The Bed, Part 2

We were invited to a camping weekend, celebrating another group's 20th birthday, last weekend. Aside from the fact the it was cut short by me feeling a bit 'off', and a level of disappointment felt by the girls that people weren't that sociable and there wasn't that much to do (we were the only people with a campfire - everyone else clustered around the hard-shelter accommodation and kitchens etc and didn't really camp at all), it was a valuable experience in that I got to pack what I thought we'd need for the weekend, fit it all onto the ute (just!), and then we spent nearly two hours setting it up (far too long!). There was much going-through of lists after we got home and a lot of stuff got ... rationalised...

The bed, however, was a great success: very warm and comfortable and a real showpiece, if a little bulky to pack. I smugly received compliments from the few people who bothered to wander up to the tent and who saw it; one young woman had seen a rope bed in one of the castles in England and expounded at length how different it was to the one I had created... I asked her what century it was built in but she couldn't remember (just that the wood was original and the rope was a modern replacement LOL); I asked her to point out, specifically, the differences and it turned out that the English one was a double bed whereas mine is single, and theirs wasn't painted... at that stage I suggested that she should be very proud that the bed she'd built was such an exact replica of the English one; "Oh, I haven't made one!", the creature exclaimed. This didn't surprise me as about the only thing she had made was her costume, which was of a rough cotton fabric (which, I suppose, was meant to represent linen) decorated with a band of the same fabric in a contrasting colour around the neck and cuffs... Chez Spotlight, I'm guessing and probably cost her a fortune LOLz.

So, I breathe a great sigh of relief at the knowledge that re-enactors really haven't improved any over the time I was out of The Movement - there were about 30-odd people there and I think I saw maybe half a dozen wool garments - a lot of cotton and "linen"; very little decoration and that badly done most of the time, and the accoutrements were negligible or crap - one does not turn a modern item into a medieval replica by wrapping bits of it in leather or rags (sigh).

It's a little sad, too; I had hoped that the presentation of groups and re-enactors would grow and improve over the years, but it seems they have found a level of historical accuracy that they're content with and stuck with it. LOLz I shouldn't complain - it makes my mob look bloody good!

Anyway, whinge, whine, planxi et hoc totum; and back to the bed... If you squint in just the right way, you can see the frame of the bed and the ropes, the flock mattress, the feather mattress, linen sheets (dear gods I hate hand-hemming sheets!), a flokati rug dyed what is meant to be a red colour but it came out a bit washed-out, a coverlet made of mink (a 1950s A-line coat was sacrificed for this!) and raw silk (which is actually red but looks pink in the photo) and a selection of feather pillows. I really need to make a flock bolster (as suggested by Alexander Neckham, an English traveller who died in 1217 but not before he'd written at great length about his travels, up to and including how a bedroom should be furnished), and another couple of feather pillows as we tend to use them on the chairs during the day... oh well, still got a couple of months until the next show!!

The Bed, Part 1

I felt there was a bad pun in the statement "I finally got around to making my bed" but at the moment (fortunately) it escapes me...

The bed is modelled on those in the Maciejowski Bible - it is painted and has rounded ends on the bedposts with the head end being taller than the foot. Other than that the construction was fairly much at my own discretion (and limited to the tools in mine and Dad's workshops!). I wanted a bed for shows, so it had to be portable; I decided that using mortice and tenon joints to fix the side pieces to the head and foot pieces would be appropriate as that joint was used in the period, and to have the mattress supported by a rope web would probably be fairly right (they haven't found any 'rope beds' from our period, and as you can see from the manuscript picture (from the Maciejowski Bible) little more than the legs show so it's hard to guess at the construction). Not wishing to rely wholly on the rope and my body weight to hold the bed together, the joints are also pinned by dowels (another period method), and the result is something that creaks a little when you first get onto it but is remarkably quiet once it's got some weight in it - even rolling over is a silent procedure!

The mattress in the pictures is the flock one (the feather one, which goes on top, is currently 'under construction'... I need to murder a few more pillows to get it comfortably full) which in itself was interesting to make. I started with a cotton duck (about the weight of mattress ticking but not black and white striped) cover more or less the size of the bed and stuffed about 10 kilos of wool into it (hence "flock"); I must note here that I've been collecting wool since 1991 when I took up re-enacting and spinning and had baskets and boxes of the stuff in varying degrees of usability for spinning - a lot of it is brown or grey (medieval folk favoured white - it dyed better) and some of it has been sitting there unwashed for nearly 20 years and is a little brittle, and some of it is clippings and sweepings and fairly grubby - vegetable matter and dags and such (and, as I found while teasing the pieces open prior to stuffing them in the mattress, a mummified mouse!). Having loosely stuffed the cover I sewed it shut and regarded the sausage shape before me. To flatten it out a bit I sewed through it (yay for the 10" doll-making needle!) with heavy linen thread from a leather reinforcing on the back to one on the front and then

tied it down tightly - 12 of these flattened it out adequately, as you can see from the photo.

