I’ve been a member of the SCA for more than 20 years and I’m interested in a bunch of things;
This blog is the documentation people have been hassling me to write for years.
Sandstone appears to be a roofing material used mainly for castles and churches.
Lots of floor tiles are available second hand. They tend to be much thicker than the commercial roof tiles. We wondered what thickness traditional roof slates are:
I found these two articles on english restoration of slate roofs.
http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/sourcingslates/sourcingslates.htm
http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/slate/slate.htm
the second suggests that english slates are traditionally 5mm or so. OTOH, the thicker the slate, the stronger the tiles are.
This article is about the excavation of a medieval hospital in sussex – http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-285-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_148/05Barber&Sibun_ADS.pdf. They found stone fragments that appear to be roof tiles and have “thickness varying between 6 and 11mm”
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/Slate.html
This article is about the slate industry and in 1923 2nd quality slates were “3/8 inch or more thick”. (9mm)
Great video of slate roofing – it looks like we can avoid drilling into slates if we use the hook fixing method – a european method.
http://www.spanishslateuk.com/hook_fixing.asp Of course, then we we need to work out how to organise hooks suitable for tiles “10-15mm” thick.
References/Links
http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/heritage/repository/files/CCM/CCMIntroStAsaph.pdf
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Gjirokast%C3%ABr_016.jpg
http://www.englishstone.org.uk/index.html
Just doing some quick searching online for what width of fabric would be likely for tent canvas. Here’s what I’ve got so far;
Google book result about the Greenland dress. Medieval Clothing and Textiles 4, edited by Robin Netherton, Gale R. Owen-Crocker p.168
Robin Netherton says that dress was made from fabric 40-41cm.
Silk Damask 68cm in width. Satin Damasks of Renaissance Europeby Krystal Morgan
Medieval textiles Issue 37 September 2003,
this needs further investigation: On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics
We’ve been making round tents for a while now. When I look at the eave lines of the tents in manuscripts I can see that they’re very round.
I’ve always cut the wall pieces with an arc at the top and bottom and get a very round looking tent.
cutting detail from the family double bell showing the wall and roof pieces
single bell
Note the wavy shape at the eaves? I think that’s because when we peg out the eave guys of these tents we don’t follow the line of the roof and put the pegs too far away from the base. It’s counter intuitive, but something I’m going to keep an eye on.
You can see that the base is very round.
But many pictures don’t show a round base.
So I’m not going to cut the arc at the base of my next tent.It will give me more ventilation too.
I’d also like to use wooden pegs, as described in this great pattern/instructions for a Saxon Geteld. They have a picture which is what inspired me this morning;
See the shape of the base? Beautiful!
Aaargh! I’ve written about this before
I want to make a coif for a friend’s baby. I’ll make it in that nice soft white wool I have. But what type of coif?
Lots of pictures of babies in the Larsdatter pages – Babies bibs and aprons and Medieval Children and Children’s Clothing and Children in the 16th Century. And a nice set of later portraits here.
The pictures show babies wearing coifs that are common to their time period, but most aren’t wearing any headwear at all. Smaller babies are typically all wrapped up and their heads covered in the swaddling process.
I know two easy ways to make coifs;
There’s also the 3 piece coif. This is the style I made for my daughter when she was a baby. It stayed on pretty well because I was able to tweak the pattern to fit her head shape exactly.
there’s also this extant baby’s coif
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O90001/babys-coif-unknown/
Functionally, a coif for a baby should keep the head warm or covered from the sun, be smooth at the back so it doesn’t cause an indentation from the baby lying on it, avoid ties so you don’t strangle the baby accidentally while it is sleeping, Fit well enough that it doesn’t fall off.
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Some cute, out of period pictures showing coifs
http://www.kipar.org/baroque-costumes/images/costumes/children/1664-65_steen17.jpg
http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/mi00302c04a.jpg
In period, no head coverings
4 types of bread in class:
Shortening bread
Rub oil into flour, add hot water and knead for 5-10min – until the dough silky. Leave to rest for 10-20min then roll out flat. Cook in a frypan.
Yeast Pancakes
Mix it up and leave it to rest for 10-20min. Note: Can use the sponge from the standard bread recipe.
Cook in a frypan with too much butter. Useful when you’re hungry and you haven’t got bread ready.
The plan: Make enough bread to feed 300 people on Thursday night. I estimate this to be 30-45 loaves (2-3 runs of the oven).
How much flour?
1 loaf uses 5 cups of flour, so 15 loaves use 75 cups or 75*150g=11.25kg and 45 loaves = 33.75kg. Btw I will need yeast too – 7g per loaf = 105g per 15 loaves or 315g for 45.
What’s the volume of the sponge?
I’m going to make the bread using yeast – I don’t have time to develop that much sourdough., but I’ll make a sponge on Wednesday morning. Each loaf will need 600ml of sponge, or 0.6L x 15 x 3=9L x 3=27L of sponge. I probably need some head room too. So two containers – the copper cauldron and my new dough trough should be enough.
How long will it take?
I’ll have a team of 5 people, who can each knead 3 loaves at a time – I’m thinking that we could finish the knead and shape in an hour or two if we run into problems. So we will load up the oven with firewood immediately after shaping the first 15 loaves. (need to make some the right size and shape) About the time the oven is hot, the first loaves should be ready to go in.
How much space do I need to lay out the loaves to rise?
About 3m of trestle space, according to my sketchup sketch.
These are the notes for my class on medieval pavilions held at Rowany Festival 2013.
Tour tents;
Start in dining pavilion – frequency of shapes, construction, pole size and timber choice, decoration, storm guys,
Barn tent – framing, guys, wind performance
Elayne’s tent – design principles (height of beds, space for storage, ease of erection, storage/transport space), frequency of shape
Rowan’s tent – framing, decoration, lining
Elspeth’s tent/Sara’s tent – design principles, internal volume vs space for storage, canvas choice, decoration
Types of tents, when, where and frequency.
How to hold them up
Design principles
Construction
Decoration
