by Molly Owen | Sep 25, 2009 | Blog, Ruth Kaufman
When we watch movies set in “medieval times,” the fashions we see can be authentic or a muddle of the medieval period, which spanned more than 400 years.
Many costume research sources delineate periods of fashion development by decades or centuries. I prefer to use each king’s reign (John Peacock’s approach in Costume 1066-1990s). Eighteen kings ruled England from 1066-1485. Two never married (William II and the boy king Edward V). The other kings and their 21 medieval queens, many from foreign lands, influenced national fashion just as presidents and their wives do now. Other influences included the Crusades and improved technology, which enabled the introduction of new fabrics and designs. Sumptuary laws decreeing which classes could wear which fabrics Following is a brief summary of some of the major changes in medieval English headdresses.
Women almost always wore headdresses because it was considered unseemly for them to show their hair. In William the Conqueror’s time, women simply wore a piece of plain cloth (often linen) draped over their heads, held by a narrow band. Some women wore their hair in two long braids around the turn of the 12th century, some with no veils. By Stephen’s reign, headbands were coming into vogue. These were worn with a veil.
As time passed, women also added a barbette, a strip of white fabric that went under the chin. Others wore wimples, similar to the white cloths some nuns still wear around their faces. Some form of the wimple or barbette with a circlet or hat continued through Edward II. A crispinette, or hair net, became a popular hair accessory of the time.
By Edward III, hair was braided and worn over the ears, not unlike Star Wars’ Princess Leia, except that often a crispinette covered the round braids, and was often worn with a hat or band (called a fillet). Padded roll headdresses emerged in the reign of Richard II, and were often jeweled or embroidered and were often worn with a short veil by Henry IV and the late 14th century.
By Henry V and into the beginning of Henry VI (1422-1461), rolls were worn over other headdresses or crispinettes, some with veils, some not. Transparent veils came into vogue during the latter part of Henry VI. Tall, conical headdresses called hennins (popular in the court of Burgandy, which influenced fashion) with veils appeared during the early years Edward IV but were replaced by fairly boring hats and caps with folded back brims by the end of his reign.
Ruth Kaufman owns approximately 200 books about medieval and early Renaissance England and has written 5 medievals. Visit her at www.ruthjkaufman.com or www.ruthtalks.com.
by Molly Owen | Sep 24, 2009 | Paty Jager
My newest release is Miner in Petticoats. It’s a story about a man building a future for his brothers and their families. The story is set in the gold country of NE Oregon. I used a well known creek in the area, Cracker Creek, and had the hero build a stamp mill. There were stamp mills in the area but not on this creek. It was a liberty I took with my story, but I did my ground work on how the mills were set up and how they ran.
A stamp mill is a large device used to crush rock and extract gold and other precious metals from the stone.
There are several ways to mine gold:
The easy method is panning. I had the fortune to try my hand at it when my husband and I cruised to Alaska this past month. We toured a jump-off camp on the Chilkoot trail and they had mining pans for each of us to practice the art of panning.
To pan you need anywhere from a 10 inch to 20 inch pan that’s made of metal and has a concave bottom with a 30 to 40 degree angle on the sides. Don’t forget a pick and a shovel to dig below the bedrock. For the pan method of gold mining you find a spot on a stream where the water is moving slow as the fast moving water would have tumbled the gold along the bottom of the stream, depositing it where the flow was slower. The gold, being heavy, would work its way down into the bedrock of the stream. Shovel away the top layer and fill the pan with gravel, set it in six inches to a foot of water, and knead the mixture with your hands. This breaks up any chunks of clay and causes the heavier material to move to the bottom of the pan.
Toss out the larger rocks and debris. Shake the pan vigorously, making sure the small nuggets or grains sink to the bottom of the pan. With the pan slightly tilted, lift it quickly up and down, letting the lighter material wash out over the sides of the pan. This could take up to ten minutes to get down to a small amount of heavy material in the bottom of the pan. Keep adding small amounts of water until you have the material down to one layer and spread across the pan. You can see the gold and pick up the small pieces with a dry fingertip if they are small. Or pick them out if they are a fair size.
