We are approaching the end of the year, which means we are approaching my ‘no new research’ deadline. As I mentioned last newsletter, we have a tiny bit of time to squeeze in some later medieval research on non-liturgical rituals and how/if combs were used in them.
I don’t have long to do this - my deadline is on 9 December and meeting on 13 to discuss it. I shouldn’t need long either - what I’m looking at is narrow and focused and easy to search for.
Oh my gosh there are soooo many interesting things to be distracted by!!! It feels a little as though I’ve arrived in an entirely different country, where everything is overwhelming and noisy and colourful in the best way. There is so much stuff. People write things down! Jewels and thoughts and sources exist in what feels like overwhelming numbers!
So here’s a few things I have enjoyed:
a pendant (not pictured, sadly) in the shape of a stylized vulva, with the inscription ‘con por amovrs’. Standley, (‘Dressing the body,’ Oxford Later Medieval Archaeology Handbook, 797) has translated this as ‘cunt for love’
the Anglo-Saxons grew carrots (no idea why I found this so charming, but I did)
likely that the Norman Invasion brought the practice of suspending a cooking pot over a fire rather than being placed in it. In turn, this meant a change in the way people cooked meat, with them cooking for longer and slower. Also, things get saucier as you go on!
more fish was eaten the later in the medieval period you get.
The rest of my research has been slightly less fun, as once again we’re searching for combs in between the cracks of things, and despite this enormous proliferation of stuff, we still have very few actual references to them. A considerable amount of my time has been dedicated to searching in wills, and I have found only four instances where they are passed down.
On the other hand, the sheer amount of jewels that the very rich had is mind-boggling. I don’t know why, but there is something wild about reading ‘to my daughter, half of all my diamonds, sapphires, pearls,’ and just thinking about them having fistfuls of literal jewels?
(I am assuming very rich people still do this? I am afraid I do not know. Very happy if anyone wants to show me their safe though!)
I have also been looking at depictions of hair in the Bayeux Tapestry, as I’m thinking about how people would have prepared their hair before battles. Anyway, these two are my favourites, and I think are the only depictions of men on horseback with hair that is quite so…spiky? Flowing? Spikily flowing?
Other
I went to see Wicked and was so charmed and weeped all the way through.
Clare and Erin cooked up an enormous Thanksgiving feast and it warmed me all the way through my soul. Following on from a weekend in Wales with my undergrad friends, I am just full of lovely friend feelings.
The man in the Continuing Education Cafe gave me a free cup of tea! In truth, I think this is because I walked away without paying, then returned in a bit of a whirlwind, dropped my phone and apologised, as he was having a conversation with a woman about her divorce. The whole thing was a bit frantic and embarrassing (for me), but I did get a free cup of tea and I *am* certain it is because of I recently put together a money bowl.