Medieval people wore practical undergarments including smocks (linen shirts), breaches (underpants), and various head coverings like the kurfchief, which served functional purposes such as protecting outer garments from body oils, maintaining hygiene, and adapting to different climates; these garments were essential for daily life and were not merely decorative, as evidenced by archaeological finds and historical court records.
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GET READY WITH ME & MEDIEVAL SEWING PARTY, EPIDSODE 140: MAKING A BURGUNDIAN GOWNAdded:
Okay, handsome, could you please tell her suddenly it started working?
Just out of nowhere, it started working again.
>> Started working again.
>> Yeah, cuz we're live now.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah, I I totally do. Medieval living history because I love modern technology. Okay.
Okay, everyone. Uh, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to Medieval Get Ready with Me and my sewing party. I am the creative contessa. Some of you know me as my my lady contest, Madona Contessa, or just Rachel. Today, I'm going to be sewing, well, working on and sewing, hand sewing a 15th century Burgundian style gown that is currently in my project docket.
And we're specifically going to be attaching a facing to the bottom of the hem in the style that we see on some of the very few extent garments that have survived from the 15th century in Europe. So, first of course, we're going to start with the getting dressed because I like to get medieval for these particular sewing parties.
Mistress V, thank you for joining us today. I apologize for the tardy delay.
The technology was fighting me horribly, horribly. just I hate modern technology so many modern technologies for so many reasons but this is the only way I can reach you all so there it is so I am starting in my underwear in fact I'm actually wearing a pair of 15th century uh breaches under here braise brius as breas as they would be called in 15th century English and I am wearing of course over top of that my smoker smok as we say in modern English smoker in 15th century pronunciation And this is where the terms artist's smok actually comes from originally from this linen shirt that people used to wear under their garments. And then eventually, as far as I can tell, artists started painting in just their smoks. And so if you've ever when you were maybe in preschool, if you wore a smok to paint, that is the origin of it in fact. But in this era, it is an undergarment.
And this is the layer that gets laundered. This is the layer that protects your overgarments from the feted nature of human skin. Yeah. Aya, lovely to see you. Thank you for joining us. Right. So, this is geometric construction. And so, that means that it basically consists of a series of rectangles, triangles, and squares. And they are put together in such a way as to create shaping and provide flexibility. Right? Um, and this kind of garment would in French. And the coat is also considered an undergarment as far as we can tell. And I know some of you have heard this before, but for those just joining, I'll say it again. it. We know that it was considered underwear because of disturbing records that have survived from the Middle Ages, specifically court cases of abductions of women from their homes. And I have found more than one of these that actually basically says that the woman was taken from her home all naked. all naked in not but her smoker and kto in nothing but her smock and her curdle saying that in the 15th century mindset these are considered under layers right but today I'm going to only be getting dressed in my under layers for our suing party because what we do know also is that women who worked and in the middle ages most women worked Even noble women worked because they usually worked for someone who was higher ranking than they were. But for women who were engaged in manual labor such as working in the fields, pottery, weaving, cooking, we know that they very often wore just their smoka and k their smok and their curt. So it was apparently not completely inappropriate to be dressed such in a public setting depending on your station. I am, of course, neither of those things. I do a noble portrayal of a noble woman, but I'm inviting you into my private sphere to join me for a sewing party. And so, I am dressed in my casual private attire. What I some of you have heard me say and again say it before, I will say it again. In my 15th century Lululemon, is there no sound?
Seriously, there should be.
Okay, that's fun.
Okay. So, can you hear me now? I hate technology so much. Let me let me know if you can hear me now. I feel like a Verizon commercial from the early as which means that uh probably you couldn't hear anything I said before this. Probably um should have been set to microphone change to default. Okay. can like let me know if you can hear me.
Okay, let me know if you can still hear me because I changed something else.
Okay, Aya, could you hear me the whole time or just now? Just this one time because Ursil was saying that she couldn't hear me.
16th century that if instead of using fingers to manipulate the loops, if you attached the yarn or the thread to bobins, you could use do way more bobbins in one braid and create a much more complex pattern. And that is how bobbin lace was born. And it used to be called bobin lace to distinguish it from the regular lace making. But eventually the regular lace making i.e. what we now call fingerloop braiding fell out of use in favor entirely of bobin lace.
Although we know that fingerloop braiding was being actively practiced in places up until the 19th century because we have manuals that have survived until then.
>> Still hot.
>> Still hot. Got it. So that is the ethmology of lace from this kind of lace to the frilly lace. It's actually a straight and traceable line.
Technology. Really? Now we're froze.
Everything froze. Okay. Uh, are we back now? I I Let me know. Let me know if I unfreeze everyone. Okay. I'm going to do this. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yeah, the screen froze. Okay. Well, let's see if we're back. Have I unfroze?
All I did was hit the refresh. I reloaded the page, of course.
Okay, are we back? We're back.
Fantastic. H I honestly I really feel like someone I don't know maybe a envious creator has cursed me when it comes to technology. We in Thailand, we had the damnedest luck with reception, with actually having good consistent reception, even though we actually had a Thai an expense, relatively expensive, high-end Thai SIM card that was should provide us with local coverage paid to a local company and it didn't.
Tonight is just not to be for me.
Great bobin lace. Bobin lace. B O B I N.
Bobin. Um, I actually have a bobin here.
Yeah, I do. Okay. So, uh, bobin is another word for a spool, right? And so, basically, instead of using your fingers to make laces, like finger loop braiding, right? Like the laces used to tie off my hair, you actually take the thread that's already on the bobin, and you use the bobbins to actually control the thread, and you just unwind the bobbin as you need more and more thread.
And then you make lace using bobbins.
That's how that's how lace used to be made. Um the frilly lace that everyone knows now being on, you know, sexy undergarments and bales and wedding dresses and whatnot. You have a little pillow and you would actually pin an elaborate pattern onto the pillow and then you would actually manipulate the thread around the pins, but the thread would be attached to bobbins. Right?
Before that, it was all fingerloop braiding. So bobbin lace is a technique that's invented. We think we can trace it back to the late 15th centuries, the earliest I've been able to trace it back to. And it's called lace because it basically takes the bobbins take the place of fingers because they start coming up with threeperson fingerloop braids to make these incredibly elaborate patterns and someone realizes well instead of having uh instead of having 24 fingers and three bodies to manipulate and I think there's even a fourperson one in the 17th century. Instead of having all those people braiding together, why don't we just, you know, attach the keep the thread on the bobbins and use the bobbins. So that's where bobbin lace, what we now know as lace, comes from.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, everyone. So, I am now sort of dressed. Uh, I still have to do something with my hair. So, I'm leaving it in braids. I'm not going to I I almost unbraided it just to comb it for you all. But I'd like to get sewing today. So, I'm just leaving it in the braids. I'm just doing it into what I call the dirty, messy bun of the Middle Ages because over top of that, I will be putting my kerchef my coover chef.
Let me see. I was learning about Honetan lace the other day. Really interesting.
actually held back schooling in the area because they wanted their kids making lace instead. Oh, interesting.
Okay. So, the Kirchief goes on called a kufchief comes from. It actually comes from old French hufef the a cover head, a head covering basically.
And this is a 15th century Flemish French style that also there's some evidence of it in England as well in the 15th century. The earliest I've seen this particular style is about 1450. Um and then it stays in in use for for centuries. Actually some of you the reason that you think of this as the Dutch Milkmaidaid Kirchief is because it stays in in use for so long because it's a super practical super practical head covering. Right. Bad hair day, no problem. Put on your coat shift. Uh, the sun is out, no problem. Pull the brim forward, right? It's really just such a practical garment. And it can fit under a hood, so if it's cold outside, then you can easily put a hood over top of it, right? It and and if it's hot outside, it keeps the sun off of your head. It's linen, so evaporative cooling. And so if you're in a very hot situation at an event, say where temperatures are skyrocketing and humidity is high, you could actually if you wet this kirchief, then the evaporative cooling will be truly relieving.
Oh, thank you, Houston. Appreciate that.
Okay. Uh, do you know about the book by Dover Publishing, The History of Underclo by Willlet Cunnington and Phyllis Cunnington? Okay. So, if it's by Dover Publishing, I'm going to assume it's a reprint of a Victorian collection. I haven't seen the book. I can't comment on it. But what I will tell you is that the 19th and early 20th century and by early I mean like first half of the 20th century costume historians were not very good. Um they were they were working in many cases in a vacuum. They were interpreting art incorrectly. They were interpreting art medieval art very often through their 19th century filter. and they often include redrawings in their works that are very interpretive and that don't look very much like the original. So I I tend to not trust Victorian era costumemers or costume historians with the exception of the ones who are antiquarians who are actually just straight up transcribing um original works andor translating original texts. That's different. But most of the most of the costume uh history of costume books that Dover Publishing has reprinted are the ones that are out of copyright and therefore free to do so. They also tend to be pretty terrible in terms of the caliber and correctness of information. I haven't seen the history of underclo in particular so I can't really comment on it but in general I'd be leery. Yeah, I thought the kurchchief was something he blew your nose into. Okay. So why how do we get from krachef krachef kchef something that covers your head to a handkerchief a handcloth. So eventually the word kurchchief just comes to mean in English like a a smallalish cloth a cloth that is portable somehow. And so a hand certifie is a cloth you can keep in your hand specifically for all those things what for which you might need it for dabbing your brow if it gets hot um for blowing your nose for you know getting food off of your mouth after you've eaten right that's where the word hand curchief comes from because the original word kashef which were in their origins origins probably just rectangles or squares of linen That word in English eventually becomes synonymous for square or rectangle of cloth. And then someone says, "Well, it's the one that you keep in your hand." That's a hand curchief. That's where that comes from. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, so Tommy Cor says, "I wondered about the the history of underclo because it has 100 illustrations." Yeah.
I wouldn't trust those illustrations as far as I could throw a feather.
Like really? I mm- no, the Victorian everyone Victorian redrawings are highly inaccurate. They really are. They're very interpretive. If you go back and look at the original effigy, you're going to frequently see that they've interpreted lines to be art items of clothing when it's actually just a fold in the garment or they've interpreted lines to be a headpiece when it's really just a separate headpiece when it's really just a fold in the veil. Yeah, you just you can't trust those redrawings. And this is a this is a bit of a art history lesson, right? If you are studying art, you need to make sure that you are looking at the original artwork. There are a lot of redrawings out there, not just modern redrawings.
It was very popular in the 16th century to make copies of portraits of one's illustrious ancestors. And by ancestors, I don't mean distant past. I mean in the 1550s making copies of portraits of Elizabeth Woodville or Edward IV from 1480. But then those copists, those artists are again interpreting those original portraits through the lens of their own fashion understanding. And so they're not 100% accurate or faithful.
And they are again showing you clothing in ways that were that was understood in 1550, but not in 1460, 70 or 80. So you have to be careful. You have to check when the painting was actually made. As far as I know, there are no extent contemporary portraits that port proper portraits like oil painting proper portraits of Edward IV that have survived. There are depictions of him in man in illuminated manuscripts but all of those like proper formal portraits as far as I know none of those actually date to his lifetime. They are all postumous copies. You have to be really carefully about careful about postumous copies as well. You also have to be careful again in the 16th century it's very popular to create this portrait hall of your ancestors of artists just making up depictions wholesale. There are 16th century portraits of Charleammania for instance that definitely don't reflect any actual likeness of said great illustrious Holy Roman Emperor. So yeah, you have to know, you have to understand the history of the artwork itself before you can decide whether it's something you can rely on for say fashion history interpretation.
Yeah. Yeah. Good morning, Hos. Lovely to see you. Yeah, etmology is so much fun.
It really is. It's fantastic fun. Okay.
Well, is anyone working on anything this morning? Any any clothing, any projects, crafty, anything?
I need some bling. Clearly this morning I will be going with the armor and castings replica of the beetrice deste gem. And I'm just going going with simple understated this morning.
Sorry I'm off so soon. I've been getting up around 5:00 a.m. and it's 10 p.m.
here. Oh, I'm sorry. Love the cat tapestry, too. Cat tapestry. Oh, you mean you mean you mean the kitty the lion back here?
Yeah. I'm sorry. You can hang around Tommy Cor. I'm sorry. I'm sorry this got started so late. We were fighting technology hard. It was miserable.
Okay. Well, let's get to the sewing. Oh, but Ryan did bring me my belt. I'll put I'll go ahead and put the belt on since it's here. This belt is called a demisent.
