8th and 9th Century Anglo Saxon Alphabet Coloring Page

Free, printable, realistic. Coloring book pictures, sheets. - 11253

Coloring page anglo-saxon alphabet 8th and 9th century. Free, printable, realistic. Coloring book pictures, sheets. - 11253

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Those "sexy" medievals

Elizabeth Chadwick's blog, Living The History  has an absolutely fascinating entry today.  It's all about well, sex, medieval-style.  Which apparently wasn't much different from the modern kind.  Except that there were monks and priests imposing penances for certain kinds.  Like, for example, kissing your husband or wife on a Sunday.  Or "doing it" on the "wrong" day of the week.  Maybe this was a crude attempt at birth control?  Even if the monks in question probably would have been horrified if anyone had pointed that out. 

 

Still, it doesn't seem to have stopped anybody from having their fun, so to speak, because there seems to have been, as Ms. Chadwick points out, an awfully long list of , um, proscribed activities.  Om the other hand, medieval people seem to have been realistic about certain aspects of this.  You could get an annulment if your husband was impotent.  Ms. Chadwick describes one example where some matrons in England tried to "stimulate" some poor fellow, and he wasn't "stimulated", so they declared him a "fraud".  In other words, marriages were primarily for the  procreation of children, and if one of the other of the couple couldn't "produce", well, that was  Just Too Bad.  Usually, though, women were blamed for this.  It was almost never the man's fault. 

 

But people could entertain themselves with "innuendo" in various ways.  The Chadwick blog also has a very interesting picture of an object, which apparently is based on an important part of the male anatomy.  I've seen similar "objects", disguised as cup handles(my daughter accidentally wandered into a store selling such items an as I wandered in after her, I saw these things.  I yanked her back out pretty fast, not because I'm especially "prudish" about such things, but because this stuff is pretty much over the head of an 8 year old). 

Finally, medievals, at least in England, in Anglo-Saxon times, were ingenious about inventing ways of entertaining themselves.  Again, Ms. Chadwick gives an example. It's a riddle.  I happen to be familiar with this particular one; it sounds somewhat "pornographic" to the modern eye and ear, but its answer is actually quite innocent.  I'm sure people must have been highly entertained, whiling away their time guessing these riddles.  They had to be, I suppose. because they didn't have TV, movies, the Internet, etc.  Few people could afford books, let alone  read them.  And they invented jokes and riddles that even today, produce smiles!

Anne G

Me timbers are too stout to shiver!

Since the decision came about to re-edit the first book of the Macsen’s Treasure series, INTO THE PATH OF GODS, I knew a number of historical points needed to be corrected as well as some other logistical issues. One scene that originally took place along a roadside needed to be moved to a more logical location and will now take place on a trading ship. While the updated scene provides the same storyline and character pathways, it will now make more sense and have more impact. As result I needed to check into a little seafaring history of fifth century Britain.

Unfortunately, maritime archaeological finds for that timeframe is scant. However, we do have the remains of two Romano-British ships discovered in the River Thames, one of which was located at Blackfriars beneath 20 feet of water at high tide. It was excavated in 1962-63. This ship is thought to have been built by native British shipwrights in the second century AD, putting it quite earlier than the period of Arthur, but it is also thought to be of the type already in use in Britain since before the Roman invasion. It is probably indicative of the type of ship still in use in the latter half of the fifth century.

Based on this conjecture, I have patterned the vessel in the book after the Blackfriars ship. The following list encompasses the basic facts that the archaeologists recorded.

· Built carvel style
· Hull entirely of oak
· Hull planking had massive floor timbers 12” wide, 8-1/2” thick
· Strakes were 2” thick and caulked with hazel twigs
· Strakes attached to floor timbers with special 29” nails
· Nails were driven through the strakes and floor timbers
· Ends of the nails’ shanks hammered over to embed the tip into the timbers
· No keel; two central planks instead, 2’2” wide, 3” thick
· Beam of about 22’
· Overall length about 55’
· Depth more than 7’ amidships
· Bottom nearly flat, enabling ship to rest evenly at low tide
· Chine angle 30-35°
· Oak planks covered cargo area in central part of ship
· Mast-step was a rectangular socket about a third of ship’s length from the bow
· Bronze Roman coin found in the step as a votive offering
· Assumed only one square sail on one mast
· Must have been a deck, due to depth of ship
· May have been a cabin on deck in the stern
· Cargo had been building stone when ship sank

Some definitions:
Carvel-built: the planks are all flush from keel to gunwale. Planks are smooth-seamed.
Chine: the angle where the side and bottom of a hull join
Gunwale (pronounced GUN-nel): the upper edge of a ship’s side
Stem: a timber forming the front extremity of the ship
Strake: a row of planking on the side or bottom of a ship from stem to stern on the outside of the hull.

