Mi Contra Fa

More tablet-weaving: lyre bag straps

After picking bits of wool out of my lyre bridge again, I think, like Brian Boru, I'll leave the hairy side out.  So I'm ready to make straps (and a tie) for the bag.

Guesstimating 24 cards, threaded in all holes.  I want to try continuous warping, so I was limited by "what do I have 4 balls of?" and the answer was "grey and red."  Threading alternate colors, so when I offset all the evens by a quarter-turn and then weave with the full pack, I should get diagonal stripes (if they're all threaded the same way) or chevrons (if I do half S and half Z).  I think I want to do stripes, just because so much of my previous weaving has been diamonds or chevrons.  Will it spiral into a helix? Probably!

My plan is to poke holes in the bag and thread the completed band through it in a continuous circuit to make "backpack" style straps.  Won't have to worry about poking tiny holes for sewing, or having knotted straps pull through while I'm carrying it.

Utrecht Lyre-Harper?

So if you do a search for "utrecht psalter lyre," this Wikipedia page (taken from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica) comes up pretty high on the results. Scroll down a bit and you'll see four figures from the Utrecht.

It's really, really easy to miss Player A's second hand.  Can you see it?  I didn't, and I was looking for it.

Now head over the the University Library Utrecht's page for its famous manuscript and scroll down a bit. There's our boy again.  Now do you see his hand?  It's faded, but clearly visible in the hand-hole of the lyre, fingers hooked in the iconic "harper" pose you see in so many later manuscripts.

Look! I learned how to use layers in Pixlr Editor to trace digital images!
NB: Picture is named "utrecht_cologne2" because the shape reminds me of the Cologne lyre, no other reason.

Go back to the encyclopedia, and you can see the hand rendered as two circle-ish squiggles at the top of the hand-hole.

(I still don't know what those two pairs of lines on the upper arch of the lyre are. Straps?)

What do I make of this?  Is this a later harper-like playing technique?  Using the lyre as a micro-harp, more or less?  Or is it the application of an emerging visual language to an old icon?

I will say the front (right) hand of the figure looks positioned for three-fingered playing. From what I recall reading (Laurie Riley? Ann Heymann?) there is some iconographic evidence that medieval harpers played with three fingers on either hand, instead of the modern technique of using four.  Three fingers right + three fingers left = six strings on a lyre.

Just seems... excessive. And there's good reasons not to "assign" a finger to a string, as far as ease of plucking goes.

I'm not sure if I think this is an accurate depiction or a stylized one.

Holy Pork Chop goes to the East!

Maestra Sol la Cantor sings The Holy Pork Chop Song!

 

Frankish Four-Brooch Costume and Breastfeeding

I was looking at Penelope Walton-Rogers' illustrations of the Frankish/Kentish 4-brooch costume. She shows the underdress with the "keyhole" in the neckline extending to or past the waist, and held closed with a belt and the two upper brooches.  

At first, I wondered why on earth you would need a slash that long.  None of our T-tunics ever go past the breastbone or so, just enough to get the dress on over your head.  

Then I thought: breastfeeding.  With a gown like that, worn with a kaftan, breastfeeding would be trivial.  Undo your top two brooches and bam, there it is.

Makes me wonder if the primary purpose of the peplos dress/apron dress was to cover a centerline slit in the underdress. Pins are all well and good, but fabric gaps (particularly over curves) and in a cold northern climate, I can see wanting to put another layer over it.  Undo a shoulder brooch, undo an undergown pin, and again, you're in the baby-feeding business.

Card-Weaving Twill

I picked up a small table loom at Pennsic, and have been recently thinking about warping it up for a test run.  I have two heddles, and I think I can do a twill with those.  (Thread 1 through Heddle 1, Thread 2 through Heddle 2, Thread 3 on its own.  Then weave using Pull up Heddle 1, Pull up Heddle 2, Push down both for a plain twill. Right?)

For some reason, my brain figured out how to do a twill using card-weaving. Finally, those triangular weaving cards make sense!  I did a quick test and it sort-of worked. I think the twill part was fine, but the piece needed edge stablization that I didn't give it.

All I did was put one thread in each card: hole A, then B, then C, then back to A. (For a herringbone, I'd go ABCCBA. And for a broken diamond, ABCCBA three forward, three back... I think.)  Since I was using square cards, I had to orient the pack with a corner up, not a flat side, and turned quarter turn, quarter turn, half turn.  (Start with A up, throw the weft, turn B up, throw the weft, turn C up, throw the weft, turn past D to A again, throw the weft.)

Phiala's String Page does sell triangular cards!