Show you up close. This is the end. Um, and it is called a demisent. a demison because it is literally like a a half belt, right? It is not it ends. It's it just goes on the hips or maybe even just the waist. Only women wore these. And it doesn't have it's not meant to have a long strap or anything like that. So, and many of them you see if you actually look at depictions very often the discs end here because it's, you know, not even that much of a belt. The advantage of this kind of belt is that it's super flexible for women whose waists are constantly expanding and shrinking going through various stages of pregnancy and postpartum and also whose hips are probably also constantly changing shape as a consequence of being pregnant or not pregnant. And so this kind of belt with its chain is, you know, that allows you all sorts of length and options without having to poke holes in the leather actually is a really clever idea for a woman's girdle. And these would have been called a demisent just demiscent like not even demisent girdle just a demisccent if it's this specific kind but the general 15th century English word for belt is girdle and that's that brings a lot of confusion when modern people are reading historical medieval texts English texts specifically and they stumble across the word girdle. Girdle originally just meant belt. That's all it meant. And it's it's the Germanic word. It's the same word in German to this day. Gertil, right? Gertel. Same word. And so it just meant a belt. And it didn't it wasn't gendered. It's just the general word for belt. Everyone has a belt. Um and this specific kind though got did get a special name and that is a demiscent. It doesn't often happen that medieval English actually accounts for different kinds of the basic garment, but in the case of a demiscent, it does. And I'm bringing this up because I am expecting a package from Armor and Castings with one of their really splendid demisent sets. And we're going to be turning that into a gorgeous demisent with made of silk velvet or silk demask. I haven't decided yet. Probably silk velvet. Yeah.
So stay tuned for that process. That's going to be really fun. Yeah.
Is that your wallet purse? Oh, no. This is Okay. What is this? This is a purse.
It is called an ammonier, an alms purse.
And this is the purse in which men and women in the middle ages would have kept alms for the poor. So they would have actually had coins that they would have given out to poor people on the street.
Um it was just part of your duty as a Christian to support the poor for the poor are always amongst us, right? And so they would have actually had these beautiful pouches and they would have hung from a purse hanger. this special metal addition that is riveted to the belt and then when they went out and they would give alms out, they would have this purse. I I you know I don't I don't go out that often amongst communities where I would be able to give alms. So I keep a variety of things in this purse that are not alms per se.
But um yeah, no, this is not my wallet.
This is not why my wallet is missing.
Okay, everyone. Let's get down to the fun the fun practice of sewing. Oh, this came off. Ah, this is one more accessory. I haven't talked about this very often because I don't often have it on my belt. Um, this is a potoster, right? Literally means our father. And it is basically like a miniature version. It's part it's part of the rosary. It's two decades of the rosary in essence. And these are prayer beads so that you would have with you when you would go to when you would go to mass and you would go maybe pray at a chapel.
You would have your potterer with you so that you could easily keep track of saying the our father and the a maria as part of your ritual prayer in the middle ages. And potternosters came to be very elaborate to the point where in certain convents and even in certain mon monastic communities they had to enact extra rules about the kinds of beads out of which your potterers could or could not be made. Humans will peacock. They just will. It's in our nature. It is just absolutely in our nature. Okay, let's I'm going to move everything forward to get to the sewing. Oh, right.
But I wanted to show you progress so far.
on the new Burgundian gown.
Okay. So, this gown is called in modern costumeuming terms, it's called a Burgundian gown, but that's that's what we call it. They there was no there was no such uh identity of this particular fashion being particularly associated with the Burgundian court versus the French court. Um, and I it's the Victorians I think who invented that term. I'm not certain. I haven't actually chased on that etmology, I will admit. But this is basically the what some of you might call the V-necked princess gown that is to be worn over this. So, I'll go ahead and put this on in the hopes that I don't skewer myself on the pins in the hem right now and show you where we're at.
So, the sleeves have not been attached yet. There will be sleeves.
And I have designed this one. This is my own pattern. I have designed this one to have a turnback collar on front and back, meaning that the collar pieces are just an extension of the body. I don't know that they did that. It looks you can kind of see that's definitely a trend in in this garment throughout the 15th century by this time. It could be that they were separating they were attaching the collar separately sometimes or always or both. Sometimes it was a turnback collar, sometimes it was a separately attached collar. But basically, it will close up to about here.
And over top of this will come a stomacher, a stomachus as it's called in 15th century Scots actually. And that will cover up the curdle and also the lacing. And the stomachus are generally made out of velvet, which would have been silk velvet. Um, but we do have some evidence that they could sometimes be made out of a dam mask or or a plain silk even. All right. So, this is where we're at on this garment, at least on the top part. As I said, it does have sleeves. So, the sleeves will come over top of this. And you can understand now why having short sleeves is such an important feature of the Keral. Because if you have a fitted sleeve that goes over top of this, having two fitted long sleeves is not the most comfortable thing in the world.
Yep. Okay. Now, the thing is that we are currently working on the bottom of this.
We're working on the hem. So, working on the facing that is going around the bottom. And I have actually, you can see here, maybe black on black.
You can see that there's a band long just straight rectangle not cut on the bias strip of black wool that I am attaching to the bottom. And the facing is being attached in such a way that the facing pokes out below the bottom of the shell of the top fabric. So the facing I don't even know if that will actually show up. The facing will actually take the wear and tear of being dragged across the ground. And so when the facing wears out, you can just replace the facing in that specific section instead of having to worry about patching the what is the visible top layer. Yeah.
So that is where we're at. And I have made it. Let's see there. There. How far have I made it? I did get some of this some work on this done while I was in Thailand. Not as much as I would have liked, however.
Yeah. So, I guess we made it to about there. So, I've got about a yard and a half of a I don't know, eight yard and a half on a six yard hem done. So, that's great.
Okay, let's take it off so I can actually sit down and start the sewing.
So, some of you have seen my posts lately about the exciting find, the wax tablet find in the toilet, right? That was uh I had someone comment that it really wasn't the only thing that the only thing exciting about it was the fact that it was found in a toilet. Not true. Not true at all. It's actually exciting because it is one of the best preserved what we now call wax tablets, but they weren't called wax tablets.
They were just called tables in the middle in medieval English. It's one of the best preserved ones that has ever been found because some poor bastard dropped it in the toilet in 14th or in in 13th century Paraborn, Germany. And he dropped it in the toilet in its leather case. And because the because the latrine was moist and anorobic, it was preserved. It didn't descate. The leather didn't crumble. The only thing that did disintegrate was apparently the thread holding the uh the thread that was used to sew the casing together. But apparently because of the way the casing was molded leather and because of the other adornments that were added to the leather, of previous writing and the SC the imaging devices that we now have can actually peel it back layer by layer, right? And so you can actually get each layer of writing. So we're going to be able to see this man's secrets up until the point where he dumped it in the toilet.
Yeah. Who fetched it out of the latrine?
The archaeologist fetched it out of the latrine, Jim. No one. It was it was um it was archaeologists who fetched it out of the latrine. And actually the really funny thing the really funny thing about it um is that when the the archaeologist the conservator who when she was brought this this lump of well poo basically um this this lump of poo earthn poo. She said that it still smelled like you would expect it to smell after 600 700 years. It still smelt like a latrine. So she was literally smelling the past. So it was a four-dimensional experience for her. Yeah. So no one fetched it out. So that's exactly what happened. This is this is my theory.
This is my theory. Anyway, I'm pretty certain that this man I'm going to lower this. It's going to get a little rocky for a moment. I'm pretty certain that this man was doing what many of us do when we're on the toilet these days in the bathroom in the library, right? He was either preparing to take notes or had just finished taking notes and he um he he dropped it. He dropped it in the toilet, I think, because it was in its case. I think he pulled it off of his belt, right, and dropped it before he even was able to do his business or he had finished his business. He stood up and he was about to attach it to his belt again and it fell into the latrine and I'm pretty certain he said to himself, "Not worth it.
Not worth it. Not worth it at all." So, um, yeah, no one fetched it out at the time. It's the archaeologists who have fetched it up now. But we can thank that man for doing the most human thing possible because now we have this perfectly preserved time capsule from Potterborn from the 13th century. And the interesting thing about this text is or this tablet, it's the writing, the notes are Latin. So this tells us right off the get-go that this was an educated individual from the upper echelons of society. This wasn't a tablet owned by just anyone because Latin was not the language being used by everyone in this era. It was only being used by the educated. So it's, you know, really it's going to be really interesting to see what kinds of things he noted in this this book. The initial analysis based on kind the archaeologist just looking at it tell us that it seems to be business records like business notes. So, I'll be very interested to see what other kinds of things are in this tablet. You know, I I really want it to I want it to be fun. I want it to be notes like saw a cat peeing on a on the church wall today or um you know, I don't know, John John is a bastard or something like that. I mean, it just it would be it would be really fun if these notes he's been keeping in Latin are completely really in congruous with Latin as a language of choice for taking notes.
Don't fancy making a time capsule. Jim, I will not take anything to read or my phone into the bathroom with me ever.
Oh, wait. Am I back? Am I back? Am I I'm going to recycle anyway. Rel.
Are we back? Are we Are we back? I refreshed because apparently we were frozen again. So I refreshed everything. So hopefully we're back.
Okay, let me know if we're back, everyone.
Uh, anyway, so that the finding of this basically smartphone from the the analog smartphone from the 13th century, you know, is is a good segue into uh discussing this method of taking notes in the Middle Ages. And I it occurred to me that just because I know about it doesn't mean everyone knows about tables. Yay. Yay. Yay. All I had to do was hit refresh. I don't I don't know what's going on. I'm going to have to have a conversation with Reream. Um and which is probably going to be a conversation they're not going to enjoy.
Anyway, so this um got to find my have to find my pins. So wax tablets as we call them now. They were not called wax tablets in the Middle Ages in English. They were called tables actually and I know you all might think well isn't that confusing with you know a table on which you eat. Well actually those tended to be called boards actually more often than tables.
Um, even though in the Middle Ages you start to see the word table arise in that context, more often when it's when you're talking about dining, they talk about boards and and that's why they actually, for instance, there's this great um ordinance from the household of of Edward IV of England that actually said talks about the pantler's duties.
And the pantler is to only pair bread to prepare it for trenchers. He should only pair the trenchers for the king and his board, meaning the people who are dining with him at his table. So even there in the 15th century, the word board is more likely to be the word for table than table is. So table um is generally the word for a what we would call a wax tablet. And you know, we actually do still have this word in that in that sense in the modern context. Any of you learn your multiplication tables? Ever wonder why it was called a table?
because it used to be written on a wax table on a tablet, right? So, we do still have like the word lace. We do still have some of those old holdovers from from the older use of words like table. So, yeah, and the the stylus in 15th century English would have been called a pointal, spelled variously, of course.
So, if you're looking to up your medieval living history game and you would like to start using some actual medieval terms for these work a day objects, then consider calling your smartphone your table. And if you even if it has a stylus, call it a pointal because that's what it would have been called in in the 14th and 15th century at least. And I assume past that, but I haven't I haven't looked into the 16th century language of tables as it were.
And they didn't call it a wax table because it was just understood that it was waxed. Like there was no alternative really apparently. You know, now we call them wax tablets because we they're not very common. But what I did find out in reading up on this new find from Potterborn is that apparently wax tablets, these tables were actually utilized in a business context for taking notes until the 19th century in Europe. So they didn't actually go away as quickly as you might imagine. And if you think about it, it's it is it is the cheapest way to actually take notes that don't need to be permanent because paper paper is expensive. Even into the 19th century, paper is expensive. It's only with the rise of the machines and the industrial revolution that a lot of objects of daily life that we now take for granted become inexpensive. paper was it was cheaper than vellum, but that didn't make it cheap. And so it seems that people were not using paper notebooks to record just any casual information. They used paper notebooks specifically for records that needed to last longer, for ideas and thoughts that needed to last longer, for drafts of texts that needed to last longer. And so when it came to more delable work a day notation, people were still using wax tablets, these tables, until the 19th century.
Fascinating, huh?
Same way we don't call it a paper notebook or a metal phone, I guess. Yes, that's exactly right. Exactly right. Um, wait. Darn it. Show.
Whose comment was that? Oh, why are you like this?
Okay, there we go. Hate the screen sometimes so much. Yeah, exactly. Aya, we don't need to call it a metal phone or a paper notebook because it's understood what it's made of precisely.
Yeah, it's just I'm I love etmology.
It's so much fun. Yeah. So, is anyone else working on anything today? Any sewing to be done?
We just returned from Thailand. Our trip to Tiangmai and Bangkok. Absolutely wonderful time. Although again I I can't take Bangkok for very long. At least not the part where people live. I I do not handle noise well and to to be in honest truth, Bangkok is one of the loudest cities in the world. It is just a constant roar of engines and traffic in most of the parts. So I just I can't I can't take it for very long. And I don't I literally hermit inside of the hotel when we're there because I just don't want to go out and be assaulted by the sound. But we did manage to get to this You anywhere in Bangkok to that pier to then cross over to that peninsula, but there are no river fairies that go that far south, alas. So to get there, you have to take the metro to Kong toe metro stop or you then have to um take a a taxi all the way there. So either way, you know, you can't really get away from the roads in order to get to this beautiful beautiful scenic place.
