all right, especially if the silk was imported. I need to go to my books and see if we have any surviving colors.  I know I've seen some lichen purples cited in Viking contexts.)

I go back and forth on whether or not the silk stripes ought to be decorated, and if so, how.  Still under consideration.