The next method is a sluice box. A sluice box is a wooden or metal trough roughly six feet long with a series of riffles placed in the bottom of it to stop the heavier minerals. There are several variations. One is pictured on the cover of my book Miner in Petticoats. The heroine in my book uses a sluice box to find gold from the trailings she digs in her mine. The sluice is designed to speed up the process of separating gold from the sand and gravel. It is easier and faster than a pan and less expensive than other operations. The riffles are usually pieces of one inch lumber placed at intervals along the bottom of the box with a cloth placed beneath them to capture the smaller particles of gold. The cloth can be removed periodically and washed dipped in a tub, rinsing the debris from the cloth to later be panned. A box can be set up anywhere you have a source of water. But it should be set up at an angle of roughly one inch per foot of slope. This allows the water to run down at a slow enough rate to leave the heavier objects trapped in the riffles.
The Cradle or Rocker is another variation of a sluice process. It is faster and harder to build and work. It is a sluice on rockers. It can be agitated, forcing the gravel and other materials to travel faster, yet leave behind the heavier objects. It takes two men or more to work a rocker.
The next method a miner with a small producing mine might invest in was a stamp mill. Like my hero in Miner in Petticoats. They used gravity to force the rocks through the system. They built the mills on the side of a canyon or hill arranged in descending steps. They also used water to run the stamps and wash away pulverized rock so they also had to be near a dependable water source. Mills could be ordered through catalogues. A simple stamp mill could be built by anyone with building knowledge. At the top of the mill, the rock dug from a mine was dumped into a grizzly or grate. Any rock that didn’t fit through the grizzly rolled down into the crusher where it was made smaller. All of this filtered down into the stamp battery. This could be anywhere from three to five (in the smaller mills)or up to 100 large square stones weighing 1000 pounds each on the ends of poles that moved up and down like pistons at alternating intervals that pulverized the rock. This then moved down to amalgamating plates. The amalgamation table was coated with mercury and the gold would adhere to the mercury and the “amalgam” would be removed from the plates and the gold extracted from the mercury. After that process the residue of crushed rock and water would wash across the concentration table to collect anything the amalgamating plates missed. These tables were the size of pool tables with shallow riffles and mounted at a slight tilt.
Mining was not a lazy man’s occupation. It took long hours and lots of backbreaking work to glean enough gold to make a decent living and money to back you to start up an enterprise like a stamp mill to make your mine pay off even more.
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by Molly Owen | Sep 13, 2009 | Blog, Terry Blain
I thought since this has been our year for weddings – both our sons married this year, I’d blog about weddings. The standard wedding traditions are fairly well know. How true the background and reason for these customs, I leave up to you.
The wedding ring symbolized eternity, as it has no end. The third finger of the left hand was chosen because of the belief that ancient physician thought that a vein ran from that finger to the heart.
Why they thought this, or who specifically proposed this idea is lost in the midst of time.The idea of the veil comes from the tradition of arranged marriages, where the groom doesn’t get to see the bride until after they are married. Or sometimes the veil thought to symbolize the bride’s virtue.
The tradition of the white dress comes from Victorian England.And of course, the traditional rhyme of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue and a lucky sixpence (or penny) in her shoe.
For my (1969) wedding:
Something old (a lace handkerchief from my grandmother)
Something new (the dress)
Something borrowed (must have been something, but it’s so long ago I don’t remember!)
Something blue (the new tradition of the blue garter)
A lucky sixpence in her shoe (a girlfriend bought me sixpence from England)
My March daughter-in-law:
Something old (her great grandmothers embroidered handkerchief)
Something new (the dress)
Something borrowed (a hairpin)
Something blue (engagement ring is blue sapphire)
A lucky sixpence in her shoe (a ha’penny)
My September daughter-in-law:Something old (her mother’s garter
)Something new (her dress and jewelry)
Something borrowed (will borrow something on the day)
Something blue (her initials are sewn in blue in her dress)
A lucky sixpence in the shoe (a sixpence from her mom at the bridal shower)
As you might guess from all the similarities, that I’m very pleased with my sons for choosing such great gals.
Do you remember your something old, something new? If so talk about among yourselves on the comment section, as I’m actually at the second wedding today.
by Molly Owen | Sep 11, 2009 | Blog, Colleen Mold
My love affair with the historical western started when I was about 8 or 9 and my dad began reading me the “Little House on the Prairie” books. I was obsessed with watching the TV show when I got home from school and Dad wanted to share with me the stories that inspired the show. In junior high school my love affair with the western continued with the short lived TV series “The Young Riders”, about the Pony Express, featuring some real life people like Jimmy “Wild Bill” Hickock and William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. My 13 year old self wanted nothing more than to have one of these dashing riders come to my rescue. In fact, my first ever historical western story was based off the show (I was writing fan fiction before I even knew what it was!). Other shows like “The Magnificent Seven” and “Deadwood” soon followed and further fueled my love of this time period. Oddly enough I don’t enjoy most movie westerns.