Yeah, that's that's my only complaint about about Thailand is that a lot of it is very very loud. And I figured out I we figured out some time ago.
We figured out some time ago that and it was reinforced on this trip. The ti the Thailand we really want to visit is 19th century Thailand before the advent of motor vehicle traffic and before all when they were still living in the slow the slow way as I call it the slow life way before mechanization when you know the villages were still peaceful and quiet before there was mass amounts of trash everywhere before there was pollution there's like maybe three places left in Thailand that are still like that. And those are, of course, the places they always put on the tourist posters, you know, come see Thailand, see this amazing, idilic rice patty village. And then you get to Thailand and you ask yourself, where is the rice patty village?
Yeah, that's my only problem with with most places in the world, not just Thailand, most places in the world. I want to be in the beautiful, peaceful, scenic places, and there aren't many of those left.
Of course, I can't tell if we're Are you all still there? Is anyone there? I can't I can't tell if we're actually if anyone's actually out there if I'm just talking to myself. Right. So, do you have any questions about daily life in the Middle Ages? Anyone any uh any anything you've been reading lately that made you wonder that maybe I can help clear up a little bit?
There was something I read recently that made me go, "Oh, no. That is that is just not right.
That is not right at all." And I wanted to talk about it with you. I had a list of things to talk about you with, but I haven't found that list yet because we wrote the list up while we were in Thailand. And it's God knows in what backpack or satchel or secret pocket for us to find.
So, what I'm doing now, just to update everyone, I am actually taking my the facing. This is the facing for the hem of this so-called Burgundian gown. And I'm actually just folding down the top half inch to help facilitate the creation of that lip that I was talking about. And then I'm pinning that for now. And then I'm going to go back and pin that to the folded edge of the skirt itself. And I'm folding just a tiny little bit of the edge of the skirt because this wool is fold pretty nicely.
And so you can see the cut edge barely ravels, right? It barely ravels. It's not as full as I might like, but it's pretty fold. It almost doesn't need finishing. So I don't really need to give it a big seam allowance to prevent raveling from happening.
Oh, we're here. Excellent. Fantastic.
Any botanical gardens in Thailand? Well, so technically this peninsula of which we're speaking um which is the Sri Nakon something something something botanical garden. It is a botanical garden and but it is it is it it is made intentionally to feel like a natural botanical garden.
So you know some people when they hear of botanical gardens they expect it to be this beautifully landscaped very artificial sort of construct and a lot of botanical gardens are moving away from that towards creating natural biomes and so this Sakon Park it's got like three other names in in the name and I can't remember what they are off the top of my head botanical gardens is a botanical garden but it is meant to be a tropical tie to to recreate create to allow to regrow natural a natural Thai central Thailand environment. So it is it is and there are there are such things all across the you know all across Thailand and you can go hiking in the mountains you know but even in the mountains this is the crazy part even in the mountains where there are hiking trails very often there are mountain roads nearby that snake up the mountain and so once again you can hear the roar of traffic you're hiking up this beautiful beautiful trail you think you're in the middle of the jungle or the rainforest And you can still hear the roar of diesel fueled engines. It's just so so sad. And I know I'm probably one of the few people who really prizes and needs real peace and quiet, but there it is.
But there are botanical gardens.
Absolutely. And they are increasingly moving towards recreating the natural biomes rather than creating a you know an English shadow garden for instance.
And I I appreciate both honestly. I like both. I think both are beautiful. They each serve a different emotional function for me. I I also appreciate, you know, basically sculpture from flor from flora. I think that's a beautiful thing to landscape a garden into an architectural shape in the case of the traditional English garden or in the case of the garden that would be traditional here historically in Korea where it's actually artificial but it's designed to not seem artificial and yet to still be contained in a neat and orderly fashion. So, it's not wild at all, but the lines and the curves and the contours of the landscaping, the landscaping here historically in Korea is designed to mimic those of nature, but nature that is controlled rather than nature that is wild. I appreciate that as well. I All of those spaces for me have a wonderful place and are enjoyable. And then I do just enjoy a nice wild jungle.
I enjoy all of it, but I the thing the key the key thing that connects it all is lots of greenery, no traffic, little in the way of noise. I don't mind I don't mind the suseration of people. I don't mind laughter, but the roar of machinery, it just I can't. It's not my It makes me disqu.
Unfortunately, we just I just discovered at the end of our time in Tiang Mai, there is a waist loom weaving workshop that they offer. Um, and it's I was hoping now that I found it, we're hoping to go back. I'm hoping to reach out to them and say, "I don't want just an experience. I actually want to learn how to do this. We're going to be here for a week. Can we please set up some private toutelage so you can show me how to set up the loom?" Because right now the three-hour workshop is they they set it's all set up for you, right? They've they've warped it already. All you have to do is strap up and then they show you the actual weaving process itself. But I want to learn how to do the whole thing.
So, I'm hoping to reach out to them and arrange an actual proper week-long intensive course basically where I learn how to do the whole thing from beginning to end. That's I'm very excited to learn to do that.
Sarah, February, lovely. Thank you.
Thank you. I missed you too. It's good to be back. I I really had planned to do a lot more medieval sewing party live streaming. And the the key was that we were going to go out into some of the historic in some cases actually medieval in the sense of what was the Middle Ages in Europe, medieval spaces in places like Chiang Mai. And as it turns out, we couldn't do that because the reception was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. It was abysmal. Sometimes we would have a perfectly clear picture and sometimes we would not. So, I just was not able to accomplish the medieval living history things that I was hoping to accomplish while we were there. Um, I'm sorry for that. But we did do some live streaming from some interesting sites on my travels with the Creative Contessa channel because for as for many of you may know travel may suspected travel for me is definitely very heavily predicated on on history on history and culture and and the culture of creation you know hand handcrafts. So we did cover a lot of that over on the travels with the Creative Contessa channel. One of my favorite things to do in Tiang Mai actually is the Lana Traditional House Museum. Lana was the kingdom that was the northern third of Thailand, what is now Thailand. The highlands basically sort of sandwiched between what is now Vietnam, Laos and and Burma, Myanmar.
And the Lana Kingdom was its own polity.
It was its own independent entity. They had their own culture, their own language, their own writing system. They also have their own food and their own clothing and their own style of weaving and fabric. And a lot of those traditions, those historic traditions are actually still preserved in in places like Tiang Mai. You can actually take Lana cooking courses where you're learning northern Thai cuisine, not the typical central Thai or royal palace Thai cuisine, which we did the last time we were there in February.
So, if you're interested in seeing, you know, experiencing the history and culture of other places as we travel, check out Travels with the Creative Contessa. But this place we went to, the Lana Traditional House Museum, is an outdoor museum to which homes that were basically slated for demolition, traditional style architectural homes have been relocated because the way people used to live in northern Thailand is not the way people live now. Mostly people used to live in these beautiful stilt homes built out of teak wood and they were gorgeous. But you know they don't one they require a lot of maintenance because the jungle will take it back. So they were not they were not cheap at the time and they're not cheap to maintain even now. Two they don't necessarily fit with the modern the desire for a modern western style home.
You know they don't they're they're built in a very specific way that might not that modern people may or may not find comfortable. But I think the bigger issue is the expense and trying to accommodate a population that is rapidly growing or had been rapidly growing until recently and unable to do that and still maintain this traditional style of architecture. For instance, you can't build apartment buildings, multi-story apartment buildings in this particular using this style of of construction.
So whenever one of these homes was slated for demolition to make room for a modern cinder block apartment pile for instance and in some cases they managed to actually raise the funds to relocate these homes to this outdoor museum. And now you can go to the Lana Traditional House Museum and you can not only look at the homes from the outside, but for most of them, you can go inside and feel firsthand, experience firsthand what life was like in pre pre-westernized Thailand, in pre-westernized Lana in any case. So, it's a very interesting experience and one of the nice things about it is that it is a park, so there's lots of green. You can only sort of hear the rush of the road that's nearby. The downside, it's right in the flight path of the airport as where the airport currently is. So about every 10 minutes, you have a very angry sounding bird flying roaring overhead.
Thankfully, they're moving the airport.
They're building a new airport. So it will go to the other side of the city, which will leave this particular open air museum much more peaceful and much more quiet.
Oh, yeah. Someone said they enjoyed my segment about the the Thai kitchen, the Thai kitchens as were. Yeah. So, I did I published a video um about the kitchen in the traditional Lana house that actually shows it's a reconstructed kitchen. Apparently, there are still people living out in country villages in northern Thailand. There are some people who do still live in these homes and they're still cooking. Their kitchens are still like that. they are still cooking on clay stoves, using clay pots, um using the the old bamboo inserts for steaming sticky rice. So, that is still a possibility. Um but it's just not it's not as common and it's generally not where you're going to see it in the you know, if you just go to normal places in Thailand, the main the main centers of tourism as it were. So if you the easiest way to go is if you're in Chiang Mai, go to the Lana Traditional House Museum and then you can see it firsthand.
Very interesting. But you know, I'm I'm hoping that maybe even in Thailand, maybe they can not take a hundred years or more to look back at the way they used to do things and take take the positive lessons learned. I'm hoping that they are in fact looking at how things were done up until some cases 40 years ago and saying well actually that was much more sustainable let's go back to that and some in some ways that's already happening so there are grocery stores major grocery store chains in Thailand that have actually made a commitment to dispensing with plastic wrap for food and going back to using um banana leaves banana leaves and bamboo uh bamb bamboo wraps, bamboo containers for for selling ready-made food, right?
Because that is what they used for millennia. And it's 100% biodegradable, 100% sustainable, eco-friendly, and will help remove carbon from the air rather than put it into the air along with other pollutants. And so several major grocery store chains have committed to going back to that. So, I'm really hoping that maybe that's a sign that Thailand has reached a stage in its shall we say modern development. It's redevelopment, it's westernization, I don't know. Um anyway, that they will now they can maybe learn how they've do things traditionally, did things historically and traditionally and we'll go back to that wherever it's feasible.
So, here's hoping.
Yeah.
Yeah, my I saw you on the Travel Channel and it was like culture shock. Yeah, I have I have a different look as the modern Contessa as the traveling Contessa. That's true. I do. But uh I someone someone once said to me a friend once observed.
He said, "It doesn't matter whether you're wearing a sun hat or a hennen, you are still the countest.
It's just a difference of modern countest clothing or historical countest clothing.
It's all all the same. It's all It's all me, just different versions of me. Not madeup me, the real me, just different versions of the of the real me. Let me see comments. Ingenious and very creative on how they made things work from nature. Yeah, I mean, and we did the same thing in Europe. Like, it's not this is not something that's unique to tropical places. For literally millennia, humans have figured out how to use natural products to store food, to process food, to make items, to make clothing. And it's only in the 19th century with the arrogance of scientific advancement in quotes that we decided that synthetic was better. It was superior. Right? Better living through chemistry was the motto of the DuPont Company for decades. And it might still be, I don't know, but it was when I was growing up in Delaware and we would have all those commercials on TV that would, you know, promote the values of DuPont, the Dupont, DuPont and Co. and better living through chemistry, right? The idea that we can do it better than nature can. It's a human arrogance really. But there is so many lessons in sustainability that we can take away from from historical living all across the planet, medieval Europe as well. And yes, were there were there very negative aspects in medieval European living? Oh yeah, they used arsenic and orpamment and lead in everything.
Not good. We shouldn't go back to that.
But we should absolutely go back to, for instance, wax linen wraps for food instead of plastic wrap. We should go back to washing containers and reusing them instead of just having disposable single-use items, right? We we should go back to let's see what other we should go back to using ammonia to bleach our clothes instead of chlorine. 100%. No, I mean that's that's even that's not even necessarily a question of sustainability and polluting the environment. Chlorine bleach is terrible for clothing. It is so destructive. It eats through your clothing. Ammonia on the other hand actually makes it stronger and reinforces the fibers and moisturizes it and hydrates it and is good for the fibers but will also clean them and bleach them and restore them to a nice white state. So yeah there's a lot we could learn from you know the medieval way of doing things upycling recycling circular economy so many so many good things. brings me back to what uh I think Aya was Aya I think you commented earlier about the squares of silk that were used as toilet paper in the middle ages right so someone asked me recent has asked me often it crops up pretty often in these medieval these medieval sewing parties the question of toilet paper how did people clean their bums after they did their business in medieval Europe and you know one of the ways that they did it we know for certain because we find these in latrine They would cut up fabric, probably garments that had worn away to the point where there was nothing that could be left to be done with it, where it was so worn out that it couldn't even be turned into anything else. Then they would cut the fabric up into squares, neat squares actually. And if you think about it, you don't want there to be trailing threads for this purpose. They would cut it up into squares, and you would use squares to wipe your bum. How do we know this?
because we find them in latrine digs.