So, I guess ATM I've only partly made my bed... the next step is to finish the feather mattress and then to create some voluminous sheets and a coverlet. Judging from MSS pics and the songs/poetry/stories of the day, the coverlet was an all-important piece of bedroom equipment - the words 'costly' and 'silk' frequently crop up... Mine will be of heavy red silk lined with mink from a 1950s calf-length coat donated by a rellie for that purpose.

And as I need it to be in working order next Saturday, I better get sewing!

Test run

I've been spending the last while on the display boards - much researching, writing, precis-ing, re-writing... Having beaten them into something brief but still informative, I then sent the pdfs to Dad who printed them out (on 'parchment' paper or card) in glorious colour; they were then stuck to boards (stained and varnished earlier) and given a couple of coats of matt varnish to protect them from the ravages of time, packing, and sticky fingers...

An aside: you'd be amazed what The Public will poke and prod at. I learned a lot when I was re-enacting a few years ago as I also had a display then (although not as neat or as comprehensive as my current one) set up inside my tent, and at every show I would have to ask people not to damage it - the two old biddies who were attempting to bend a bone needle it took me half an hour to make, to see if it was plastic (I'm not sure how bendability or snapping it would have proved that); the young couple who placed my spare loom weights (threaded onto a loop of leather) over their child's head like a necklace and walked out of the tent, and made a great show of surprise when reminded that the object actually should stay with the display; the constant poking of fingers into the spice bowl (part of the tableware display) - most of the fingerprints were adult-sized (!); and the constant banging on drums, twanging the harp, strumming the lute, despite there being signs everywhere requesting the displays not be touched (and a rope a metre out from the displays!) - I had to re-skin a drum because of the amount of grease and something else (I think it may have been satay sauce) deposited on the head by one curious person.

Anyway, this time I decided that as public 'interaction' with the display was inevitable I should design the displays to be touched and make them as undamageable, or easily replaceable, as possible. The musical instruments, as ever, will be a problem...

Having got the majority of the display boards and accompanying models finished, I decided to set up the tent (I only finished sewing the walls, finally, last week!) and have a test run. It took me a couple of hours to set the tent up, put down the carpets (with a tarp under them - they're expensive!), tie up the wall hangings, and then finally set the display up. By this time it was very late in the afternoon and so Dad and I did a quick critique on what needed to be done/changed/ improved, then I went back later in the evening and made most of the major changes before I decided that I was too tired to make rational decisions and should pack it in for the night.

I spent most of this morning 'tweaking' the display and by lunchtime had it to a stage where I rang Dad and asked him to come over and do some more critique-ing. There is still a fair bit of work to be done on it - I need to make a model of an upright loom and finish a couple of the display boards, and stupid little things like replacing the thin dowel that some of the hangings are on with thicker dowel, as they don't support the displays without bending dramatically; but by and large I feel I've broken the back of it and will definitely be Good To Go by early June, when our first show is.

As it stands, the display covers the areas of tentage, lighting and furniture; a quick history of Cyprus during and shortly after the Third Crusade; textiles, dyes and cardweaving; games; medicine; music; feasting and eating; clothing and cosmetics; Dad is working on a display on the Benedictine Order (including himself in it, in costume); and Nat's planning a Trade and Travel display as soon as her studies (last year at uni!) allow. So, it's fairly comprehensive but still has a lot of room for upgrading and improvements (for example, replacing the wooden model dice with bone or horn ones, when I find some pieces big enough to make dice out of!). As I mentioned in the last blog it'll run to about 25,000 words, which basically makes the whole thing a big book with a stripey canvas cover and lots of 3-D illustrations!

And best of all - it packs down very neatly into three trunks and some loose stuff!

The Display

The raison d'etre of the group is a display in the pavilion covering a range of topics - textiles, music, medicine, games, trade and travel, stuff like that. Each of the topic areas comprises of notes in 16-18 point font (Goudy Medieval on marmor chamois paper), diagrams, photos of manuscript illustrations or archaeological finds, and handmade replicas of whatever it is we're talking about.

So far I'm covering about a dozen topics and have written about 23 000 words - the last couple of topics are graphics- and model-heavy and will probably bring the entire thing up to 25 000 words. It sounds a lot, but it's a big pavilion and each topic has an average of 3-4 A4 pages devopted to it.

