sister_raphael | Entries tagged with medievalwoman

I'm very excited that my sister and her two teens will be coming with me to the Big Medieval Event this year, however it does mean that I need to provide everything they need to attend, including medieval clothes for three days.

My sister is about the same size as me, so that is just a case of looking at what I will be wearing and seeing if she fits into other things. My niece, however, is another slender girl but sprouting up like a bean pole, so clothing options for her are a little more tricky. She's also a little neuro spicy, so finding things that she can cope with is a consideration also.

My nephew is a pretty good sport and will wear whatever. He may feel a little odd at first, but as there is another new boy not far off his age coming for the first time too, I feel by the time they compare their outfits and see what other manly men are wearing (those hose are a bit alarming for the new re-enactor), I think he will be fine.

The more busy bit is that it's not just day clothes. Oh, no. I need to prepare three sets of fancy Grand Parade outfits as well, which I have of my own and can modify, but it'll all time and effort and organising tents and sleeping gear along with all the camp stuff.

It'll be fun though.

I've been redoing the photos for some of my sewing galleries.

The ones for my own medieval clothes now have blue backgrounds with my Crowned R logo at the left hand at the top, and an accompanying image from a manuscript or painting. You can't quite see the three little dots on the surcote of the lady in the picture, but it's quite a common design.

The dress accessories and things I've sewn for other people are on clear backgrounds along with a watermarked Crowned R and picture as well. I really love the clean, clear look of the white background, but the dark blue backgrounds of the others look pretty nice too! I originally planned to do everything on the blue backgrounds, but for now, the clear ones are quick and easy, and I may go back later on and do the blue. Or maybe I should have stuck to the clear.

I plan to do my entire medieval inventory with the logo just because it's fun, but it's a lot of photos. At the moment, they have white backgrounds, so it would be easier and faster.

I really should be working on other things, but sometimes I just need to turn my brain off and do something else and I do love fiddling around with my website, and the entire inventory and galleries are online so I can find them when I'm out and about on my phone.

Once they're all done, I can upload them, hopefully in the next few days.

Even though it's not a new kirtle, some people asked about the buttoned sleeves with the front lacing. This is why. See that ridge right down the front of my surcote that no one mentioned to me for an entire weekend? This happens.

Many kirtles were worn under surcotes and manuscripts with the buttoned arms showing. The first time I wore a kirtle with buttons down the front under a surcote, I had a terrible case of "button boob"... a ridge right down the front where the buttons were!

We know gownes and kirtles might be laced either at the front or side, so to me it made sense that some of my kirtles should have lacing, especially if I intended to wear them as an under layer.

At this time it wasn't the fashion to have a contrasting lace. The lacing was supposed to be invisible and disappear into the dress like those concealed zips in the dresses we use today. Towards the 15th century as the Italian fashions became popular, gowns were cut smaller across the breast to expose the pleated chemise and dresses had fancier, visible lacing rings and contrasting lacings designed to be seen. Hello, Renaissance fashion!

Medieval urology is a complicated thing, but luckily, treatises like the Seeing of the Urines was a very handy guide to what was going on with the medieval woman.

To learn more about secret medieval lady things, The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women is still available from right here at Mango Publishing or through your favourite online book seller. Or ask your bookshop to get it in for you.

With all the fiasco surrounding the collapse of Booktopia and buy out by a new owner who kept the name but didn't honour any of the previous orders, myself included, I've had no stock here in Australia.

Finally me shipment arrived from America, books plus import tax and the total was not a great price. I have been selling books to the museum shoppe which has always supported me and allowed them to make a bigger profit from the books than I do, just so I can help the museum raise more money, but now my total cost is the entire of what they buy them from me for. I hope they'll still be interested in buying them from me as I can't see them importing from the publisher directly.

Apparently, there is to be a new warehouse in Australia which isn't Booktopia, so fingers crossed things are a bit more affordable.

Sneeky peeky! Release date is tentatively set at Spring in the USA, but I'll wait for a definitive before I start getting too excited!

I particularly love the single girl with her cat making the chaplet with flowers. Nothing is set in stone until it comes out, of course, but the artwork has been tentatively approved and all we need to agree on are a few things like the subtitle which will go inside the book, the final release day, how many pictures I can include and whether or not the sources can e included in the book. It's quite a lot of words, but I really do feel that it's very important that I have them, so I have a cunning plan for if I need to cut a lot of words to fit their book format.

Anyway, it's full steam ahead!

It's been a long process with Keystone Forge making a reproduction of my gorgeous extant 14th century brooch. It's a beautiful piece, loving and laboriously crafted. I have a small stock which will be for book'n'brooch bundles and as part of giveaways but I WON'T be selling them. Our friends at Mainly Medieval will have them in stock exclusively.

This brooch is not huge, but true to size in measurements and an absolute stunner. Here's my gorgeous original:

Step 1.

Keystone Forge were able to handle my original brooch, take photos and precise measurements for a wax mold which is true to my original.you can see the wax without the leaf detail at this stage.

Step 2.

Little blue molds with hand carved leaf detail to match the original. This was a very intensively time-consuming part because there were many to carve.

Step 3.

After casting, the brooch is cleaned up a little but still has a dark residue which needs to be laboriously polished to get a bright finish! They took hours in the tumbler, and then again by hand afterwards. Often these types of items are left with the antique look of darker bits in the recesses, but that's not the look I wanted for this.

