Rosalie Gilbert

This is a bit of a cheat really. I was walking past a friend's camp early and the sun was coming down through the trees and I have my phone with me so I asked her to take a quick photo. At the last minute, I grabbed a sheaf of wheat, and I couldn't be happier with the result.

It's a bit of a stretch of the imagination to believe that this actually happened, but information from court rolls indicate that Jeanne did, in fact, claim this to be entirely true. There is no mention of the time period that this was spread out over, or whether it occurred in the span of one busy evening.

Personally, four hundred and forty-four times seems like a lot before deciding that the perpetrator was not a rather good-looking human, but a demon instead.

As always, there's more where that came from in the Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women by Yours Truly, and it's available where-ever books are sold, online through Mango Publishing or your preferred book vendor or have your bricks-and-mortar shop order it in for you.

I've been approached to assist with a fundraiser for our museum for the new art gallery which is currently underway. The Bribie Island Arts Association in conjunction with the Abbey Museum are having a high tea with a medieval entertainment, and guess who that is?

I offered a few suggestions about what I could talk on as a guest speaker, but somehow it's been extended into even more things, and now I'm prepping for this event in April and I'll be:

- dressing a medieval lady with explanations as I go
- dressing her hair and talking about her hygiene and beauty
- having samples of all of those things which people can see at the touch table
- having original 800 year old artifacts from my private collection out for looking and possibly touching with care
- making Trotula's hair powder as a scent experience
- setting up my hand washing station so people can try the rosewater hand wash with the lavarbo
- possibly making a slide show so people can see stuff while I talk about it
- a raffle prize of dressing someone up in medieval clothes and doing a digital portrait

I'll be donating all my time and resources but it's a lot of stuff and time and effort on very short notice. The event was decided at the start of the week and on Tuesday the lady emailled asking for what I could do, a photo, a blurb and by Wednesday please so it could go into the newsletter and promotions started by Thursday or Friday. I already had a nice talk about hygiene and beauty tools but adding in an entire other talk and production of dressing a lady (from her underwear out) is an extra thing and now I have to rewrite everything so it joins together seamlessly.

I'd like to note that the clothing my niece will be wearing isn't finished yet either, and since it's for an actual display, I can't just sew the buttons down the sleeve like I was going to do- oh no- I have to do actual buttonholes and lacing holes down the front. It's the wine underdress I posted about a little while ago, which I was going to machine sew, but really can't now if it's for a talk on proper clothing because people will get to see it all up close. And as my model (thank you niece) is a size 6, I can't just throw her in something of mine.

As for the raffle prize, the organiser original thought I could just use all my own personal clothes and do the dressing a lady on the random person who won the raffle who is 100% not going to be my size. so, no. I offered a portrait like the ones I've been using for my quotes books.

I have found my style guide!

For quite a long time I've wanted to narrow down my 14th century impression. In fact, I've thought it might be fun to narrow it down to a style guide from a single manuscript, rather than a broad spectrum of many in the same time period. My thought was it might be fun to do not just one time period and geographical region, but one manuscript. Initially, my re-enactment start was peppered with "14th century, England" while I cherry picked the best bits I liked and threw them enthusiastically together. I tried to consider what went with what and whether I should use something, not just if I could.

I discovered the Luttrell Psalter, as everyone does. It has a lot of daily life and is pretty great and for a while I loved it so much.

The lure of the slightly later 14th century- past the fashion change of the gownes and tunics and into the form-fitting kirtles and mega buttons and frilly veils called and I discovered the Bohun Psalter, which I had thought to use as my style guide. It has many pictures of items from kitchen ware to small chests and a large variety of clothing. I started a Project.

And that was it's downfall for me. I really could just go back to justifying almost everything, (which is okay)... but there were a LOT of frilly veils and absolutely no barbettes. I really love barbettes.

I've made a few false starts here, but I think I have found one which ticks a large number of boxes for me. The Ormesby Psalter. MS Douce 366, Bodleian Library. It has a lot of cool stuff I really like. The tri-spotty cintamani fabric. Many squirrels. Heraldic clothing. And some household things, although nowhere near as much as the Bohun or Luttrell Psalters.

Highlights include:

Gownes, surcotes with high armholes, a heraldic sort of surcote (the heraldry has the gold flowers but a plain blue background whereas this has a diapered patterned fabric in the blue) translucent veils, hairnets, circlets and a weird hairnet which looks more like a shower cap than anything else.

Headwear wise, circlets and flower crowns, hairnets with decorative embroidery (those are the dots, which we can see are embroidered on extant ones), several styles of barbette and fillets including a slightly pleaty one.

There are some nice decorative motifs going on which are repeated.

