A great place for stashing coins and stuff. Luckily, Jake doesn’t have the money to dress like this.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Book of Hours for Wolf Hall
Some interesting facts here about the recreation of an illuminated manuscript for Wolf Hall. The hair side, the flesh side, etc. By professional calligrapher and illuminator, Patricia Lovett.
Thomas More’s Timeline
An interactive timeline. This one was created by Dr. Joanne Paul for the life of Thomas More. You can navigate several ways, but sliding the bottom slider is the easiest. Love how she has his publications along the bottom.
Imagine using this to outline your novel. I want one!
It Happens
On a page of the Historiae Romanae Decades, printed in Venice in 1470, is found this note:
“Ita macula” – this stain – “I stupidly made on the first of December 1482.”
from The Guardian
Doing the Work
Catherine Fletcher talks about the research behind BBC’s Wolf Hall.
I could spend days here. http://www.british-history.ac.uk
Your Cooking could Send You to the Stake
In 1492, when King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile gave Jews who had not yet converted the choice to either convert to Catholicism or leave Spain, in some towns the entire community left, in others the entire community converted. There were large numbers of Conversos in Castile, Aragon, Andalusia and Valencia. Within a century, the majority had melted into the Christian population, but. . .continued to be suspected of being secret Jews (Marranos). If denounced, they were interrogated and could be burnt at the stake. . .or imprisoned. . .their property confiscated and their families. . . stigmatized for generations. Inquisitors visited homes on Fridays to see if families put white tablecloths and candlesticks on the table to celebrate the Sabbath. The dreaded Inquisitor General Tomas de Torquemada – himself a Converso – would stand on a hill above a city on Saturdays to identify the houses where there was no smoke coming out of the chimneys (Jewish laws prohibit any work, including cooking and lighting a fire, on the Sabbath). Records of the Inquisition show that food was used as evidence of Judaizing when women were brought to trial. Because of the many religious rules related to food, cooking was central to the Jewish identity. So as not to use pork fat as Christians did for cooking, and to avoid clarified butter, which the Muslims used (their dietary laws forbid mixing meat with dairy products), Jews used olive oil exclusively for all their cooking. The smell of frying with olive oil became so strongly associated with Jewishness that even Old Christians of non-Jewish descent avoided it for fear of being mistaken for secret Jews. From The Food of Spain: A Celebration by Claudia Roden
When Fabric was Art
Ink’s solemn vow to page. . .
Woodcutter to printer; ink’s solemn vow to page; word and image in their beautiful Renaissance dance.
from HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI by Carol Ann Duffy
Blame Not My Lute
In the mood for Renaissance music? Click here for a nice selection.
London’s Plague Pits
They are beneath shopping malls, soccer fields, trendy apartments. A fascinating list of London’s plague pits.
More on this at the Chirurgeon’s Apprentice.