Step 4.

The finished product! It's just beautiful! I didn't want that two tone look with dark in the grooves because brass brooches were made to be copies of bright gold ones, like nobles had, so it needed to be polished up to match how my original would have been.

I'm really beyond delighted.

Is this a folding mirror case like extant ones? The date matches the artifact. The lady appears to be adjusting her hair or checking her face suggesting mirror. It's in 2 pieces, but she only needs to hold one, so it's joined. Perhaps another comment on the vanity of women? I had wondered why there weren't pictures of hinged mirrors since there are quite a few extant ones in the very early 14th century and written about in the 13th century, so maybe, yes there are, and we're looking at it right now.

She isn't accompanied by musicians so I feel she's not an entertainer.

Here's what an extant 14th century mirror case from my collection looks like from the non-mirror side:

A few people suggested glasses, and while glasses do turn up in written records earlier than we see them shown in art, this would be the earliest depiction of them, and I do feel that her pose is more suggestive of attending to a stray hair or her face.

David being anointed. Bute Master (Franco-Flemish, active about 1260-1290)- Initial D- The Anointing of David. Google Art Project.

Photo spam! Easily one of my favourites from the weekend!

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.

All set up and looking forward to the weekend at Newcastle Medieval Festival ! The bath and hygiene display will be open all day both days! Come visit!

I'm laughing because it was supposed to not rain and yet... more rain.

Anyway, I'm out and about and waiting for the Grand Parade with my Scarlet Skwirl.

This may be one of my favourite photos of the entire festival. Photo by Liz Nagy.

Meanwhile look at these mirror case comparison photos with a $2 coin! from the Gilbert Collection.

Mirror case
with punchwork
MC02

Object: Mirror case
Culture: Medieval. 13th-14th century
Area of Origin: Gloucestershire, UK
Material: Bronze
Size: 41mm x 29mm x 7mm
Size: open 78mm x 29mm
Weight: 14.82 grams

Notes: Medieval English bronze mirror case complete and with working hinge. The glass is absent but otherwise excellent condition. This is a wonderful medieval bronze mirror case, dating to the 13th-14th century. Both faces are decorated with punched geometric design. The object is intact with the original working hinge, the inside glass is missing. This example is complete which is quite rare for these little mirrors. A good example with a nice patina.

Ex. Private collection, originally found in England.

Similar to: Portable Antiquities Scheme Item BH-D9A5B1, found Hertfordshire, 1300-1450 with the exception that only one parallel row of punchwork crosses the face.
Similar to: Identical to Museum of London Dress Accessories, Pritchard & Egan, Items 1714, 1715, 1716. Billingsgate Lorry Park, London. Ceramic phase 9, dating 1270-1350.
Similar to: PAS, Wales. Item: NMGW-37D49E
Similar to: PAS, South Oxfordshire. Item: SUR-33CF97.

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.

Absolutely chuffed and honoured that the amazing Digital Artist Ironlily has made this very, very cool image of me and posted to social media with the kindest of words!

It's just AMAZING!!!

I'd like to draw your attention to a pair of pretty fantastic slippers in this painting by Hans Memling painted in 1480. These slippers are exactly the kind that we use today, a design unchanged for over 700 years. Of course, slip on shoes have been in use since antiquity, but somehow this image of getting out of a bath, wrapping in a towel and sliding one's feet into indoor slippers is a scene we can recognise today.

The painting shows Bathsheba stepping out of her bath, which has, may I also draw your attention to, the best and most luxurious brocaded bath canopy I've ever seen.

Also of note is a flat brass dish with a wide brass rim on the floor, the type we see in many other manuscripts of women making their toilette and, also found in many modern homes today, a small, fluffy white dog anxiously waiting by the bath for it's owner to finish and just get out.

The painting may be hundreds of years old, but it has a recognisable feel of home today.

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.

It's 20% off with free shipping on The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women by yours truly at Booktopia right now!

What are you waiting for?

Progress is happening in this direction.

I've managed to trace out the Crowned A which will go on the heraldic surcote. I've traced and drawn out two of these ready to cut. Hooray for progress! As it's not a re-enactment garment, I've used iron on interfacing to stop the fraying and to allow me to place the stitches a little further apart. It's looking lovely and I'm very pleased!

Profile

Rosalie's Medieval Woman

Author Things, Medieval Website & Sewing Tutorials

June 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Style: Early Edition for Five AM by winterfish

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated 9 June 2025 07:34 pm

Rosalie Gilbert

Author & Medieval History Enthusiast

Entries tagged with medievalwoman

Dressups with my sister!

Updating my sewing galleries

Laced medieval kirtles.

Medieval Urology Tests

Now stock has arrived!

Sneak peek at my new book!

Making a quatrefoil brooch

Potential folding mirror case in art?

Thought for October

Silk Gowne in action!

Working girl at work

Newcastle Medieval Festival

Abbey Medieval Festival Squirrel!

Medieval Mirrorcase Size.

How To Say You're Not Doing It: 15th Century Nun Version

Iron Lily Fan Art

Medieval slippers

Art Gallery Fundraiser

Book sale! 20% off and free shipping!

Crowned A Surcote Progress