When when archaeologists start digging in medieval latrines, they pull out the most amazing things and some of very frequently not just in Potterborn they pull out squares of fabric and when they start analyzing the fabric they find out that there are there's fecal matter on it. So that is a way that medieval people clean their bums. They had better. They didn't have toilet paper.
They had toilet silk.
And the the finds from Powder Potter I find particularly interesting because they are actually it's it's it's silk damaskque. It's actually a patterned and textured silk. And I was thinking to myself that would actually be pretty that's like quilted toilet paper that we have now, right? That has a texture. That probably actually helps with cleaning things out. So yeah, silk silk toilet silk for the win.
Yeah. Uh Mr. Stein says, "Growing our own food, building our own homes have our security. That's something America did 125 years ago." Yep.
Yeah. So, I mean, it's always it's kind of always cost money to live. As long as there's been civilization, as long as the second we transition from being hunter gatherers to farming and agriculture and started building cities, it was always going to cost something to live, right? There was it's it's a question of whether you're using a currency or if you're engaging in bartering of goods and services, but it's always going to cost something to live. um you know depending on whether there's such a thing as private property and I don't necessarily want to wander down that rabbit hole this morning but at the very least you know we can we can stop being creating such a burden on the environment in the way in which we live.
Yeah.
Let me see. I read somewhere even further back they use their hands to wipe their buns. They also use sponges.
Yes. So in ancient Rome for certain um I know that the public the public latrines which they had and they had flushing flushing toilets in ancient Roman cities. Uh for those of you who've been to Ephesus or Pompei, you've seen them.
They actually had banks like it would be a a room with a an entire bench of toilets of toilet seats and the water would actually flow. The water from the aqueduct would actually be piped in and there was just a a channel of running water underneath. And so the channel would wash away everything that came out came out of humans and there would actually be a bucket um next to each of the the toilet seats basically with a sponge on a stick. So it was a shared sponge but it was on a stick. So you weren't actually touching the sponge itself with your hand but it was in a bucket and hypothetically you were supposed to rinse it. And I I don't know if anyone has documented that this was the practice in ancient Rome, but it would make sense to me that if it's a sponge on a stick that you would actually stick the sponge on the stick.
You'd stick the sponge into the running water in the latrine, give it a rinse, and then use it and then maybe rinse it afterwards. But yeah, for certain in ancient Rome, they definitely use sponges. Not everyone is going to have access to sponges, by the way. Sponges are a natural animal. They're a sea creature. And so if you live on the coast where sponges grow and live and you have sponge sponge farmers, not sponge farmers, sponge fishermen basically, then you'll have more access to sponges. Sponges will be less expensive. But if you're living somewhere in the middle of Germany in the 14th century, your access to sponges is going to be more limited. Sponges become a more luxury item. Whereas scraps of fabric suddenly become much less luxury. So yeah, it depends depends on when and where you were. The European the Middle Ages in Europe, it's not a monolith, right? It's not it's not the same everywhere across the thousand years of the Middle Ages. It's not the same across the entire continent. So things change and evolve. I actually have not found primary source evidence of sponges being used for that purpose in say France, England, Burgundy, the low countries in the 15th century. I haven't found. So, if you have p if anyone out there has primary source evidence of sponges being used in medieval Europe um for wiping your bums, let me know. I do know it was definitely the practice in ancient Roman cities.
However, uh let me see.
Yeah, the Aya mentions it. The communal sponge, wasn't it kept in vinegar? Yeah, vinegar or salt water. Yeah. So the bucket the bucket you know again humans might not have always understood about microbiology but they understood cause and effect. So yeah the sponges were kept the sponges on a stick were kept in a bucket of salt water or vinegar water and because they understood that the outcomes were better. It's the same reason that they scrubbed dishes like kitchen equipment in salt and then put it in the sunlight. They didn't understand about antiseptic properties of any of that. They didn't understand for the most part about microbiota, but they understood that if they did that, then people didn't get sick when you use the equipment again to cook another meal. So, yeah, definitely. I think I I think maybe very often we imagine things are more disgusting than they actually were in practice.
You know, the thought of using a communal sponge is is disgusting to us because we have disposable toilet paper.
But um you know, if if you really think about it, if it were if it were really unsanitary, then people would have died of chalera or some equivalent transmissible, you know, bacterial infection, and that's just not what happened.
Uh I hope they didn't they didn't need or eat a lot of corn back then. So Jim, by corn, do you mean grain or do you mean maze? So English has this unfortunate thing, the word corn, right? So corn used to just mean for centuries and centuries and centuries in English. Corn just meant grain. The corn market was the grain market, not the market for maize.
Maize is a new world grain that comes originally from the Andes actually and then spread northward. was a grass that got selectively bred to so that the you know this this there's a word for that kind of that the kind of the way the seeds grow uh in little clusters on grass and I can't remember it off the hand but anyway you eventually get a cobb right but corn is just one maze is just one of many grains and in medieval Europe they didn't have maize they had lots of other kinds of grains but not mazize so yeah uh Jim they didn't need corn in Europe because they didn't have it. But grain was certainly grain was certainly a starting from the agricultural revolution going forward.
Grain was absolutely became a staple of human civilization in most places. Any place that had agriculture, grain became a staple of the economy. It became a staple of the diet. So yeah, I mean what the grain was specifically varied from region to region based on what grew the best there.
You know in in Asia it wasn't just rice contrary to popular belief. Millet was also historically has also been very popular here for instance.
So yeah varies varies from varies from place to place but grain definitely became a staple of the civilization and you know a big part of the econ the e big economic driver which is also why many cities ancient cities maintained uh grain storage graneries of grain that were stored specifically for times of famine so that when a famine happened the the state the king would have these grainery They would open the graineries to everyone and it would prevent price gouging, right? It would make sure that everyone had food. It's a different idea about the importance of, you know, taking care of your people.
Yep.
So, you know, the the idea that it's the state's job to take care of the people and not just the rich people, it's a not a new concept. It's a very old concept.
It's something we should go back to. I wish we would. Probably won't though in most in the US anyway.
Anyway, don't want to wander down that rabbit hole this morning. I'm enjoying doing this medieval sewing. Handsome.
What other questions have we seen lately in the comments that I wanted to discuss in our medieval sewing party?
>> Um, David, I wasn't ready for the question.
Let me think.
Oh goodness. Okay. Well, maybe maybe I don't know. I don't >> I know where the notebook is.
>> Yeah, I don't know where the notebook is. Oh, new book I just got. So many of you Yeah, Maize believe I'm talking about Yeah. So, Jim Maze does not is part of the Columbian Exchange. So, I know many of you have heard the lecture on the Columbian Exchange before. I'll give it again. The Colombian exchange is the trans transference of goods mostly natural products between the Americas and Eura Asia. That is the consequence of Columbus and his fellow concistadores cross sailing across the Atlantic and returning again with all of these products. And so tomatoes, potatoes, corn, um, chili peppers, you know, chilies, which are all peppers, not not the pepper, not pepper plant peppers, which is a creeper, but chili peppers, green beans, and vanilla and chocolate go from the Americas to Eura, Asia, right? And then in exchange, the Americas get things like cows and pigs.
So yeah, there's a there's a big exchange that happens. Corn is amongst them. And corn doesn't get uptake really as a food stuff in most parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia until very very recently. It was mostly used in that part of the world in Europe, Africa, and Asia as animal feed.
Yeah.
And that's because it's not really digestible by humans without being processed in a very specific way in which it was processed in the Americas, but something we stopped doing when we took it back to Asia to Europe. And it turns out if you don't if you don't actually you know sub submit the corn to this particular chemical transition then it's not really that digestible and it's actually bad for you.
But you know whatever. But what that means is that you know Italians tomato sauce not a thing until the 18th century.
Can you imagine Indian curry without chili peppers? Can you imagine Korean food without gou? Can you imagine any number of Chinese dishes without the various red peppers that they also use?
Thai food, no Thai bird chili peppers, no chili peppers at all, in fact. But that was the reality before the Colombian exchange. And corn was a big part of that.
Can you imagine European cuisine, German food without potatoes?
But you should because there were no potatoes in German cuisine really before the 18th century because it took that long for potatoes to get uptake.
Let me see. Corn poo. Uh ladies ladies time what do they do? Ah that's a great question Steve. So menration what did ladies do at that time of the month?
There there's a lot of evidence for what ladies did at that time of the month and some of it um might lead to conjecture.
So, you know, there could we might find new information that changes how we understand it. But depending on where and when you were in medieval Europe, there were a couple of different options. If you lived in a green a verdant green place where moss grew, then they would actually use moss as menstrual pads. Specifically, the best kind is spagnum spagnum spagnum moss. I think that's how it's pronounced. I've never heard the word said. I've only read it in archaeological reports. Um, but it's a specific kind of moss. It's spongy. It's very durable. It's antimicrobial.
It's antibacterial. It's antifungal.
It's antiseptic. And it has a crazy absorption rate. It can absorb like 20 times its weight in liquid. And it can be reused. It can be rinsed out and rung out and reused.
And so we have evidence from graves of women who were interred probably while mid mensees who actually have bits of moss between their legs. And there's a reason the moss is also called blood moss. And there's a theory that it's called that because that's a me a memory of when women used to use it as men menstrual pads. And in World War I this same moss was used for packing wounds, soldiers wounds. It was it led it it is the reason that more people didn't die in World War I because it was antiseptic, right? They didn't have antibiotics yet, but they did have they did have smognam moths and not only was it absorbent, not only was it antiseptic, it actually encouraged the generative regeneration of the body. So yeah, um the only reason and in fact there were there were Swagna menstrual pads, Swagna Moss menstrual pads that were actually made produced commercially in the 1950s, I think. Um and I I wish they would go back to that. That would be great for those of us who don't have time to go out into the forest and harvest moss.
So moss is definitely one way. They also had rags. That's where the expression on the rag comes from. um rags made of linen, especially in medieval Europe, um sometimes made of cotton as well. And they would apparently attach these to a string, uh a girdle, basically a belt.
There would be a belt for it, right?
You'd have a a belt around your waist and then there would be a string that would be tied to the rags and that would be placed between your legs. And I think my theory is that especially during that time, women wore breaches, linen underpants to help hold everything in place. And also, if there was any if any seepage happened, if any blood got around the absorbent materials, then it wouldn't stain your undergarments. It would stain only the breaches and not your smok. Right. I think that a two-part system is the best, honestly.
Yeah. Uh yeah, tobac uh cotton is old world. I don't know why people think Oh, I know why people think cotton is new world. Cotton is old world. Cotton is not new world. Cotton was cotton and sugar were imported to to the Americas.
Cotton and sugar were imported to the Americas and those plantations were set up specifically because um it grew so well there in the in the tropics, right, in in the hot places, right? So that's why cotton was brought to the Americas. It was brought there because the environment was very very favorable to its cultivation and the same with sugar. But no, cotton is old world. Cotton comes from India basically. And Marco Polo actually talks about cotton and and the ancients also talk about cotton but they had the wrong idea about what cotton was.
Maybe Europeans, medieval and ancient Europeans thought that cotton was something was like a tree that grew little sheep.
And so in I think it is I think in Marco Polo's book of wonders but it might also actually be in like Plenny the elders de Naturra actually there's a depiction of a cotton tree a cotton bush and it's this cute little bush and it's got these cute little fluffy sheep just sitting just in the bush just sitting there like happy little sheep but part of the bush because that's what medieval people imagined cotton to be.
Yeah, pretty funny.
Oh, cool. Jimmy, you you use spagna moss to grow your blueberries.
That's cool. What does uh does that help keep the roots moist? Uh keep the plant healthy because of its antibacterial properties. What is what is the contribution there? That's really interesting.
Oh goodness, there's some kind of concert happening. I hopefully you all can't hear that.
Yeah. So women women's menration was dealt with in a variety of ways. The way in which I am 99% certain it was not dealt with. Women did not freebleleed.
There is this absolutely bizarre myth out there and I I the only people who could have spread it would be ones who haven't actually tried it that women in the mid preodern world and the middle ages in particular just free bled into their clothes.
And and these are the same people who also say they didn't wear underpants because that would be uncomfortable.
Um I would I would like I would like to know how many of those people claiming that have actually tried wearing medieval clothing for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks at a time or months at a time and free bleeding into it and how much they loved that experience. The the answer is going to be they they couldn't have. And if they did love it, then they're a special kind of masochist.