Having broken the back of the writing side of things, I've been starting to work on the models. This weekend I made a hnaefatafl board, and peices, and rules, and commentary... and also a naker, which is a forerunner to the kettle drum and smaller.

The Hnaefatafl set has a 13 x 13 board and is based on the examples from Jorvik and descriptions in the sagas - it's interesting to note that in the sagas the defending side (with the King, or 'Hnefi') are brown or red while the attacking side is white; later the colours reversed some of the time. I wonder if this has anything to do with the religious/political situation in Scandinavia then, with the opposing sides representing Red Thor and White Christ? Anyway, my pieces are made of wood (traditionally they seem to be made of a range of materials: marine mammal ivory, horn, bone, stone, pottery, wood) and the board is of leather, rather than wood, so it can be rolled up and carried, with the pieces, in a pouch (bit pointless, come to think of it, when I'm going to glue it to a plywood display board and hang it on the wall...). The lines on both the pieces and the board are done with a hot iron (pokerwork, if you like, or pyrographics) and some of the squares on the board have been stained with dye. I tried playing Hnaefatafl a couple of times and suck at it more than I suck at chess, which is really saying something!

The other project for this weekend was to build a naker, a kind of drum that was introduced to Europe through the Crusades, and although it's been with us for 800-odd years has managed to cause a small bit of controvery involving the BBC's David Munrow. First, let us understand that the instrument is frequently played in pairs, slung around the waist or neck and hanging at groin level, and that it's name comes from the Arabic naqqara, through the French nacaires, and for years the English pronunciation has been 'nackers' - doubtless the source of the expression 'to be hit in the...'. With the resurgence of medieval music in the 1960s, Mr Munrow's correct pronunciation elicited a string of complaints from outraged (if ignorant) listeners, prompting an edict from the BBC Pronunciation Department that the word was henceforth to be pronounced 'NAY-kers' when said on-air.


Anyhoo, mine (one at the moment) is made from a salad bowl, a piece of parchment, and about 4000 miles of plaited homemade cord (well, it felt like that!) and a leather band to keep it all neat and tidy around the edge. Basically, you punch holes in the hide, soak it, put it on a towel and sit the upturned bowl on top if it, then start lacing the cord from one side to the other, aiming for an even tension.


The hide's still a bit damp but it already makes quite a good noise. I'd put up an mp3 of it but Blogger'll only do images and videos...

Finished the roof!!

By 2pm I'd finished the last bit of painting (the hem) and waited for an hour for it to dry; the tent took me about 20 minutes to put up, squeezed between the lemon tree and the fishpond. The middle poles were way too large and Dad gave me a hand cutting them to size, and by 4pm the tent was ready to hose down and check for waterproof-ness, which it passed with flying colours.



The tent is basically 6 160cm squares (so, 4.8m by 3.2m), and the ridge of the roof is about 3.4m high. It has two large 'centre' poles and 10 outer poles, and the roof took 16m of canvas to make (the walls, which are yet to be hemmed, are two pieces of 8.5m x 1.8m canvas and will hook onto a rope that runs around the inner edge of the tent under the valance).



So far I've used about 150m of thread just on the roof, and the walls will use about another 105m - when I've finished this tent I will have sewn a quarter of a kilometre by hand...

Tent update...

The tent has gone from being pieces of canvas in my garage to being a huge shapeless mess on the downstairs table - I have one more piece to sew onto it before attaching the leather pole reinforcements; although I bought the canvas in late September it's taken a while to get this far - I keep getting distracted by more interesting projects (wax tablets, knives etc!) and, let's face it, handsewing a tent is a boring job...

I finally got around to doing the poles over the last couple of days - the smaller, outer poles are Tassie oak and the two large inner ones are kwila - both straight-grained hardwoods but both fairly easy to shape (although I have developed newfound respect for just how hard kwila is!)

The doing is really quite simple - mark off a line 10cm (or in the case of the larger poles, 15cm) back from then, cut a groove with a saw about half a centimetre deep (or a centimetre for the larger ones), chip the pole back to the mark with a chisel and neaten it up, finish shaping it with a rasp, and then remove the furry bits with a file.


Of course, all the ends need to be about the same size (because they have to fit fairly snugly into leather-reinforced holes in the tent and it's inconvenient to have to match up poles to holes because some are too big (in which case they might push through, or leak if it rains) and other too small and won't fit through at all.


I decided that rather than oiling them with linseed oil as I did last time, I should paint them - the Maciejowski Bible has some nice examples of painted poles. Linseed paint tends to be a bit thin and translucent so I whitewashed the poles first (or the colour wouldn't really show up) and painted the smaller poles a nice cinnabar/red lead - which, much to my frustration, has ended up with them looking, from a distance, like they were stained with a rosewood stain (from a couple of feet away you can see it's paint); the larger 'centre' poles I painted that ordinary blue one gets when combining the froth off boiling indigo with white lead...