The information here comes from George F. Bass’s book A History of Seafaring, published back in 1972. I was afraid his information would be out of date, but I’ve also checked out two more recent books and the Blackfriar’s boat is still considered the definitive archaeological find for the timeframe in question. While the ship in the re-edited scene is not terribly significant, I’m always appreciative of good information. Knowledge is a good thing!

Medieval Lincoln

I've just come across a really nice video of medieval Lincoln, thanks to Medievalists.net. It's on YouTube, and it is a virtual tour of the city, which was once one of the largest and wealthiest towns in England. As you will see when you view the video, there is plenty to delight the dedicated fan of medieval times.  There are many old buildings, a castle, and a cathedral, and all of these were started or built in the 11th or 12th centuries. There are also several good examples of what are known as "cruck" houses.  Many people would call them "half-timbered", and in the US, imitation ones are called "Tudor", though the style itself is much older. Interestingly, Lincoln Cathedral's  "Romanesque" style(it was built in the late 11th century and added on in subsequent centuries, has been copied in many places. An important academic library in the city where I live(and in which I delved for information for my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece -- as well as some other subjects), was originally built in an imitation of this style, though I have no idea whether or not it was built in imitation of Lincoln Cathedral.

Anne G

The Anglo Saxon Lyre

The English Resistance: the underground war against the Normans, by Peter Rex. Book review

Tempus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-7524-2827-6

As attested by 1066 And All That, the date of 1066 is the most memorable in English history (and one of the book’s only Two Genuine Dates). But William of Normandy’s conquest of England did not happen overnight after the Battle of Hastings. It took William several years to establish his grip on his new kingdom, years in which various English and Anglo-Danish notables rebelled against him, sometimes with foreign help from Denmark and Scotland, and in which William put down the opposition with ever-increasing brutality. Yet this period of revolt and reprisal is rarely covered in accounts of the Norman Conquest. This study by Peter Rex covers the five years immediately following Hastings, from 1066 to 1071, and provides a valuable account of this neglected historical episode.

The English Resistance begins with a survey of the three battles of 1066. Gate Fulford was fought just south of York on 20 September, when Tostig Godwinsson and Harald Hardrada defeated Earl Edwin of Mercia and Earl Morcar of Northumbria. Stamford Bridge was fought east of York five days later, when Harold Godwinsson defeated and killed Tostig and Haradrada after a forced march from the south of England. Hastings was fought on 14 October on the south coast, when William of Normandy defeated and killed Harold Godwinsson (after Harold and his army had marched all the way back from Stamford Bridge). Casualties in all three battles were heavy, and Hastings in particular saw the death of many of the English leaders and thanes. After Hastings only three English earls survived, Earls Edwin and Morcar (who had not joined in the campaign, presumably having taken heavy losses to both manpower and military reputation after Gate Fulford), and Waltheof Earl of Huntingdon, who was the son of Earl Siward of Northumbria and had good reason to dislike Harold Godwinsson after having been twice passed over for his father’s earldom (first for Harold’s brother Tostig, then for Earl Morcar).

The book then moves on to consider William’s policy for consolidating his new kingdom. At first his administration included the surviving English earls, churchmen and officials of King Harold’s government. Over the period of the study, the authority of the English earls gradually declined and administration of both church and state became progressively more Norman. The author draws an interesting comparison with the actions of the Danish king Cnut, after his successful invasion some 50 years previously, who co-operated with the surviving English nobility to create a combined Anglo-Danish state. William comes out of this comparison unfavourably, though the author states fairly that there is no way of knowing whether William intended to replicate Cnut’s policy and was forestalled by English rebellion, or whether William deliberately deprived the surviving earls of land and authority to provoke a rebellion and so destroy them.

An account of the various rebellions against William’s rule then follows, including the rebellions of Eadric the Wild on the Welsh borders in 1067-1069, raids made from Ireland by the sons of Harold Godwinsson, the revolt of the city of Exeter in 1067, and the rising in Northumbria in conjuction with a Danish army in 1069, which was followed by the brutal reprisals known as the Harrying of the North. The rebels used tactics that would now be called guerilla warfare, hiding in inaccessible areas of hills, marshes and forests, emerging briefly to attack Norman targets where they could do so with little risk, and disappearing back into their hideouts at any retaliation in force. The author suggests that some folktales of woodsmen and ‘The Green Man’ may be derived from these times, and that some of the tales may have contributed to the development of the legend of that most famous of outlaws, Robin Hood. The Harrying of the North was an effective counter to such tactics, depriving the rebels and the civilian population alike of the means of subsistence.