So yeah um no no free bleeding for for one thing blood is destructive to fabric it's it is dilitterious it's corrosive right blood contains iron iron is corrosive to fabric so bleeding into your garments and it's not just going to go to this layer it's going to bleed through all the way to the other layers as well if you're just free bleeding and those stains some of them will come out and some of them won't, but it will also cause your clothing to deteriorate. And in the pre-industrial revolution world before machines were the ones weaving the fabric, fabric was a very precious commodity. It was expensive and even if you wo your own, then it was time consuming. It was expensive in terms of time that it took. So, you're not going to do something that will intentionally willfully destroy or shorten the shelf life of your garments. say nothing of the time it then takes to turn the handwoven fabric into handsewn clothing and then you'll just freely bleed into it to cause it to deteriorate faster.
No, just just no. But no on so many on every single level. Every single level.
I once wore some later hose and don't ask. Why on earth would we have ever?
Ayah says I like my clothes. I you know there are some people out there who are naturists um to use the older meaning of that term right and they feel like you know anything that is not our natural state meaning clothing of any kind is dilitterious and you know violates our our natural imperative to live free end quotes.
But uh we have evolved significantly. Um we've been wearing clothing. Humans have been wearing garments for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. We stopped being mostly naked the second we left the hot places and moved into temperate climates with seasons. So, um, and I will fully I really think that changed a lot of things about us, right? Yeah. Why on earth would we have ever sheep cotton trees are definitely going in my D and D campaign? Awesome, Vogal.
I Please, if if if you feel like doing so, feel free to credit me with the inspiration. I'm I'm okay with that.
Sheep cotton trees. It's the cutest depiction. It really is. It's absolutely, it is so adorable.
Um, let me see. Has something to do with the acidity. Oh, interesting. The swagna moss influences the acidity of the soil probably in which the blueberry the blueberry bushes are growing. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, there were there were lots of different ways that women could women in medieval Europe could have and did deal with monthly flow. And and in fact probably possibly even in places where sponges were common like on the Mediterranean um especially the Eastern Mediterranean then they may have used sponges as well. Oh I also gosh that's that's triggering that's trickling trig triggering a memory is something I just read I think last week where there was talk about possibly um a cloth suppositories.
It was a primary source I read and it was a description about talking about women's health and I could have sworn that it was really talking about an early version of tampons basically but made from obviously natural materials like rolled up rolled up linen or or raw cotton wool. I have to I have to dig into that a little bit further. So don't walk away with this saying, "Oh, the Contessa has solid evidence of medieval tampons." I don't. But I I've read something that in a primary source that made me think there is. So I need to chase that down a little more.
I mean, God knows suppositories, vaginal and anal suppositories were absolutely a thing done in ancient times all the way through to the modern world.
That that itself is not a new concept.
The manuals of medicine and pharmarmacology starting from the ancient Greeks all have recipes for suppositories. So they acknowledged that it was a a way to access the body, shall we say, not a foreign concept, in other words.
Yeah. Daryl Stubs, thank you for joining us. Welcome.
Yeah. Um, let me see. How common was that in the Middle Ages? Or were pants firmly planted uh were pants or were pants firmly planted themselves into culture? Uh, the dread pirate Roberts.
You're talking about pants. Okay. So, pants, are you talking British English pants or American English pants? If by pants, if you're talking about underpants, um, in I can't I I don't know when it started, when the practice started of men and women wearing underpants. I I know that by the Middle Ages, it's a thing that both men and women were absolutely doing.
>> I couldn't find a whole lot. I don't like 40 posts.
>> Okay. Okay, fine. Okay. Um, anyway, we're talking about uh underpants. I actually have, for those interested, I have a whole video on this channel, a really good video essay with proper editing and a really fantastic script that I researched and wrote myself on women and medieval women and underpants.
Men and women were wearing underpants.
There's evidence of it all throughout the Middle Ages. They were generally made of linen.
And um we we know because men are very often depicted in their underpants. And up until the 15th century, men's underpants were basically just imagine giant linen boxers.
Giant linen boxer shorts or relatively voluminous linen boxer shorts. And they were that was you know that was not just a question of comfort. That's a question of keeping your clothes clean because those are the layers that can be washed. Peasants are often depicted working in the fields. Peasant men, men, agricultural workers, men are often depicted working the fields in nothing but their what were in French were called bre or in early in middle English were called brea breaches the the the original word for breaches, right? So men men were wearing them. We even we know that in monastic communities men wore them as well. Have recently did some research into this. Apparently, there's a big there was a big debate in various monastic communities about whether it was acceptable to wear breaches for men to wear breaches underpants or not for monks specifically. And one of the reasons that it was considered potentially inappropriate was because wearing breaches would keep the men's genitals warm and it would keep them too warm and they would get too comfortable and then it would inspire heat in their temperament. Heat is of course associated with lust and so it would lead to lusty feelings. So they shouldn't wear breaches when they were in the, you know, sacred spaces, for instance, when they were participating in a mass inside of the church, the sanctuary of the church, because they might be inspired to lustful thoughts.
But when outside of the sanctuary, just out and about in the monastic community or traveling out in the world, even monks and priests wore underpants. And there's apparently a a bull a letter written by Pope Nicholas I in the 8th century I think where he basically he addresses this topic. So many members of monastic communities abbotts leaders in these monastic movements had been writing him and asking him about whether it was acceptable for men to wear underpants for the monks to wear underpants or not.
And he he basically says, "Look, whether you're wearing underpants, whether you're wearing breaches or not, breaches in the sense of these boxer breaka, underpants or not, has no impact on how holy you are.
God doesn't care. I don't care either.
Please stop writing me about it."
So, the great underpants debate is not a new debate, apparently.
Uh but we also know we know that nuns wore them and we also and how do we know that? Because there are regulations from various convents that talk about the clothing that the nuns were allowed to have and weren't allowed to have. And very often breaches were included in the clothing they were allowed to have. And I think they were supposed to have two pairs. We also have like satirical poems about life in monastic communities.
There's this great one from the 12th century called The Nun's Lament. And in it, this nun who was a noble woman and you know entered the convent. So she was used to a comfortable life, she complains about how dirty everything is now that she's a nun. And she complains specifically about her dirty underpants, right? Which is also a sign that being dirty and in body and wearing dirty clothes was not something medieval people generally liked. Otherwise, this nun wouldn't be complaining about it because it would be the standard situation. But it wasn't the status quo at all. It was an unusual situation, which is why she's complaining about it.
So yeah, I did my thesis on underpants.
The dread pirate's awesome.
Let me see.
Oh, Jim, you didn't offend me. Wait, wait, where? I missed a comment somewhere.
Uh, let me see.
Jim says, "An animal skins are still garments, aren't they?" Yep. Absolutely.
Animal skins are absolutely still garments. Yep. 100%. Animal skins absolutely count as garments. You know, anything anything that is not your own hair with which you cover your body is a garment. If it's someone else's hair that you're using to cover your body, it's still a garment.
Yeah.
Let me see. Cave men were wearing garments, weren't they? Uh, yes. As far as as far as I mean, I can't I mean, first off, what are cavemen?
It's like what we what we're starting to think of were cavemen. Maybe weren't necessarily cavemen anyway. That's kind of a big shift in the ar in the in the prehistoric archaeology world. But but yeah, from that era, you're talking the Neolithic era or the Paleolithic era. As far as we know, it seems that people were wearing garments. Yes. Yeah. But not everywhere. I mean, in the really hot places of the world to this day, there are Amazonian tribes who wear almost nothing, right? Because they don't need to because it's really warm where they live and the clothes wouldn't serve any real purpose, right, for their way of life. So, you know, it's it's not necessarily a universal truth that humans wear garments. It it actually really has to a lot to do with the climate where they live. Yeah. Let me see. They found a mummy in the Oh, Usy.
Yes. Yes. Utsie had underpants. Yep.
Utsie is Oh, thank you for bringing up Aya. Usy is an interesting story because of how he was found. I mean, that alone is interesting to me.
Um, Hansen, could you fetch me some more pins, please? SY. We call him SY. He's he that's he didn't have a He doesn't have a name as far as I know. They didn't find any indication of writing upon his person. At least nothing that would indicate a name. So what was happened back in the ' 90s, I think it was. There was a group of skiers in the Alps and the glacier had started melting. Now those are needles. Um the glaciers had started receding. Of course, melting.
and they found a body in the ice sticking up out of the melting ice. And of course, they called the police because they thought, well, they didn't know, but they thought maybe it was a more recent recent murder. It was not a more recent murder. It was a cold case.
A very, very ancient cold case. 5,000 years old, as Ayah says. So, this man was crossing the Alps and he was murdered.
They found an arrow in him. He was murdered. Shot through the back. So he was murdered old school cowardly style and he was wearing he because he fell into the ice sheet he got perfectly preserved in the snow that then compacted into ice. And so this 5,000-year-old man, this 5,000-y old corpse in all of his garments with all of his equipment and his shoes, and he had snow boots, basically he had he had the equivalent 5,000-year-old equivalent of snow boots made out of um uh straw.
Was it straw? I think it was straw. I think it was straw. Lined in fur, right?
And and he had his equipment. And so we actually have this time capsule that has survived from Oh, do you guys want to see a baby? Do you want to see a baby?
Yeah, our our kitties were very happy to see us back again. Anyway, perfectly preserved. And yeah, he does have underpants on. You're right. I'd forgotten about. But it's really Look up. O with an umlout tzi.
Fascinating. Just absolutely fascinating.
Yes.
>> Oh, you're going to the gym. Okay. I thought you were doing an ootsie.
>> No, although >> could you could you perhaps wheel that cart closer to me?
>> Yeah, I can't. Since you're no longer standing.
>> Yeah, since I'm no longer standing trying to do something that requires a little more control wearing nothing like the beach in Europe you mentioned in your trip. Yeah.
Yeah. Sie is an amazing it's an amazing find. So we we know that humans Okay.
So, at least I was wearing underpants, but but it could absolutely date further back than that, right? That could absolutely date further back than that.
So, yeah, men and women. And And how do we know that women did, right? You know, if you guys want to start a fight in the medieval reenactment community, just make this statement. Medieval women wore underpants. Just say that. That's all you have to say. and you're going to draw people out of the woodwork who normally don't have strong opinions about anything, but they've got an opinion about that.
Right? It is remarkable that people will die on this hill.
And again, I'm going to say the Middle Ages is not a monolith, neither in terms of the thousand years nor the geography, right? And even even just talking about what we now recognize as Europe, also not a monolith. So the practices of women wearing underpants will not perforce be the same in Italy as it would be in England. It wouldn't be the same from Rome to Florence necessarily.
But to make a statement that women, and every time I hear this in some bloody fashion history video by someone who doesn't know better, but should know better, they say preodern women, women before the modern era didn't wear underpants.
It's that is not true. Women absolutely did in medieval Europe even depending on when and where. And and there's another an interesting thing is that it seems I think there was I think there was even a woman found in a migration era grave who had signs of having worn breaches.
Talking like sixth century fifth fifth fifth century France or Germany. I I don't remember which grave off hand. But someone posited that that makes sense because migratory people ride horses and they ride m, you know, nomads, they ride horses. They ride horses for long distances. And it makes sense that as a man or a woman, you will want to wear pants. Whether they're underpants or pants pants, you're going to want to wear them when you're riding long distances. That's why, for instance, Mongolian women wore pants. In in lots of parts of Asia, women wore pants whether or not they were still riding horses. It was a memory from an earlier nomadic time. In Korea, women wore pants under all of their skirts for 2,000 years at least. So, yeah. Um, you know, it's whether it's underpants or pants, still they were wearing them.
Oh god. Osie had Adidas according to conspiracy dudes. Fantastic.
Shuriken, lovely to see you. Welcome.
Uh, today, let me see if I can taste.
This is a Japanese green tea. It's Japanese green tea, right?
>> Uh, dragon well.
>> It's not. It's dragon. Well, not a Japanese green tea. This is dragon well green tea. I love dragon well green tea.
It's a very nice green tea.
Yeah. No. Chameleia sensus was not consumed in medieval Europe. Sadly, it was consumed in medieval Korea, though.
Yeah. So, underpants. Uh, how do we know that women wore underpants?
Um, we know because we have court cases.
Again, back to the court cases. We have court cases of sexual assault upon women where one of the key pieces of evidence given by the woman is that her braay, her breaches, her underpants were removed and damaged violently as part of the assault.
So, and it's very clear that that is a very important part of the case. that is a sign that this was not a consensual act. So if women weren't commonly wearing underpants in medieval France, then that wouldn't be a detail that was included.
Um, you know, we also have evidence like wedding trusos for from uh Italy specifically. I'm thinking 14th and 15th century Italy. Wedding trusos were basically like you might call it a hope chest. Any of you who know what a hook chest is, the hook chest is the descendant of the wedding truso. The wedding truso was a collection of items that belonged to the bride. They were specifically for the bride's use.