So, hopefully, gods willing, no interruptions... I might be able to set up the roof on the weekend and then cut the 'centre' poles to the correct size (theoretically they should be 180cm - the wall height - plus 160 cm - the roof height; but because canvas is flexible, they usually need to be a little longer to stretch it up properly - the question is, how much of a little bit and this has to be a hands-on measurement and not just done with a tape measure).

Then it's just (!) a matter of sewing loops aroun the roof to take a rope on which to hang the walls, and then sewing the walls themselves - hemming and sewing hooks on 2 pieces of canvas each 8 and a half metres long...

Cutting words...

When I first started doing re-enactment (in 1991!), a standard piece of every re-enactor's equipment was a dagger (a double-edged knife with a cross-guard). Everyone wore one, and no-one seemed to find it odd that the smaller ones were referred to as 'eating daggers'; I always wanted to know if the cross-guard was there in case the food came back to life and attempted to leap up the weapon and attack its consumer...

Over successive years common sense and a small amount of research prevailed and prompted the fashion to change away from 'eating daggers' to knives. Re-enactors are an odd bunch - at any meeting of more than two of us, you'll hear the word "Authenticity" bandied about with great authority. This word refers to the historical accuracy of costume and equipment, with the desired aim of having one's kit as 'Authentic' as possible. Oddly, though, there is very little research done by re-enactors as a whole; what usually happens is that in every group there will be a couple of history nuts who enjoys digging through books and researching items, who will interpret what they've researched and create it, then the rest of the group will go "Oh, that's really cool!" and make some as well, without doing their own research into it or forming their own opinions or interpretations. Most re-enactors seem to be very happy to follow the fashion of the time without questioning whether the person who did the groundwork for it actually got it right, or did a thorough job - which explains the 'eating daggers' and leads me into the next stage of my current gripe...

One of the C12 groups I belonged to was adamant that knives should be 'seax-shaped' - see the picture - as they'd found some in an archaeological dig, and that the 'modern' shape was all wrong and An Anachronism and Not Authentic... true, there were (obviously, from the dig) seax-shaped blades about in the period, but they weren't the be-all and end-all of blade shapes (as a search for 'seax' on Google images will show). A lack of internet and a comparative paucity of books available in Brisbane on the subject in the mid 1990s lead to a lot of tunnel-vision as to what was 'right' and what 'they had'... Nowadays we'd say that a lot of the research back then was half-baked, but in a lot of cases it was simply a matter of "I've looked at everything that's available to me and I can't find any more on the subject". May the Deities of Re-enactment bless the internet...

So... I dug around and found some blade shapes that I liked (from the York dig - see pic); leather sheaths were a little more difficult, as leather doesn't usually survive 800-odd years well but there are still some around; I'm guessing about the colours (and going on the premise that since 'they' decorated the living **** out of everything else there's a good chance the sheaths were also coloured). I had some deer antler lying around so made short-tanged knives with antler handles - antler is great for that purpose as when you boil it the inner part goes spongy and soft and you can just shove the tang into it; then as it cools and dries out it shrinks around the tang (and rusts it to the antler) and holds the blade and handle together quite well.

The blades are highly polished as they rust less that way, cut easier, and don't trap food particles - which leads me to another gripe (or two): why do modern re-enactment blacksmiths make knives with pitted, blackened blades (except for the sharpened part), when swords have blades that are polished (all over) to within an inch of their life? I gather it's because they look more Authentic... What a load of rubbish - an unpolished blade rusts easily, makes slicing through food difficult, and why would one sort of blade be polished and another not? And why do re-enactors let their knives go blunt? Granted, some of the ones I've seen are nearly 5mm thick on the non-cutting side of the blade and are difficult to cut with even when very sharp, but surely one of the basic re-enactment skills is knowing how to sharpen a knife?

"Oh, I'm a Lady so I'd get my servants to do that", I was informed by one young woman... I started to explain to her about Ladies running households and having to know how to do something yourself before you supervised others doing it (or how would you know if they were doing it right?) and her pretty li'l eyes glazed over and I gave up in disgust - she was happy to re-enact and fantasise about being a Lady and dress up and look pretty as long as someone else would tell her what to wear, what to use, what her persona name was, yada yada yada... She was representative of a number of re-enactors who, if they can't buy something (with a guarantee of it being 'period') or get it made for them, are not interested in having it. The concept of researching something and getting their hands dirty making it is totally out of the question - which begs the question: how, then, are they re-enacting? Putting on a costume and semi-assuming a fairytale persona once every couple of months doesn't quite seem to qualify...