History, there's quite a lot of it.

[zauberdachs]

Isn't it funny how the more you read on history the more you keep finding things that surprise you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_cathedral_clock

Entirely my own ignorance but I had no idea they were making mechanical clocks in the 13th and 14th centuries.

What has surprised you recently?

[Fox]

I only recently (that last year or so) discovered that for about 50 years (basically the second half of the 15thC) coifs go out of fashion for men and are only worn by older gentleman and professionals (doctors/lawyers) who might wish to look steady/traditional.

For years, everyone had been saying you must wear a hat or a coif for WotR and it turns out not be true.
In illustrations: no coifs, and while most people seem to have a hat, they've often taken them off, say, for working.

Before that: coifs. After that: coifs. In the middle: zip.

How curious.

[craig1459]

Entirely my own ignorance but I had no idea they were making mechanical clocks in the 13th and 14th centuries.
What has surprised you recently?

It surprised me even more that the Greeks were at it too - 1500 years earlier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Scandinavian 15th century artwork shows Scottish Widows cloaks with nice embroidered edges, and there are extant C15 drinking horns in the Stockholm Museum. Wang? No, my name is Sven

[gregory23b]

"I only recently (that last year or so) discovered that for about 50 years (basically the second half of the 15thC) coifs go out of fashion for men and are only worn by older gentleman and professionals (doctors/lawyers) who might wish to look steady/traditional."

Despite it being brought up a number of times in this very forum?

Ask Craig and Woodhouse re previous conversations.

The coif is a bad hangover from the old days where in our ignorance we all wore them, but despite pretty secure findings that they are almost not present people are not either bothered or are stuck with 'earlier' knowledge.

Such is the way of it, I shall carry on wearing my hessian covered trainers until someone says they didn't do that (ooh I like that one)

[Marcus Woodhouse]

I fecking hate coifs me.

[British]

Not so much what I've learned, but what I find so utterly disgusting...
Just got back from York. We went through the Minster. I swear I could spend a week in there and still not see everything. But apart from the beauty and history and craftsmanship. Apart from the love and sweat and toil there is also some snotty nosed **** who has to etch a name into the stone and wood!
The mindless stupidity!
Why? Why the hell do they do it?
It's like litter. I hate it!

[Captayne Mandylyon]

Yeah, but if it's C18th scratchings, it's history!

[Tuppence]

Happens quite a lot - things appear then go away for a while, then re-appear. Beards - long hair (for men) - hoops on tunic sleeves - silly shaped sleeves - coifs - pleated coats - bustles.

One of the reasons costume research isn't as simple as some people think.

Oh, and then chuck in geographical variations, and it all gets confusing.

[Fox]

Despite it being brought up a number of times in this very forum?

That would be where I learnt from; from you, in fact.
If you weren't getting a bit forgetful in your old age you'd remember.

[gregory23b]

Who are you again? eh? Nurse!!!!

[Medicus Matt]

Apart from the love and sweat and toil there is also some snotty nosed **** who has to etch a name into the stone and wood!
The mindless stupidity!
Why? Why the hell do they do it?
It's like litter. I hate it!

But in 500 years someone will get paid to record and index it.
I did that as a summer job at Winchester Cathedral in 1990. Everything from names scratched into the choir stalls by board choristers (including Adrian Batten, future choirmaster of Westminster Abbey in the early 17th century) to bald-faced insults aimed at Bishop Copper.
There's also some regimental graffiti dotted around the place.

When does it stop being seen as mindless vandalism and start being seen as valued historical record?

[zauberdachs]

It surprised me even more that the Greeks were at it too - 1500 years earlier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

That's amazing and exactly what I was getting at. I'm surprised by it but wonder why I should be. Considering that people in the past were every bit as intelligent as we are today and considering that they often had many generations of accumulated knowledge to draw from, it's shouldn't be that surprising.

[Colin Middleton]

Happens quite a lot - things appear then go away for a while, then re-appear. Beards - long hair (for men) - hoops on tunic sleeves - silly shaped sleeves - coifs - pleated coats - bustles.

One of the reasons costume research isn't as simple as some people think.

Oh, and then chuck in geographical variations, and it all gets confusing.