Personal items in some cases given to her by her mother, right? Personal items that were for her use. They were not part of her dowy. They were not to be taken by her fam her her husband's family or her husband. They were hers and hers alone. And they were so that when she they were intended these items were intended so that when she joined the husband's family she would not be an economic burden on the family. She would come pre-cloded and pre-equipped as a person. And those wedding trus were registered. They were considered an asset and they were registered in city archives in places like Florence and Bolognia. And you can actually go look up endless endless lists of wedding trusos with every item carefully documented and valued valuated. Right?
So we have I have found with just superficial amounts of looking dozens of wedding trusos that include underpants and old underpants no less. There was one wedding truso from 1476. Maybe it was 1466 where it specified three three pairs of new underpants and three pairs of old underpants.
Even if the wedding truso were intended for her husband, why would she be bringing him old underpants?
But she wasn't. This was her truso. It's not intended for her husband. And so at the very least in 14th and 15th century Italy, we have plenty of evidence of women owning underpants.
Now, why would they own them if they weren't going to wear them? Someone could argue, well, that's just she just owned them. She didn't wear them.
Someone made that argument to me. What?
What in God's name? That makes no sense.
That makes no sense to own a garment that you don't use in an era when fabric materials are very expensive and labor is expensive.
So yeah, let me see. Sorry, I missed I missed some comments.
The fall of Constantinople fell in between those dates. Yep.
I read how cool it was. That was a smaller world than we realize. Yeah. Um, let me see. Sorry, quick question here.
Oh, darn it. Show. Um, was the 15th century in Europe a lot different from the 13th century? Any any major changes in advancement? Yes. Uh, Husseel, great question. Uh, yes, 100%. There is a massive difference between 13th century Europe and 15th century Europe, even at the European scale. As as someone as I'm sorry, I missed who it was that actually commented that Constantinople falls to the Ottomans in 1453. So, that is a major change. That is a seismic shift at least from the European perspective, right? because that that is actually the end of the Roman Empire. Not not not 476. That's not actually the end of anything really. The end of the Roman Empire is 1453.
But even that even that the Ottomans viewed themselves as the rightful heirs by conquest of the Roman Empire. And so the Ottoman Sultan styled himself Caesar, emperor of the Romans actually. So maybe not maybe the fall of the Roman Empire is actually and truly, you know, after World War I, right, when when the empire when the the Ottoman Empire is dissolved and the Sultanate is abolished, right? So but but even still, 1453 is still a pretty seismic event.
But uh at the at the level of climate, there's big changes that have major impacts on European society. So in the 13th century in Europe, it's actually part of the warming the medieval warm phase as it's called crops. They're able to harvest to to plant and harvest twice a year in some places three times a year because it's so warm. So there's an absolute blossoming of the population.
There's a blossoming uh because there's enough food to go around. And so that is actually this great thriving in medieval Europe. And then in the early 14th century, everything starts changing. The climate starts changing. Europe enters a cooling phase and there's a series of catastrophes.
And not just the great not just the black death, which is also majorly impactful in European society.
The in the early 14th century, there's this period where it just rains in Northern Europe. It just rains and it rains and it rains and it doesn't stop and crops fail for several successive years. So there's this massive famine.
Even king, even the king doesn't have enough in England. There isn't even enough for the king. They are suffering serious shortages. So that sets things up for for a a certain kind of way for society to develop. And then of course the black death starting in for 1347.
But the black death doesn't come just once. A lot of modern people think, oh well, the black death happens in 60% of Europe dies in a couple of years. So that alone is insanely impactful. That changes people's psychology. That changes the social structure because we go from having too many people, too many is in quotes, but we go from having an almost surfit of labor and people to not enough to do the work. And so after the black death, suddenly peasants start, people, everyone, not just peasants, the laborers start expecting wages, more wages, higher wages to be paid more, right? They realize that after this big catastrophic plague that killed everyone, that maybe kings aren't as divine as they would like us to think they are.
That maybe the pope isn't as infallible as they would like us to think they are.
Right. And so this opens the door to honestly the reformation, the Protestant Reformation because you start seeing protorotestant movements, protoreformation movements at the end of the 14th century and then in the 15th century the Husidites for instance. So that's a consequence of the black death.
And so big change, big change, right?
Yes, there are some minor heresies floating around in the 13th century.
Catharism for instance, Wensianism, but those aren't nearly as impactful as what's about to come as a consequence of the Black Death really shifting people's mindset. And as I said, the Black Death leads to major economic changes. You know, in some places, the Black Death kind of ends surfom because there aren't enough not only aren't there really surfs necessarily because of the die off, but a lot of landlords die off, too. And so there's all these vacant estates and vacant lands and that opens up opportunity for people on the lower end of the spectrum to sweep in and maybe, you know, get get a foot up on the ladder.
So yeah, major changes. But the black death, the thing is the black death doesn't stop. It becomes endemic to Europe for the next 300 years. It comes, it comes back. Yeah. 300 years. comes back again and again and again every 10 to 20 years all across Europe. There are repeated outbreaks of the black death, massive die-offs again and again and again. So it actually keeps the population relatively low, which also opens up the door for labors to say, "Yeah, you're going to pay me more now cuz you need to because you don't have many options on alternatives."
And that also just impacts the way people think about life and existence and and philosophy, right? If if the black death keeps coming back, no matter what you do, you start to question everything. And that happens until this end of the 17th century in Western Europe. And in Eastern Europe, like Russia, for instance, the Black Death keeps coming back until the 19th century. So yeah, big changes, big big changes. And fashion of course changes massively as well in in not only are these these horrible developments happening, but there's a lot of technological advancements.
uh you know mills, water water power being used to drive mills, hammer mills, fing mills, um grain mills, windmills, right? There there are all these inventions. There's a lot of industrialization that actually happens between the 13th and the 15th century.
And you know there's advances in agriculture.
So lots of lots of big changes happen.
And what that results in is an ability to produce fabric faster for less money and less time, less less labor, less expense. And so fabrics become more affordable across more levels of society. With the, you know, with ymen peasants basically being able to now afford nice clothing, fashion actually starts changing at a much more rapid pace. And at the end of the 13th century, there is the start of a tailoring revolution. So we go from geometric construction in garments, meaning squares and triangles and rectangles, to tailored shaping, meaning curved arms, eyes, meaning shaping in the body, meaning complex geometry, which I know you're going to say that's still geometric, but curval linear geometry utilized to create really finely tailored garments. And that really picks up steam as the 14th century goes on. So that allows all new shapes in clothing.
That allows all new ways of expressing one oneself in a saratoral fashion. So yeah, lots of big changes in Europe from the 13th to the 15th century. Oh, and windows. Windows, chimneys, chimney pieces. Chimneys are basically invented in Europe. I mean, other places had chimneys, but Europeans don't get chimneys until the 12th century. and they start off as a luxury item. So what that means is that when you have a a hearth in your home, there's a hole in the ceiling and there is no pipe or column or conduit conducting the smoke out of your home. It just rises up hopefully and goes out the hole in your ceiling. But by the way, not all the smoke goes out. A lot of it ends up just in your space. And so people are constantly breathing smoke and that means, you know, a lot of pulmonary issues. People are probably not living as long as they could. But chimney pieces with a hearth, with a conduit going directly from where the fire is, conducting the smoke directly out, that changes everything, right? That actually allows women to start uncovering their hair. There is actually I can show a direct correlation between the spread of chimney pieces as a an architectural feature in homes across Europe with the exposure of women's hair and the rise of hairstyles for women instead of headdresses. And my theory is that as homes increasingly get chimney pieces, they get less and less smoky and women realize they don't have to cover their hair just to keep it clean anymore. So yeah, big changes. Chimneys are really impactful. And it isn't until the 17th century that most homes actually get chimneys. By the 16th century, your average commoner's home still doesn't have a chimney. You can look at 15th and 16th century depictions of cities like from depictions from the 15th or the 16th century and you're going to notice a lack of chimneys in the homes.
The only homes that have them are those of the wealthy, but in Italy they'd already started spreading. Most homes had chimneys by the 14th century, but it's a it's a it's a process that starts in the south of Europe and slowly works its way northward. In in the Howard household expense accounts from the 15th century, the Duke of Norfolk, this man is a peer of the realm. He is a wealthy and powerful Duke. And even still in the 15th century, he is just getting around to fitting retrofitting his properties with chimney pieces.
So yeah, chimneys big big big big change for European living. Yeah, also it allows homes to be heated more efficiently. Yeah. So great question, Husseel. Thank you for asking.
Uh yeah, so the the climbing the climbing the cooling of the climate. So the little ice age actually starts in the 14th century. A lot of people don't realize that it actually starts in the 14th century. So that's a big climatic shift. Very impactful in Europe. the crops start failing because it's getting colder and colder. It also leads to people dressing differently. Um maybe obviously but maybe not maybe in obviously. So yeah, that's absolutely the little ice age is also very impactful on fashion, but it it starts much earlier than that.
It it reaches it it's it's in full swing by the 16th century, but it's already things are already getting cold by the by the 15th century. And you actually start hearing about ice fairs where the rivers like the temps freeze so solidly that in the late middle ages they could actually have fairs on the river. Yeah, pretty crazy stuff. Um and that that climate cooling continues until the 19th century uh when the industrial revolution happens and then you can see a very clear and plottable line in the climate from the 1850s going forward to you know following the industrialization of everything with factories and the pollution that factories put out.
Let me see. Um interesting wondering does the invention of chimneys coincide with fires moving from the center of the buildings to the sides? Absolutely aid that is exactly what happens. That is why we go from having hearths in the center of halls to the sides of halls.
Uh because very maybe not maybe in obviously but if you think about it structurally it's much easier to build a chimney piece onto a wall than it is to build a stone brick or brick tube up the free freestanding tube up the center of the floor. Right? So that's that's exactly why that's exactly why chimneys why fireplaces hearths go from being the center of the floor to the sides.
And once you once you have it on the sides, then you can put one on each side and uh you can actually provide more radiant heat for a space. Whereas if your hearth is in the center of the floor, in the interest of not setting yourself on fire, you really only want one fire in the center of the floor. You don't want multiple open hearths going down the center of the hall. That's going to limit the useful space of the hall.
Yep, that is exactly what happened. A good call.
So yeah, big changes from the 13th to the 15th century and and economic, social, religious. I I personally for me the Middle Ages ends with a reformation.
The actual medieval period ends with the reformation in the 16th century because that's when it really really really all changes at a fundamental structural level. That's and that's that's the end of private armies. You know, it's a very medieval medieval concept. Private armies. That's the end of a central church in Western Europe basically more or less being responsible for everyone's religious practice with the expend exception of the Muslims and the Jews Christian practice. Anyway, you know, that's that's when there's a big change. Everyone likes to talk about, oh, in Renaissance Italy in the 14th century. And I'm like, no, the political structures in Italy from the 13th to the 14th century to the 15th century aren't really any different.
The Ren when we talk about the Renaissance, what you're really talking about is an artistic movement and that doesn't really impact people's daily lives.
And and so it's like, well, that's a 15th century Italian dance. that makes it a Renaissance dance. But 15th century Burgundian dances are still medieval, right? And so for me, for me, I think it's important that we separate artistic movements out from social and political periods of change, which is why for me the Middle Ages will always be the period between the modern era and the ancient era. And for me that will always be defined by you know the termination of of of ancient Roman infrastructure and bureaucracy in Europe and the rise of the modern era which for me is the reformation. That's the 16th century. A lot of people don't like to think that but yeah 16th century that's the modern era guys. That's early modern English for instance is Shakespeare is not not middle English not old English. Shakespeare's early modern English and actually not that early modern, just modern in some cases.
Yeah, thank thank you, Shurik.
There's a big trick to building chimneys that will exhaust your fumes in smoke properly. Yep, absolutely. Chimneys are a high-tech piece of equipment. They really are. It's it's not it's more complicated than just building a conduit.
Um because because if you don't build them properly, then the you'll actually end up with air pressure inside your chimney that will force the smoke not only not only will it not allow the smoke to exhaust to exit, it will force the smoke and the the the exhaust back into your space.
>> Yep.
Yeah. So, I uh I I do I do get into arguments with some people about the terms medieval versus renaissance. I just don't find I don't really find the term renaissance very useful. And in any case, it was coined by people in the 16th century who thought a lot about themselves.
So, um, yeah, I I I object to the term in general because it also, you know, the Renaissance, it also implies that there's some kind of drastic sharp shift. Like March 1st, 1399 is still medieval, but March 2nd, 1399 is somehow renaissance. And that's just not how human development works, especially not on the technological and the artistic level. Right? There's there's certain key moments where you can say, well, this invention, you know, opened up the door to this thing. But then if you really look at the invention and the underlying technology of the invention, you find out that the technology that enabled that invention had been along had been around the whole time.