When I started reading romances in my late teens, I was drawn to the historicals and mostly drawn to the westerns. The truly wonderful authors who write this genre took me to a time and a place that I’d loved since I was a child. When I decided to take my love of writing and pursue being published, a historical western romance was my first project.
So why the historical west? My simple answer is: variety. The historical west was a vast place, there are stories written from the Canadian Yukon to the Mexican border, from the plains of Minnesota to the coasts of Oregon and everywhere in between. It was a time of change and exploration in our country’s history. The time period is just as vast as the places, from before the Civil War, to during that conflict to afterward through the turn of the century and even beyond.
Then there are the story arcs. Of course historical westerns have their clichés just like any other genre, but for me it’s much harder to happen upon the same story arc over and over in westerns than with other genres. The types of characters and conflicts within a historical western are as vast as the time period and setting. People of all faiths, races and economic status headed out to settle the west. One couldn’t venture into this place during this time and be a wimp. The heroines were already strong or came to find a strength they didn’t know they possessed, often out of pure necessity to survive. The heros were rugged, tough and mostly lived by their own rules in a place where law was practically non-existent. The couples that came together could have been different as night and day and yet managed to find true love despite all the odds.
I love doing research and I love being able to experience a place first hand. My family’s travels when I was younger seemed to center on road trips through my native Minnesota, into South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. I’ve been to Register Rock in Idaho and stood in the spot where Jack McCall shot Wild Bill Hickock. I’ve stood at the Little Big Horn Battlefield and at the place Laura Ingalls once called home. These experiences have helped to fuel my love for this time period even more.
I’d love to know what others think of historical western romances. Do you read them? Who are some of your favorite authors? What other time periods do you enjoy reading and can you give me any recommendations?
Among my favorite historical western romance authors are Linda Lael Miller, Sarah McCarty and Stacey Kane . As a whole I don’t really enjoy Regencies but perhaps you can suggest something that might change my mind? I have read a couple of medieval stories that have led me to think this might be a time period I’d love to explore more of. I also really enjoy time travel romance.
I’d like to take a moment to thank the Seduced By History blog who allowed those of us in the Hearts Through History RWA chapter who aren’t yet published the opportunity to blog here this month. So thank you!
by Molly Owen | Sep 10, 2009 | Blog, Kathleen Bittner Roth
We’ve all heard the saying that if a child does not like an adult, pay attention. Their innocent minds have the ability to see through the layers of falsehood.
I have two friends, who, as children, were forced to gaze into Hitler’s eyes. They did not like him.
Gerlinde was six years old when she was chosen to stand before Hitler and Goebbels in front of a throng of thousands waving their little swastika flags. Daughter of a high-ranking official in their Bavarian town, she’d been chosen for her perfect blonde hair, blue eyed Aryan looks to present Hitler with a bouquet of flowers. When Hitler bent to her level to accept them, he had a serene smile on his face and gave her a gentle pat on the top of her curly little head. She looked into his eyes, not four inches from hers. Although her child’s mind could not translate the look in them as insane, she inwardly cringed.
“I do not like that man,” she later told her father. Not many months passed before her father realized Hitler was mad and agreed. They fled. But not far enough.
My other friend, Gunda, was also six years old when she was forced to look into Hitler’s eyes. Her father was a top ranking official, Rudolf Hess’s best friend, and his personal astrologer. They had realized before the war even started that Hitler was mad. Gunda remembers the clandestine meetings between her father and Hess in her family’s kitchen. They poured over astrological charts spread atop the table, deciding the right time to secret Jews out of the country, and when the right time would be for Hess to make his move.
Hess flew into Scotland with the intention of informing England of Hitler’s invasion plans. Meanwhile, Gunda’s father used his astrological charts to steer Hitler off course. Hess spent the rest of his life in prison while Gunda’s father, his treason against Hitler discovered, was thrown into a German concentration camp for two years and then placed under house arrest until rescued by the Allied Command.