Finally, the book gives a detailed account of the career of Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile (his more famous name Hereward the Wake does not appear until several centuries later), covering his part in the attack on Peterborough and the siege of Ely in 1071 and then dealing with his likely origins, parentage and earlier career.

The narrative is lively, with a reasonable balance between fact and speculation. The author does not use footnotes or endnotes, but for the most part he says in the text which source(s) he is working from and why. Occasionally the line between evidence and opinion gets blurred, e.g. when the author says “....Orderic Vitalis is well-informed as ever....” - as I am not an expert on this period, it isn’t clear to me whether that is the author’s opinion, or whether there is evidence that Orderic is really better-informed than the other sources. Similarly, when he says that support in Northumbria “would have tended to go to Tostig not Harold” (explaining the lack of Northumbrian contigents at Hastings), I would have liked more explanation of that remark given that the Northumbrian thanes had thrown Tostig out in decisive fashion only two years before and had shown no sign of wanting him back since.

Although the material is arranged roughly chronologically, beginning with 1066 and working forward to the siege of Ely in 1071, the author does not hesitate to skip back and forth between events that happened before and after whatever he is currently describing. Usually this is to illustrate a point by means of reference to an individual’s earlier or later actions, or to follow through a theme. But it does mean the reader has to pay attention. If your concentration slips for a couple of lines you’re quite likely to find yourself three years and five counties away, and will have to go back and re-read to pick up the thread.

Readers who are unfamiliar with the Norman Conquest period may also find the large number of names and places daunting, and should find the maps and genealogies in the appendix helpful

There are lots of little-known facts in the book, which make it a delight for anyone interested in the period. For example, there is an excellent discussion on the process by which lands shifted progressively from English to Norman landholders, illustrated by the records of Hereward’s (probable) family, which I found the clearest explanation I have so far come across. The author also discusses variations in English and Norman custom - for example, he argues that Norman sheriffs had wider powers than English shire-reeves, and that the English and Norman view of oath-taking was quite different. He suggests that these might have contributed to the accusations of treachery and oath-breaking levelled at both sides, if each had a different idea of what the agreements meant. And apparently William introduced the offence of ‘murdrum’, which meant that any hundred in which a Norman was found dead had to either hand over the killer within five days or pay a fine of 40 marks to the king and 6 to the deceased’s relatives. From this, according to the author, arises the distinction between murder and manslaughter in English law.

The author draws a parallel between the situation in England after Hastings and the Nazi Occupation of France in the Second World War, and makes this something of a theme throughout the book. This parallel has occurred to me, and it is certainly a powerful image. I personally would be wary of carrying the analogy too far, and in particular I would question the use of terms such as “collaborator” and “Resistance”. I have my doubts as to whether the sides appeared as clear-cut at the time as they do to us now, looking back with nearly a thousand years of hindsight. Viewing Hastings as a conflict between ‘English’ and ‘Norman’ seems to me to be a modern view, treating it as a war between nation-states like the European wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1066, though, England as a political unit was only about a century old, having been established by Aethelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, in the 930s. The Anglo-Danish kingdom of York did not always sit easily under a southern monarch, the Danish population in England had suffered the St Brice’s Day Massacre in 1002, and the wars prior to Cnut’s succession and after his death would have been within living memory in 1066. Loyalties of region, lordship, landholding and kinship, and obligations of blood-feud and vengeance, were probably at least as important to most of the protagonists as the relatively recent concept of ‘England’. Some of those labelled as “collaborators” may have considered Harold Godwinsson a usurper. Some may have suffered real or imagined insult or injury during the rise of the Godwin family to power and may have seen Harold as their primary enemy. Some may have remembered the faction fighting before and after Cnut’s reign and believed that William had a better chance of preventing a recurrence. Some may have seen William and his Normans as no more ‘foreign’ than Harold, who was Danish on his mother’s side. Some may have seen it as a private squabble between rival claimants to the throne and been happy to keep out of it until the outcome had been decided on the battlefield, after which they accepted the new status quo. Some may have regarded victory in battle as a sign of divine approval and taken that as proof that William’s claim had been just. So I rather think the author’s division of the English players in the drama into “Resistance” and “collaborators” may be something of an oversimplification.

The English Resistance is a fascinating survey of a neglected period in English history, and well worth reading for anyone interested in the Norman Conquest in particular or in conquest and its aftermath in general.