So, you know, I find I find it sometimes not useful to utilize terms like medieval or modern or even renaissance.
Unfortunately, unfortunately for me, being an online creator, oh wow, being an online creator, the algorithm likes terms like medieval and renaissance. It does not like vague terms and term 15th century definitely does not get me views. So medieval does though. Medieval always gets me views.
Let me see. Uh good question. Would a pajama pants man would you say the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire jumpstarted the Renaissance by transferring the population and knowledge out to Venice?
So that that is a theory. Show that com because that's a good question. That is a theory that uh there was an exodus and and it wasn't it wasn't just the fall of Constantinople, right? That exodus started when the Ottomans started plowing their way eastward and conquering the Eastern Roman Empire one bit at a time. It wasn't it wasn't like Constantinople was a sudden termination.
And actually Constantinople wasn't even the end because there were still a couple of holdouts that were finally conquered in the 1460s by Mehmed II.
Right. So yeah, the I I I feel like yes, that resulted in some very big things on a literature level, on a literary level because texts that had been lost is the wrong word, but yeah, I'll go with lost.
texts that had been lost in in Western Europe for centuries were reintroduced like Plato for instance was reintroduced by these Greek scholars who brought Plato with them and got hired to to teach and there was absolutely in the 15th century that is when you see uh aristocrats start learning ancient Greek along with Latin as part of their education. So there is definitely in Italy in the Italies in any case there is absolutely a transition in how studies are undertaken and what is studied and what texts are available. So absolutely that changes that reflects that is in part in consequence of the Ottomans pushing eastward and basically this exodus of Greek scholars who then became part of the courts in Western Europe. Yeah, I agree with that. That's that's absolutely true 100%.
because they did in some cases they did bring texts with them that hadn't really been accessible in west most parts of Western Europe for centuries upon centuries. Uh so yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's true. Yeah.
But but not not necessarily it wasn't it wasn't I wouldn't say that it caused the Renaissance though. Yeah. It it it triggered the rise of humanism. But I think we should separate humanism from the Renaissance.
Yeah. No, great question.
Uh, Chosen Law says, um, I have a fun question. How long did people sleep in the 1400s? Sleeping. That is an interesting question.
So um medieval people and actually preodern people by preodern I mean like pre20th preactory prefactory people pre-industrial pre-industrial revolution people actually participated in what is called bifphasic sleep.
So they would actually how much they would sleep actually also seems to depend on the season. Um and the the latitude at which they lived because it seems that from what I can tell in the 15th century specifically people were much obeyed the cycles of the sun much more strictly just because it was their natural circadian rhythms. So what people would do is generally it seems they would mostly not in noble courts but on the kind of everyday common person the the the bottom 80% shall we say they would actually when when the sun set they would generally go to sleep and they would sleep for like four or five hours and then they would wake up. If any of you suffer from insomnia because you wake up in the middle of the night you're not suffering from insomnia guys.
you're actually yielding to our natural circadian rhythms that we have evolved with. So they would wake up and they would get up. They would get up and they would if there were some, you know, chores or tasks that they could handle in relatively low light conditions, they would play games. They would talk like the people because you didn't have people living alone in a home. You had multiple generations and servants all living together in a home. And so they would actually get up in the middle of the night and they would do things and then they would go back to sleep for sleep number two for the second sleep and that would be for another four or five hours and then they would wake up when dawn came. So in the winter it seems people slept more. You know in the northern hemisphere people slept more and in the summer they slept less because they abided by their natural circadian rhythms. So, you know, for any of you who suffer from insomnia, you might not actually be suffering from insomnia. You might actually still be programmed like a natural human.
Unfortunately, the factories broke that.
The industrial revolution changed all that and made it so that we couldn't do that anymore. So, and then everything else kind of fell into the way things were done. the the schedule of life, the rhythm of life basically fell in with you know the way the factories ran things like the f factories have really completely changed the way we operate on so many levels of society. People underestimate that let me see uh yeah uh Scanderberg and Albania held out against him until the 1480s I think.
Yeah, possibly. I mean, you know, it's so the the the idea of the when when did the Eastern Roman Empire fall? What counts as falling? What counts what counts as holding out? What is what is the last actual um Roman hold out against the Ottomans, for instance? You know that this is this is something I have to point out to people. The the people who lived in the Eastern Roman Empire did not view themselves as Greek. They did not. They viewed themselves as Roman. It's in their writings. You can read it. They viewed themselves as Roman. Yes, they spoke Greek, but they still viewed themselves as Roman. Um, and it was actually it was actually uh the eur Western Europeans who were looking looking at Rome, Rome, Rome, the city of Rome and the or the original Rome as Roman. and they looked at Eastern civilization as the the civilization in Levant as decadent and not truly Roman. They're the ones who started calling them the Greeks, right? And that shift happens in the 11th century right after the great Chisum, right? So there is a shift in how Western Europe viewed the the Roman the Eastern Roman Empire in about the 11th century. and and then the term Byzantine Empire that's quoted by Victorian historians right again again with this snobbery about the so-called the Eastern Romans being a decadent you know decadent version of Greece rather than Roman yeah there's a there's racism there for certain 100% racism involved in that particular development Yeah. Okay. So, um Oh, yeah. Someone uh have any of you seen the getting dressed video I recently publish published. I did a live stream and then I actually spun off the live stream showing how to put on the turret and the veil in the hood. That's so that you know she kind of like a little bit what she's wearing here.
That's so quintessential for the medieval princess look. Have any of you seen that particular that particular video? I I had a very good question about it. Um, so that style of headdress, oh my condo should have brought it to me. Then I could have showed you what I'm talking about. The princess hat, the pointy princess hat, right? With the veil and then the hood over it, right? That uh someone asked whether that was a practical garment or a fashion statement. The pointy hat part is a fashion statement. Uh, 100%. And someone asked, well, why would women dress that way? Why does anyone dress anyway? Sometimes it's for practical reasons, but very often we humans just like to peacock. We're peacocks. We love to peacock. We like to be pretty. And we don't really have pretty feathers anymore.
And we don't have much hair anymore all over our bodies. So, we have to peacock artificially.
And one of the ways to peacock artificially is hats and headdresses.
And humans are also creative and we're curious. And we get tired of the same thing over and over again. And so eventually we want to do something different. We want to dress differently.
We want to look differently. We want to feel differently. And therefore we come up with new fashions.
But also when when fashion is dictated when it's top down, when fashion is top down, when you have fashion be basically being set by princes or princesses, capitals P, right? or capital P's, then fashion becomes not just a sense of something pretty, but it becomes a way to distinguish yourself from the regime that came before. So when you have a new queen, she comes in, she has her court, she might intentionally devise a new kind of headdress, a new style of gown to distinguish herself from her predecessor or from her mother-in-law.
Right? So that is that that is the turret, the miter, what you what you all might call a hennin, but was never called that in the middle ages. That is in essence its origin, right? It's it's a decorative garment. It's ornamental.
It looks impressive, right? It really does. Women wearing tall headdresses with veils swaning across the swanning through the hall with train long trains behind them. That's an impressive look.
It's a look of power. So yeah, it's fashion. Pure fashion. Nothing practical about it. The practical part though is the hood that women started wearing over top of their turrets in starting in about the late 1460s 1470s. That hood is for warmth. That hood is a practical garment. Yes, it's stylish, but it is it is 100% about practicality.
Yep.
Ceramics action says tailbone.
ceramics. Could you give me a little more context than that, please? Just going to drink some tea here.
Oh, what era of clothing this is. So, what I'm wearing right now is a 15th century. So, the dress and the smok to from the 1410s to about the 1480s, but with this particular kerchief, 1450 to 1480s. France, Flanders, Burgundy, England is what you see me wearing. Yep.
And the turret that I'm talking about, the headdress is also contemporary to this. That would be the headdress that would be worn for formal occasions with a gown over top of this and the typical pointy headdress. Yep.
Uh Aya says, "I can imagine it had little to do with it had a little to do with wealth, too. The taller your headdress, the wealthier." Uh yes. So Ayla, there also seems to be maybe not even wealth, but rank, but visual visible rank. And there might have been I've been trying to track this down to see if there was any kind of legislation or any kind of household ordinances for the royal household that said that you had to be a certain rank for your headdress to be a certain height.
Because if you look at the portraits of women that have survived from the 15th century with the miters and the turrets, if you look at the portraits, then what you start noticing is that merchants wives have short turrets. They're elaborate. There's one that's covered in gold embroidery and pearls. It is expensive, but it's short. She's a merchants's wife, right? She is not a noble woman. whereas the noble women are the ones with the taller headdresses.
So I I my suspicion is that there might have been how court ordinances ordinances for the various courts whether it's the Burgundian court the French court the English court that actually specified that you had to be a certain rank to wear a turret in a certain height because we know from Edward IV's court he actually specifies that not just his court but for all of England he actually passed suary legislation that stated that men below a certain rank uh the rank of night and lower with a certain level of income and I don't remember what it specifically was but that if you were below a certain rank and a certain income the points the cracks the points on your shoes had to be 2 in or less that if you wanted the really long the really elongated points you had to have a certain rank and a certain income in order for that to be legal. So if if if kings are regulating it for the points of men's shoes, I can absolutely see that having been regulated for the height of ladies headdresses. And so I'm still digging for that. I haven't found that, but I have a theory. I have a suspicion about it. Yep. So yeah, that's uh I think it's not necessarily even just about wealth.
I think it's more about rank and power, honestly. Yep.
Okay, let's see how I'm doing on this pinning.
Yeah. Okay, got that.
Right. Uh, so, oh, the purpose of the fillet. Does anyone have a fillet here?
They do not. And Ryan didn't bring me a fillet, so I can't show you what it is.
Um, oh, wait, hold on a minute. First, uh, two questions.
Two questions. What were common sctuary laws? Um, so, okay. So, first off, I would like to define suary law.
Sumptuary law is not a fashion law.
Sumptuary is not synony synonymous with fashion or saratoral. Sumptuary is a law that regulates luxury. It comes from the Latin word sumptus. And so, it's about luxury. Sumptuary laws are often more about economic anxiety than snobbery.
And I know modern people don't want to hear that because we want to think that everything is black and white and that it was all just about the the, you know, the big men, the big people crushing the little people. But it really wasn't.
Sumptuary laws are very often just as anxious about economics as they are about snobbery and rank recognition.
And that's why most many sumptuary laws especially in Northern Europe talk about income levels when they talk about who is allowed to wear what. It's not a question of well you're not wealthy enough to be allowed to wear this. It's a question of you're not wealthy enough to afford this but you're still buying it. So what do people what do people who don't have enough money do when they want something that they can't actually afford? They get out a loan, right? they get out alone and they spend more money than they have then they end up in debt and that is bad economics right that's bad microeconomics it's bad macroeconomics and that was acknowledged well in the middle ages right so suary laws are not just about snobbery I would just like to discard that right off the bat but fashion laws are not necessarily sumptuary laws there are places where fashion laws are not suary laws it's not about regulating luxury It's not about an economic concern. It is really just about the clothing. So, if you're talking about sumptuary laws that are clothing related, um, you know, things like your train can only be so long depending on your income and your rank. You can only use certain kinds of fur for lining your garments depending on your income and rank, men and women.
And there are actually fashion police in certain places in Florence actually had an office whose sole job and they had officers. Their job was to go out and enforce the rules because after Florence gets rid of its its aristocrats basically in the uh 14th century, they pretend to be a republic with modest republican values. And so that means that people should be dressing modestly. And so there are actually, you know, they regulate the length of trains, they regulate the decoration on veils. And so they're are actually fashion policemen going out and accosting women, and I don't mean in any kind of inappropriate manner, but they're actually engaging with ladies and telling them, "You have violated these rules. Uh you have to go and take that off now or you have to pay a fine."
And there are actually records of certain women, ladies, basically telling them to screw off.
H good times. Um yeah in Bolognia Bolognia also had such statue by the wealthy they would have even the poor people they could have gotten their linen undergarment by the wealthy they would have even the poor people they could have gotten their linen undergarments from um a monastic community a charitable hospital but everyone wore them everyone wore linen undergarments they were not that was not a luxury item now the reason that we now think of sexy expensive you know, impractical in some cases undergarments as long lingerie as it's pronounced incorrectly in modern English is because the undergarments that were practical and made of white linen in the 19th century um are still that way. But in the early 20th century, they start shrinking drastically because dresses shrink drastically, garments shrink drastically, hemlines come up drastically in the 1920s. And so we no longer need Oh. And they start lining dresses with a lining that takes the place of say the smok. And so then what were just generally undergarments, it was just the word for underwear. all underwear, the underwear that goes on the top half of your body, the underwear that goes on the bottom half of your body, the general word for all of it.
That word then gets repurposed for these, you know, for sexy time undergarments. So yeah, lerie in the middle ages, the bianeria, as it would be called in Italian, in 15th century Italian, everyone had it.