With her father gone, Gunda, her mother and brother, were sent to live in a house next door to Hitler’s headquarters in Munich, so he could “keep an eye on them.” They were, in fact, political prisoners. Hitler would wander into their residence at will, lean down to Gunda’s eye level, pat her on her blonde curls, smile, and present her with candy. She did not like him. Not one bit. At age seven she and her brother were sent into the Alps to live out the war with her maternal grandparents. Her mother remained a political prisoner.
Gunda later learned that astrology was not all Hitler was attracted to with regard to the esoteric world. He chose his speeches carefully and dramatically, knowing that ceremony and tradition binds people, one to the other. That is why in documentaries you see so many newsreels with long parades and huge crowds of people gathered before him.
And in these documentaries, have you noticed that every man, woman and child in the crowd waves a little red flag with a black swastika emblazoned on it, while a huge version hangs behind the dais?
Hitler knew what he was doing. He bound the crowd together and to him to the ceremony. The flags of the people were given to wave were full of symbolism, right down to the colors the Nazi party chose. Metaphysically speaking, everything has its opposite-for day there is night, for black there is white. Esoterically, the color red signals power. But red also signals fear (which is why Satan was traditionally depicted in red – to instill fear), and so the red in the Nazi flag had a dual purpose: it subconsciously signaled empowerment directed toward Hitler and his regime, while subconsciously inflicting fear as a means of control. Black also has its dual purpose which was why the Swastika itself was black. People tend to fear the darkness, and fear is a great control mechanism. But the duality of black also is where the void is, where answers lie (why do Priests wear black if it is so evil? Native Americans revered the color black, believing that out of the void of nothingness came enlightenment). The black swastika was portrayed against a circle of white. White is the only color without duality. White represents purity.
Oh, and the swastika itself. What a shame Hitler took the most powerful spiritual symbol of the cross and desecrated it. But again, the party knew what it was doing. This “Whirling bird” symbol can be found in many cultures all over the world. Anthropologists have found evidence of it in Mesopotamia and in North America, on pottery and splashed across the walls of caves dating as far back as 4500 BC. Buddhists associate the Swastika with the Buddha. The symbol can be seen in their temples. Hindus associate it with the nine planetary gods (they still use it in wedding ceremonies). Did you know that up until Hitler’s desecration of the swastika, it represented good luck in America?
Not only did the Nazi party adopt the swastika because of its long association with the Aryan race (the Aryan race was once made up of Persians, Iranians, Indians, Germans, and Pelasgians – so much for the blonde, blue-eyed Nordic appearance Hitler demanded), but the “wheels” or “arms” of the swastika have a particular meaning depending on which way they face. Turning counterclockwise, the flow of the swastika represents female energy, the energy of sitting down and negotiating without war. However, turthe arms the other way (clockwise) and they represent a male, aggressive action outward–war. Unfortunately, the swastika will most likely remain an enigma in the world. Its use is outlawed in Germany today.
Jews were not the first group of people Hitler chose to annihilate. He initially went after artists and musicians because these groups of people were the free thinkers who sat around in coffee houses purporting change. He also went after the esoteric crowd because their world was abuzz. They had figured out the earth-shaking symbols and realized Hitler was up to no good.
My husband, Hans, is German, born after the war. He tells me the story of when he entered first grade. His teacher told the class of Hitler’s atrocities and informed these young children that all Germans must absorb the historical guilt of what Hitler did. Hans, stubborn and self-realized even back then, gathered his things and ran home. He told his parents what happened and said, “I did not know that guy Hitler, and I am not going to feel guilty because of what he did!” His parents, who suffered long years in prisons because of the war, agreed. The madman’s name was never brought up again.
Note: This was written with permission from both women who live in the U.S. today. Gunda, the daughter of Rudolf Hess’s astrologer (Hess was second in command under Hitler), has all of her father’s secret papers that she has not yet made public, and intends to write a book. She wears a ring her father gave her, one made up of sacred stones (according to him) and with the stones cut and polished in a certain design of flat triangles and squares to represent her astrological sign. I had no idea what this ring meant until she told me. She said there is so much more that Hitler did in using the esoteric and turning it into dark occultism. Gunda is a wonderful and benevolent person, giving and loving. She said her traumatic early years living next door to Hitler taught her about the lessons of choice: we can use whatever we have either for good or for bad, depending on one’s intention. Therefore, she makes a point to do nothing without first asking herself what her true intention is. And after her experience with Hitler, that intention is always meant to be for the good of all.