I wonder if you ever get an effect where fashion spreads from one point to another (say French fashions being popular in Ireland because they were adopted by the English ), and the fashion comes and goes and returns in one place before it has faded in another?

[zauberdachs]

I wonder if you ever get an effect where fashion spreads from one point to another (say French fashions being popular in Ireland because they were adopted by the English ), and the fashion comes and goes and returns in one place before it has faded in another?

A bit like diseases?

[Colin Middleton]

A bit like diseases?

I like that concept!

[zauberdachs]

A bit like diseases?

I like that concept!

[Black Pear]

are white shell suits and trainers with undone laces a disease?

[zauberdachs]

are white shell suits and trainers with undone laces a disease?

Are the socks pulled over the trousers?

[RottenCad]

I did actually see and inspect the mechanical clock at Salisbury last month - and it's a very Heath-Robinson affair! It tolls a bell, rather than moving hands on a face.

What has surprised me recently is the way buttons seem to have gone into, out of, and back into fashion in the late c13...

TTFN!

Cad

[Black Pear]

Zauberdachs, yes, that is a particularly virulent and nasty strain of the disease!

On topic (although off period), I am always surprised by photographs of 19thC people, especially the poor. I think it is because we are used to TV/film versions, all dolled up for "Hollywood"

[Marcus Woodhouse]

Not so much what I learnt as I have had to learn everything about the period I now re-enact as I knew next to nothing about it (unlike the Romans, the ECW and the ACW which I had covered at school) but I frequentally get asked if it was possible for clothes to be as bright as they are as Hollywood/TV generally has portrayed people in the middle ages as being dressed in gruby, dowdy tat.

[Phil the Grips]

Earliest known pocket watch-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainmen ... 313893.stm

[Black Pear]

...I frequentally get asked if it was possible for clothes to be as bright as they are as Hollywood/TV generally has portrayed people in the middle ages as being dressed in gruby, dowdy tat.

Good point! Although I think some reenactors do misrepresent the incidence of bright or strongly dyed clothes.

[Pelican]

...I frequentally get asked if it was possible for clothes to be as bright as they are as Hollywood/TV generally has portrayed people in the middle ages as being dressed in gruby, dowdy tat.

Good point! Although I think some reenactors do misrepresent the incidence of bright or strongly dyed clothes.

A current interest of mine to see how bright the colours achieved can be using period (late 15th c) materials. My first attempt was at an event, where I took some wool dyed with madder out of the dyebath just as a lady was walking past (a member of the public). It was a considerably vibrant shade of orange, and I held it up to let the air get to it and it dulled ever so slightly if you watched carefully. The lady stopped and asked "did they really have such bright colours as that?". Still slightly dumbfounded the experiment had gone so well I looked at the dyebath, looked at the wool, then back at her... "apparently so!" and quickly launched into the dyeing process and the usefulness of a pot of stale urine. I think the presence of previously wee soaked wool in my hands went beyond her level of "good taste".

So that's my thing that I've learnt, it's not as difficult or expensive as I thought to create brightly coloured cloth. How long it would stay bright is the next experiment.

[The Iron Dwarf]

I did think a bit about the bright colours at some of the events I have been too but having seen the range of bright colours from natural dyes on display I would now be more inclined to ask about which colours were easy and or cheap and which are difficult and or expensive rather than the brightness.
I know of madder and woad for red and blue, am not too sure about some other colours

[Pelican]

I've yet to find evidence that they actually did this but just a few onion skins will produce very bright shades of yellow. Lincoln greens etc were done by using woad and weld over the top, but there are several people on these forums more expert than me!

[Black Pear]

Pelican, how long, and Iron Dwarf, how easy it was to do and how cheap (in period terms) are all the questions I really was getting at I think. I know natural dyes can be really bright, but it is the colourfastness that seems a bit out of place, that's all. Too much black about for me, too!

[The Iron Dwarf]

a good black I think is a rich persons colour as has been discussed earlier on other threads

[the real lord duvet]

a good black I think is a rich persons colour as has been discussed earlier on other threads

ah the days when rich people could own a good black?

[Marcus Woodhouse]