Squirrels. Lots of squirrels in dividers, in margins and as a Lady's pet. The shoulder buttons on the surcote are pretty cool too and do make the surcote easier to get off and on. Table cloths with red stripes and fringing instead of the traditional blue. Cornflowers. There are cornflowers used decoratively, and I really love cornflowers. I would like to use them in camp as a flower alternative to roses (though always roses are a winner!) Not shown here is a painted mirror which is red with a gold border and an ivory comb; two items which tie into my health and hygiene display too.

The time period and country fits with my main interest, historically and although there are gaps in the manuscript for documenting some items, many are generic across others in the same place and time, and other gaps can be filled from artifacts from the Museum of London and my personal collection.
One of the coolest things, style wise, is a lady wearing a peaked cap combined with a red hairnet and barbette.

This is the only one I've seen.

There are very, very, very few images of women wearing this style of hat although an enormous number of re-enactor ladies wear them. Indeed, one could expect to see them in every painting and manuscript based on the number of people who wear them, when in fact, they are extremely rare.

I was astonished to find such a rare image in the Ormesby Psalter, but thought it was rather cool that of all manuscripts I've pored over, this actual one not only contained such a rare picture, but it was in the manuscript I was considering for my personal style guide.

This has been great news for me, because years ago I bought a peaked cap to wear (like everyone else) assuming that because it was widely worn, there was ample documentation for it across many areas, countries, and almost over the entire 14th and 15th centuries, and when the time came to gather documentation, I was extremely sad to learn that it was so extremely rare and the best known image was Italian and not even my country of choice, that I made the sad decision to not wear it as it wasn't an accurate representation of something I would be wearing as an Englishwoman at that particular time. I noticed there was no veil worn with this and will need to adopt that too. No hat jewel. No pilgrim badges. No feathers. Just the peaked cap.

The Ormesby Psalter ticks a great deal of my boxes. I've already snipped all of the images and broken them down into clothes, headwear, veils, animals, decorative features and it won't be too long before I have it all catalogued and grouped into items for a really good comparative of things I can use to put together an impression based on a single manuscript.

I am certainly going to try and see how I go!

When getting things done stops you from overthinking, doom scrolling on social media AND completes tasks you actually want to complete, you're ticking boxes and although you're busy, it makes you feel good about yourself which is a kind of self-care.

Ironically, the embroidery in the picture is something I've been working on at shows for at least. The quote is from Medieval Wisdom for Modern Women: Self Care Advice and Warnings From The Middle Ages That You Still Need Today! It's good to have down time, but it's also good to get things done!

It's Love Your Bookshop Day 2023 on Saturday, 7th of October and I will be there loving my local Books@Stones Book Shop at Stones Corner in Brisbane. Co-incidentally, it's their 13th birthday too, so there will be an array of celebratory activities... face painting! Balloon shapes! Book signings! Discounts! Free Stuff!

And yours truly will be there in costume on the footpath signing my newest book, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Women: Self Care Advice & Warnings From The Middle Ages That You Still Need Today. I'm just so excited that it's been in my house for less than a week and already orders are coming in, I have a nice review and my amazing local book shop has leaped up to be the very first shop to stock the book! Other orders are already coming in, though, so hopefully it'll be available in more places.

Overseas shipping continues to be a headache, but since two or three books will squeeze into a postpack, I heartily recommend making the most of the post and share the shipping with a friend or two. Meanwhile, give your local bookshop some love.

Clearly, if you have a nice ass, you're all the better for getting pregnant. Actually, any ass will do. Don't be confused. The specific type of ass Trotula was writing about, is the donkey kind.  It can be found in texts before the 12th century to describe a horse-like animal with long ears and a braying sound, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it thus:

Noun (1) Middle English, from Old English assa, probably from Old Irish asan, from Latin asinus

For reasons best known to herself, Trotula recommended this kind of milk specifically as promoting a quick pregnancy, but, as with some of her other remedies, I remain doubtful.

Please, don't try this at home.

For more awful hints on how to get pregnant or how to avoid being pregnant, you might like to read The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Woman, available here.

Look, I know we are all sick of hearing about it, but by now we all understand the challenges I've faced with publishing and the front cover of my book. This week I had dealings with a venue which was hoping to sell my book over the course of a medieval event, but, in an exceptionally tactless way, informed me that they felt the cover was (and I quote) "A bit on the nose" and that it wasn't suitable for a family-friendly festival in their gift shop.

I completely understand that the original cover screams SEX in large, unwieldy letters, which is one of the reasons I printed a dust jacket. That and the nipple censorship thing, of course.

The venue was not particularly happy with the dust jacket either, so with an extremely limited time frame, I got this one off to the printer for a new dust jacket. The venue conceded that this one was (and again, I quote) "A bit better." They insist that the book be wrapped somehow so it can't be perused by potential customers. I really would have just given it all a solid miss for the way they feel, except for the fact that they are actually potentially interested in stocking my book all year round.

Anyway, I'm now waiting for these to arrive, so I can trim them and wrap the books with their new "bit better, less on the nose" jackets.