Everyone wore it. Of course, there are different calibers of undergarments, right? In the middle ages in Italy for instance in the Italles uh lowerass people, poor people tended to wear hemp undergarments actually not linen at all but hemp because linen was a more expensive finer fiber. He hemp was less expensive but was harder wearing and and harder wearing like it lasts longer. So, you know, undergarments for the lower classes were actually just as often hemp in places like Italy. But yeah, it was not reserved for high society to conserve fabric and materials.
Undergarments were essential essential because without undergarments, your overgarments get disgusting. And medieval people didn't like being dirty.
They didn't like it. This idea that medieval people didn't care about foul smells. They didn't tower about filth is a terrible terrible snobby myth perpetuated by enlightenment thinkers and Victorians who wanted to believe that they were at the pinnacle of society when they weren't actually pinnacle of social and social progress and human evolution when they just weren't.
So no medieval people you wanted to wear undergarments you needed to wear lgerie lingerie because that's what kept your overgarments from getting disgusting.
Yeah, great question. Love it.
Uh, let me see. There seems to be a lag.
So, so, so here's the thing. Um, here's the thing. There isn't necessarily a, okay, depending on when you started watching. You may or may not be where the live chat is. Um, and also I can't, you know, some of you are making such great comments. I just fall behind in the live chat, you know, because I give like a five or a 10-minute answer. So, uh, comment Jim says, "I cannot find 100% in linen. It's mixed with cotton."
Yeah, Jim, it can be harder and harder these days to find 100% linen. Um, are you talking about clothes off the rack or are you talking about fabric in fabric stores? Um, because fabric and fabric stores, yeah, you generally have to go online these days to find 100% linen.
Uh, good luck finding hemloth nowadays.
Yeah, depends on where you are. uh in Thailand. I was just in Thailand in Tiangmai in the fabric district basically and you can buy large quantities of hemp in all kinds of colors. It's amazing. Uh yeah. So in Korea too, hemp is very easy to come by.
Depends depends on where you are.
And I think he might be making a comeback in the US, although I haven't I haven't gone fabric shopping in the US in years and years and years. So I'm my experience there is not as recent.
Uh yeah he in Korea some people use summer bedding made of hemp. Yep. Yep.
So in Korea actually I have a bunch of hemp hanbul. Right. Hemp is still a very popular fabric here in traditional Korean clothing that you can now buy much you know if you go to a traditional market here in Korea. But you can also I can go to Sin Market here in Deu and go to the fabric section, the Hanbul fabric section, and I can buy all kinds of hemp, undyed, dyed, uh, bleached, unbleached, you know, I can buy it. It's usually about 9,000 W, so like $7 a meter, but it's like 14 inches wide, so it's not very wide. It's woven the traditional width. Yeah, hemp is great.
Hemp is a fantastic Uh, let me see. Yeah, it can be found online, but it's pricey. I imagine that it was dead frozen for a few minutes, but you're back now. And that was well explained. Thank you. Okay. Did Okay, so while it was frozen, could you still hear me?
I don't. Uh, the internet gods have been cursing me lately. They have been absolutely cursing me lately. It has been so frustrating to try to do live streaming lately. It really has. It's just been an exercise in frustrative futility generally.
Yeah. Uh so Neil, I would recommend checking out the men'swearhouse.com.
The men I think it is the men'swwarehouse.com. I have been able to get 100% linen shirts there for Ryan.
Also, linen knit knit linen shirts, which I love. Linen knit shirts are a f linen knit polo tops. Fantastic for summer wear. Really, really fantastic.
can highly recommend the men'swwarehouse.com.
Um, yeah, you heard about the undergarments. Okay, great, Adam. Thank you. So, you could hear me. You just I just wasn't moving. Fantastic. Splendid.
Oh, wait. I saw another good question.
Sorry, let me just look here. Good questions. Oh, what were common courtship practices?
So, courtship, it's an interesting question.
courtship wasn't really a thing.
Um, like we understand it anyway. Okay.
So, okay. What do you mean by courtship?
If if by courtship do you mean the thing resulting in marriage?
Not so much a thing. If by courtship you mean how did lovers court each other to become illicit lovers after marriage?
Well, that's a whole different thing.
That's a different conversation. Uh, yeah. So there's we actually have manuals in some cases about courtly love and about how to court. So we know for instance so if a married woman was being courted by a man whether he was married or not didn't matter but if he was courting her then uh he would actually send her little tokens. He would send her things like purses or stockings or belts, messages like sometimes smuggled in in secret by paying off bribing servants to deliver these messages. And women did the same thing. According if you read the literature anyway, it seems that if fiction, if medieval fiction is any reflection of reality, and I do believe it was, right, women would actually in some cases they would hear hear the renown of a knight on the turn circuit. They would hear about this great knight and fall in love with the idea of him and then they would send him a message with some kind of token. And the token could be anything. It could be a piece of jewelry. It could be shoes.
It could be a purse. It could be a belt.
Could be stockings. Hosen. Uh it could be a lock of her hair. Right? She would actually send that with a trustworthy servant, a trustworthy messenger to deliver to him. And then she would actually literally say, "Uh, I've heard about you. I think I love you. Will you be my lover?"
And then they'll carry on this this correspondence courtship in which they'll send each other back and forth little love notes. And then eventually when it is deemed that they have reached the peak of their passion, then they'll arrange for a secret rendevous.
Right? So that seems to have been something that was actually done across medieval Europe starting in the 12th century.
at least if not if not earlier. So yeah, courtship involved the exchange of gifts. It in it involved the exchange of messages and sometimes definitely involved the ultimate consummation but it did not necessarily but that's not courtship for marriage. There was not generally generally there was no courtship for marriage. Not at as far as I can tell not really at any level of society at least not any not in the upper not in the in the levels of society that actually had income right there didn't seem to be courtship so upper you know wealthy merchants not so much uh the aristocrats not at all there there doesn't seem to have been much in the way of courtship you didn't court someone to marry them that was all that was all a that was all a political or a financial arrangement or a dynastic arrangement.
Yeah.
Let me see.
Yeah. So, it it just Yeah. The courtship courtship for the purposes of marriage not really a medieval concept as far as I can tell. uncertain. Again, medieval Europe is not a monolith, neither across the thousand years of history that represents the era between the ancient world and the modern world, nor across Europe as a whole continent.
I'm confident there are exceptions to that, but in my particular areas of study, it it seems that courtship for the purposes of marriage was not really much of a thing. There's a couple of there's a couple of exceptions there.
The exceptions are where you have a queen who's a queen in her own right.
Like she no longer really has parents, right? She is her own person. And then she might be courted by a fellow king in Spain. This happened a lot, right? And then he might actually court her, but it's the same process. It's gifts, its messages, and ultimately maybe a meeting before the actual marriage, but maybe not. Also that starts shifting in the 16th century. For example, there's all kinds of men who tried to court Elizabeth the 1 of England obviously unsuccessfully.
Um but uh yeah, through most of the Middle Ages, courtship for marriage was not a thing. It was courtship for lover.
That was a thing. I'm confident that at the lower levels of society, say the bottom 80%, that probably there was some kind of courtship. But it was probably the same. It was gifts. Maybe not so much written messages, but little gifts were exchanged, little secret meetings arranged, right? Yeah, it it was it going on dates? No. Secret asations out in the forest. Yes. But not amongst the aristocrats. That would have been amongst the bottom 80%.
What kind of music do I listen to? I'm a music eclectic.
I I love so many different kinds of music. Um I punk rock, alt rock, heavy metal, uh some rap, um swing music, big band music, vintage jazz, vintage jazz. I love vintage jazz.
Classical classical orchestral music.
I'm love Baroque music. Medieval music is really great. I love I love traditional and classical Persian music, Indian music, Thai music. I love a lot of I I've actually I'm thinking about this. I pretty much every any historical or traditional music that I've encountered from across the world I love. I love it all. Um yeah, I'm very eclectic when it comes to music. There's bluegrass. I you know the poetry and a lot of vintage antique bluegrass music is just beautiful. Um the the instrumentation is so soulful.
Yeah, I'm a real really eclectic.
Uh, Zach, no. The poor gave diaries, the rich gave bride prices. That is not true at all. So, not not at all. So, actually, there's a shift in Europe from the bride price, which is in the first millennium, to the dowy in the second millennium of the Middle Ages.
And you can tell when a society values women as economic contributors or when they don't value them as economic contributors. In a society that has a bride price, they value women as economic contributors. In a society that has a dowy, they view women as a burden that is being added onto a household.
That's the difference. In the first millennium, there is still, especially because of the Justiniac plague that no one ever learns about, there's a massive die off in Europe in the sixth through 7th centuries and that results in a rise of the bride price, right? where women there's a shortage of humans and women are considered not only valuable because of their own economic contributions from you know weaving and spinning and being part of the household but also from their contribution of being able to create more humans that's considered highly valuable and then sometime and I think it ties into the warming period of the middle ages that results in this massive population boom there's this big population boom there's a surfitit of women and so suddenly women stop being valuable but start being viewed as an economic burden to be addressed to be remedied and that's when you start seeing the rise of dowies in Europe. So no, it's not a question of rich versus poor because even at the lower levels of society, you had bride prices or dowies depending on whether women were viewed as a commodity, a valuable commodity or as a liability.
And the more women you have in any society, the more likely it is they're going to be viewed as a liability rather than a commodity.
Yep. I there's a there's a whole bunch of academic papers that have been published on this exact topic. It's very interesting reading and and you can also like in the laws you can see it in the laws when in in many old English laws so in laws from Wessix and Essex and Anglia right from the first millennium you can see when women are assaulted when and not just assaulted when they're assaulted the wear the fine for assaulting a woman is higher than if you assault a man and god forbid you assault a pregnant woman then it's really high but if you kill a woman. If you murder a woman in in Essex and Wessix and Anglia in the first millennium, right, in the time when those places were still their own independent polities, the fine is way higher than if you if you kill a man, but only if she's of um if she's still fertile, if she's of a fake age.
Yeah. So, you can actually see it in the laws, right? It's it's it's there to be seen whether women are viewed as an economic benefit or an economic burden.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that comment, Zach. That's a that's a great one.
Appreciate that opportunity.
Yeah. Keep them coming, guys.
Keep keep the good comments and the questions coming. Fantastic stuff.
So, yeah. Um, and that's that's not going to be the same all across Europe either, whether it's a bride price or a dowy, right? That that shift happens slowly and it doesn't happen everywhere.
Uh, Spain Spain as always, as always, Spain is like the exception to almost every rule about medieval Europe.
The Iberian Peninsula is its own world.
It really is. just not and not just because of the presence of the Muslim, you know, the Muslim presence there and the the golden era of med of Spain being mostly the consequence of Islamic rule, right? Not just that, there is just there is so many differences. I was reading another paper recently about how how inheritance worked in 14th century Cataloonia and how women got an even share. women got an even share of the inheritance and that hadn't happened in most parts of Europe for a very long time at that point. So yeah, not a monolith. Not a monolith at all. And I think I think in Spain they were still giving a bride price as of the 15th century if I recall correctly. But I haven't looked that that's been a little while since I read that paper. So don't hold me to that particular that that particular piece of information intelligence is a little dated, shall we say.
Yeah. So, yeah.
Okay, everyone. Well, we are coming up on three hours of live stream. So, uh, I would like to thank all of my patrons and my channel members for supporting my medieval living history work for enabling me to actually do this to get and share this information with you, share my knowledge and skills and continue doing research into daily life in the Middle Ages both in Europe and in other places. If you would and my Facebook subscribers as well, thank you all. If you would like to have access to extra resources, oh I just did that, to extra materials, videos, and tutorials to which no one else has access, then consider becoming a channel member on YouTube or patron on Patreon. Patrons on Patreon probably have the most access to extra materials, to extra videos, full tutorials on medieval dance and medieval handcrafts that are only accessible to people who normally pay for them. Also, I have a mid I have a creative contested discord server to which all of my supporters, my financial backers, and my my frequent my frequent chatters as it were have access where I also share lots of extra resources, journal, academic journals, articles when I read them and find them, new websites, digitized information. We also talk about the projects we're working on, ask questions, and get advice on how to do a variety of historical handcrafts. So, if you're interested in accessing any of those extra resources and you would like to keep me doing this, then consider becoming a channel member or a p on YouTube or a patron on Patreon.
Okay, everyone. Uh, thank you all. Don't forget to double tap that screen and consider subscribing at the very best.
If you had questions and I didn't answer them, I wasn't ignoring them. The live chat moved kind of quickly at points.
pop them in the comments under the video when it posts and I will see them and be able to answer them there. Until next time everyone, may your adventures in history be creative. Good morning, good afternoon, good night everyone.
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