Bread

Recently  I reserved a book called The Breads of France, by Bernard Clayton.  It came out  in 1978. I used to make a lot of bread, and the Clayton book was kind of a bible for me.  I really enjoyed breadmaking, and no matter what you did with them, they tended to turn out quite well. There was one "daily" loaf that I made a lot, something called the Honfleur Country Loaf.  The picture shows the baker's wares:  big, round loves, with decorations suggesting sheaves of wheat(I didn't bother with these, just the loaf itself).

 

More interesting,  Clayton went to Bayeux, and did the Bayeux Tapestry Tour.  There, he discovered a section of the Bayeux Tapestry, where there is a feast going on, and discovered a section of the Tapestry that shows a servant carrying a loaf that Clayton claims is similar to another recipe he gathered -- something he calls Normandy Beaten Bread. For the record, this  breadmaking recipe requires you not only to knead it(for a long time), but also to bash it for a while with a rolling pin or something similar.

 

To get back to the subject,  the Bayeux Tapestry shows a couple of scenes, one of which definitely has somebody holding bread, and one of which probably  has somebody holding bread.  The "definitely one is here, and the "probable" is here.  The "definite" one looks like one of those holiday "ring" loaves you sometimes see around Christmastime.  The "probable" looks a lot like the Honfleur Country Loaf. 

 

Clayton also says that the French nowadays think they brought the art of breadmaking to England.  This, of  course, isn't true; names like "Baker" and "Baxter" were, in Old English,originally male and female bakers!  And, to connect this to medieval England, where this piece properly belongs,I would suggest to the Gentle Reader that the kind of bread that was ordinarily baked in England, was much like the Honfleur Country Loaf.  It's too bad the book is out of print, and it's too bad that, as far as I know, there isn't a nice picture of the bread in Internetland. Then I could add a picture so you could see for yourselves.  However,  I do have the recipe, if anyone reading this would like to try it.  It's kind of fun if you want to do some "artisan" breadmaking over a weekend. 

 

Honfleur Country Loaf(and I'm fairly sure this is something like what people in medieval England ate):

INGREDIENTS:

Starter

1 tablespoon honey

1 cup warm(not hot) water

1 package dry yeast

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

 

Dough

All of starter

2 cups warm water

1 tablespoon salt

2 cups whole wheat flour

2-3 cups all-purpose flour

 

1 or2 baking sheets, greased, sprinkled with cornmeal

 

PREPARATION:

Starter: 

In a large bowl, dissolve honey in 1 cup warm water and add yeast.  Stir to dissolve and let rest until creamy.  Add 1/2 cup each of whole wheat and white bread to make the starter batter.  Add balance of flours to make a shaggy mass you can work with your hands.  Knead for 3 minutes.  Toss in liberal amounts of white flour if slack or sticky. Cover bowl and leave at room temperature 4 hours or overnight.

Dough:

Pour 2 cups warm water over starter.  Stir with large wooden spoon or rubber scraper to break up dough.Add salt.  Place 2 cups each of white and whole wheat flours at the side ofthe mixing bowl.  Add equal parts of each,1/2 cup at a time. Stir with utensil , then work it with hands.  You may need more white flour to keep the dough from getting sticky.  Lift from bowl with hands.

 

KNEADING

Place  the dough on a floured surface and knead aggressively. Once in a while. lift the dough up and bang it against the floured surface.  This is fun(gets rid of all your tensions), and it speeds up the process. Do this three or four times, then continue to knead.  After a while, the dough will be moist and solid. 

 

FIRST RISING

Return the dough to the washed and greased bowl.  Cover tightly, leave at room temperature 3-4 hours or overnight, if necessary, until it doubles in volume.

 

SHAPING

Push down dough and turn out on a well-floured work surface.  Divide the dough into several pieces and shape into tight balls. Reserve 1 cup of the dough to make wheat stalks, if desired. Place on baking sheet and press tops down to flatten slightly.

 

SECOND RISING

The loaves are left under wax paper or other covering to triple in size.  This takes about 2 1/2 hours. 

 

BAKING(50 minutes)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, about 20 minutes.  Place a broiler pan on the bottom shelf.  Five minutes before the bread goes in the oven, pour 1 cup hot tap water in the pan for a moist, steamy oven.  Place loaves on the middle shelf.  Midway through the bake period, shift the loaves so that each loaf gets equal heat.  Loaves are done when golden brown.  Bottom crust will sound hard and hollow when tapped with a finger.  Place on metal rack and cool.  Freezes well

 

Oh, and don't forget to enjoy!

Anne G