Rosalie Gilbert

The widow Felmersham was clearly not of a true religious vocation. Not unsurprisingly, this is not an uncommon occurrence in court cases involving nunneries and medieval women. Nunneries were a convenient place to stash young girls for their own protection and sometimes, to get a small education of sorts, while she waited for a suitable husband to be found by well-meaning family. Some were subdued into a life of religion and scheduled prayer and work but others used them more like boarding houses to be used at their own whims and convenience.

Nunneries also accepted wealthy widows who wished to avoid remarriage but had no real religious vocation, so as much as they were happy to accept the income these women provided, the resident nuns-in-charge had their hands full keeping these secular women in check.

Often they were permitted to wear regular secular clothing and jewellery, skip prayers, eat whatever they liked and have friends sleep over. Parties could get rowdy, much to the annoyance of the women who lived there who were diligently trying to live a devout and holy life of contemplation.

Complaints were common and many made their way into courts or complaint books to be dealt with by visiting deacons. Many with little success, it seems, as some records show that the same women might pop up repeatedly or be passed from place to place.

For more stories of actual medieval women, you know where to go.

I made a pretty great discovery while I was messing around in Goodreads, and that was even though I self-published the new book, I was still able to add it to my author bookshelf so people can leave reviews! The cover is up and I feel super proud that I now have 2 books under my name.

A bit chuffed, really.

The Rosalie's Medieval Woman Online store has had a bit of an overhaul too.  Also chuffed with that too!

I've needed to make a new footer for posts on my Author blog page for the new Medieval Wisdom for Modern Women book, so I did that today keeping in with the general pink theme.

And I've needed to update the other footer to add in the new book at the bottom and add a link to the website for ordering. So that's done too now.

The pre-book things continue getting all the things done for promotions... stickers to go on delivery boxes, new business cards with the cover on, a cute set of promotional bookmarks and a couple of coffee mugs for prize pack giveaways. At this point, it's all Australian posting. I looked into an Amazon release as well but to sell soft covers as actual books, I need to pay them to print them, which is essentially what I'm doing now here in Brisbane.o unless they get picked up by an actual publisher overseas, they'll not be going outside of Australia due to the horrendous postage pricing.

The Rosalie's Medieval Woman Online Shop is in place, upgraded from the other book shopping page, but there's no actual cart yet. People will need to email me with their order and use the PaypalMe function that Paypal has where I request a payment, so much like an invoice. It's better than nothing, and cheaper than an e-commerce business package or Etsy shop because I really don't think I'm going to sell huge quantities. Local bookshops, the museum shop and places which stock my other book are my main sellers anyway, so I feel it's not the end of the world. My son, who is in IT is checking out drop in webshops for me and we may have an affordable solution there. Maybe I need to re-look at Etsy but I think there are monthly fees which may outstrip what I make.

Anyway, busy weekend of getting things ready and getting promotional emails out ready for books to arrive, so they can go into shop Xmas catalogues as sweet little stocking fillers.

Wish me luck!

The Victorian Medieval Festival is over and I'm happy to be back home. It was an absolutely wonderful event, which was a new venue for me. I had a few ups and downs, but on the whole, the display was well received, and I spent most of the two days straight with limited toilet breaks and a lot of very interested members of the public.

There was no Grand Parade, so for the first time ever, I got to just set up, put on the clothes I was wearing for the day, and stay in them. It was pretty warm, so as a bath attendant, I wore just a chemise and headwear and went barefoot! It was such a hot day and although I was inside my tent, the angle of the sun meant on the first day I got horribly, horribly sunburnt.

Very sadly, the brass pan I was waiting for for the display arrived a day after we departed home for our epic road trip across three states to get there. We needed to dodge a lot of flooding and closed roads so the trip added substantial extra miles, petrol and another 6 hours travel time at least. Happily, I had packed a wooden bowl which, while not what I wanted, did the job. The new basin has since arrived and is just perfect!



The lavarbo itself was a huge hit with members of the public who not only enjoyed it as an item, per se, but also enjoyed having a few drops of rosewater splashed onto their hands to try. I also has herb bathwater samples and my friend Michelle from who had a 14th century Surgeon display next to me made some of Trotula's tooth powder for me in between talks and people. My own Trotula's hair powder was also much loved by people, so that was fantastic too!

All in all, a really fun event!