The pack of cards wasn't very stable, as you might expect with only one hole threaded.  I'd like to weave something 3-4" wide to use for winningas (leg wraps), and trying to manage that many floppy cards sounds nightmarish.  But this could be a way to make "twill tape" in a very period way.  I wonder if there's any evidence that this was done?

Anyhow, fun little experiment.

Hereward's Crown

A poem written at the behest of Lady Deirdre O'Bardon, Poeta Atlantiae, on the theme of 'winning a crown,' on the occasion of the Spring Crown Tournament in April 2014.

Woe to the English    William has conquered

The Normans come    with knife-edged pain

Plunder and pillage;    our patronage lost

Fenland abbot        from France will come

Hereward, Hero        high-born brave man

He was in exile        when Hastings was lost

Now returned home    unhappy man

Isle of Ely    eels swim around it

Protecting raiders    right-thinking men

Following Hereward    to fight Normans

 

A terrible deed    do, the men must

The monks all robbed    the minster sacked

Stolen, church gold    - no, saved from Normans!

Hoarded in swamp    Held by true men

In trust of that day    when deliverance comes

Invaders fought,     foul abbot deposed

An English king    come again to throne

 

The monks, out of fear    those meek men all

Will not open gate    entrance deny them

But Hereward comes    on high, sword held

Brand, too, of fire    bright flames in the night

Force open the gate    Enter the minster

Rich were these monks     much gold for God

Altars, crosses        chalices, robes fine

Embroidered in gold    by English nuns

Atop the high rood    radiance spies he

The good gold shines    gleams in the darkness

For Christ is crowned    this King of Kings

Finest treasure    taken by Hereward

 

He scales the cross;  he climbs the rood

He kisses the wounds    careful, reverent

The crown, he lifts    lips whispering prayer

Purloins riches    then plunges to earth

To fen he goes    all his men follow

 

Sleep is uneasy        Saint Peter appears

Patron of abbey    plundered of late

“Woe to you, sinner!”        the saint said loud

“Taking the treasures        been given to God.”

 

“Not for me taken!    From Normans, they’re saved.”

 

“So, do you think    Theign of All Men

God Most Mighty    must have your aid?

Go put it back!    God will protect it.

All golden crowns    of kings are His

Their duty to rule    righteously reign well

Reflecting His will,    with faith and love.”

 

“But bad king is        bastard William!”

 

“To no earthly judge    but to Jesus alone

Will men answer    for mischief they’ve done

Put back the gold,    give to the abbey

The crown is not yours    To keep as you like”

 

So Hereward bowed        bent to saint’s will
Crown and treasure    returned at sun’s rise
As God commands,    so goes the crown.
Good king remembers,     he governs with care
Kingdom of Heaven    creates in his realm
At ease, his heart    when heavenward goes
Duty finished    and done with love
His crown returned     to King on High

The History

Hereward was, as far as we can tell, a real Saxon outlaw. He was Robin Hood before Robin Hood was Robin Hood.  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Manuscript E, kept at the Peterborough Abbey) mentions his 11th century raid, as does the 12th century* prose history of his life, Gesta Herewardi.  The Chronicle specifically mentions that he and his raiders took the votive crown off of the crucifix, among other treasures, and that the raiders said that they acted “from their attachment to the minster” - for their love of the abbey, which was to be put under the authority of Turold, a Norman.  Hereward and his men don’t get treated too well by the Chronicle, ignoring the monks’ cries for peace and burning everything.  Their loot is subsequently carried off by their Danish allies and lost.

 

Unsurprisingly, the Gesta Herewardi puts a more complimentary spin on things for the hero.  Although the monastery is indeed raided, St. Peter, its patron, appears to Hereward that night and scolds him, telling him to return the treasures.  Hereward immediately does so.

 

Since “and then this guy stole a crown” didn’t seem like a compelling poetic theme, I elected to go with the more moralizing second version, to write a didactic piece enjoining those who have crowns to wear them in a compassionate and kindly manner.  The overt religiosity is unusual for the SCA, but it wouldn’t be for the period.  

 

*Historians (Swanton et al) believe it was written in the 12th century, but it only survives in a 13th century manuscript compilation.

 

The References

 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Online at  http://omacl.org/Anglo/  based on text of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Everyman Press, London, 1912. This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by Douglas B. Killings ([email protected]), July 1996.

• This edition of the Chronicle mostly follows the A manuscript, but contains additional information from other copies of the Chronicle, including the monastery raid found only in MS E.

 

“Hereward the Wake,” trans. Michael Swanton, in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, eds.  Medieval Institute Publications: Kalamazoo, MI, 1997.

• Conveniently online at http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/knight-and-ohlgren-robin-hood-and-other-outlaw-tales although I do have the text.