Glass Beads in 12th Century Italy

Hello! I’m trying to find images or descriptions of glass beads that might have been in Verona, Italy, in 1117ish. Looking to make a site token but my research into extant examples has been weak. Any resources you could find would be greatly appreciated!

Anonymous

I reached out to the folks on the SCA Arts and Sciences Facebook group with some help with this one. I didn’t get a ton of resources there, but there are plenty of other people who are also interested in this topic. So you’re in good company – and in my experience, that means you have an awesome opportunity to learn together and from each other.

The Venetian Bead Story, Part 1: History [Plates]The Margaretologist, The Journal for the Center of Bead Research
Volume 11, Number 2, Issue 26 (1998)

The Venetian Bead Story, Part 2: The Beads [Plates]The Margaretologist, The Journal for the Center of Bead Research
Volume 12, Number 1, Issue 27 (1999)

This publication has a bunch of articles on the history of beads, which seem, at a cursory glance, to have extensive bibliographies.

Dominique Bussolin On The Glass-Bead Industry Of Murano And Venice (1847)
Karlis Karklins
BEADS: The Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers
Vol. 2 (1990)

This is another publication that you could probably find lots of good information about various aspects of period beads.

Glass bead-making from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century
[Abebooks], since it is a government publication from Canada, doesn’t seem widely available for ILL or purchase
K.E. Kidd, Parks Canada
History and archaeology series, #30
ISBN: 0660104458

Analysis of early medieval glass beads – Glass in the transition period
Ziga Smit, Timotej Knific, David Jezersek, Jana Istenic
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Interactions with Materials and Atoms
Volume 278, 1 May 2012, pages 8-14

Compositional Categories of Ancient Glass
E. V. Sayre, R. W. Smith
Science, 9 June 1961, Volume 133, Issue 3467, pp. 1824-1826

staaaaaaaaahp: [Ladies in Pants]

sca-nerd:

Can we PLEASE stop telling new or interested women in the SCA that they can’t wear pants? And don’t you DARE play that, “striving to be historically accurate” card on me. It is perfectly accurate for women to wear pants! And besides, it’s not about WHO is wearing the garb, it’s about the garb itself.

There is no restriction. You are welcomed and encouraged to wear whatever period and style you have an interest to wear!

If
the persona you wish to play wears pants, then by all means wear pants.
If you as a PERSON are more comfortable in pants, then wear pants! As
long as you are making an attempt to have the garb be period, then you
have met the expectations of the SCA.

I can document pants for ladies.

Come at me.

I also have cookies. 😀 <3

Chinese Sunglasses

I am trying to find historical references to sunglasses or shades. All I can find are references to unreliable sources and dead ends. If you search ’12th century chinese sunglasses’ lots of articles appear but again, nothing I can use. Do you see anything in the later SCA time period? Thanks!!

Anonymous

*blows dust off Tumblr*

HI THERE.

So the issue I’m running into is a lot of books/websites make reference to smokey quartz being used in 12th century China to shield the eyes/expressions of judges in court – but there’s no citation for this. Which, as a SCAdian Sinologist, makes me raise an eyebrow.

LIke this image being captioned as 12th century smokey quartz glasses. I don’t believe it, because I don’t trust random Tumblr/Pinterest user as a reliable source.

image

Yeeeaaaah.

image

I do have images of Tang Dynasty eye-shades, from Secrets of the Silk Road (2010). They were only used as grave goods, though. Apparently the afterlife requires sunglasses. (Really, it was protection against sand and such, not unlike Inuit eyeshades.)

image
image
image
image

But here’s what I found – but remember your CRAAP test when going through these resources.

https://melnickmedicalmuseum.com/2010/02/17/medieval-sunglasses/

Developments in optometry can be traced back to the 1st century AD

The quest to correct and improve vision is one of man’s oldest medical challenges.
By Victoria Ward
The Telegraph, November 3, 2010

Medieval optometric traditions. [PDF]L Bieganowski – HINDSIGHT: Journal of Optometry History, 2009 – scholarworks.iu.edu
You can view more past issues of this journal here. [link]

SPECTACLES MENTIONED IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE (just a citation)
A Barnett
American Journal of Optometry and Archives of American Academy of Optometry. 19(2):92, FEB 1942

Franciscus Maurolycus and his Photismi de Lumine, a chapter in late medieval optics. (just a citation)
(PMID:4922899)
Tannebaum S
Journal of the American Optometric Association
[01 Oct 1970, 41(10):868-869]

http://www.medievalists.net/2016/03/medieval-eyeglasses-wearable-technology-of-the-thirteenth-century/

http://www.antiquespectacles.com/history/ages/through_the_ages.htm
This one makes me go mnnneeeh, but it has some images and some footnotes, though the whole thing isn’t cited super well imho.

The Invention of Spectacles between the East and the West
Interesting perspective – because SO MANY of these articles tend to be Euro-centric. This is refreshing, and has citations! Whee!

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/sunglasses.htm
This is one Wikipedia cites, and while it has some book references, those books don’t really have citations. So I’m kind of meh.

An uncommon history of common things. Volume 2
Author: National Geographic Society (U.S.)
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : National Geographic, [2015]

Panati’s extraordinary origins of everyday things
Author: Charles Panati
Publisher: New York, NY : Chartwell Books, 2016.

Migrating Coconuts

sca-nerd:

english-history-trip:

eastiseverywhere:

Still from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
UK (1975)
[Source]

Coconut cup
England (c. 1470 – 1500 with later additions)
Silver-gilt, coconut, chrysoprase
[Source]

Kathleen Kennedy writes for the Mary Sue:

Forty years old this year, the coconut sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail may be one of the most iconic opening scenes in film history. The pillar of chivalry, Arthur, King of the Britons, appears riding an imaginary horse like a child on a playground. His faithful servant, Patsy, accompanies him, banging two coconut halves together to make the sound of the horse’s hooves. Arthur and Patsy are very, very serious about their quest. They are the only ones who are.

The whole scene concentrates on those coconuts. The put-upon straight-man of the film, Arthur, gamely tries to explain the existence of coconuts in medieval England (“they could have been carried”). The grail remains all but forgotten as the guards on the castle walls uproariously tear down his explanations. (“Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?”)… Audiences are left in stitches and thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of coconuts existing in medieval England.

Except medieval England was lousy with coconuts. No, really, and Monty Python may well have known it.

They’re Oxbridge men, after all, and several Oxford and Cambridge colleges still preserve coconuts given to them in the fifteenth century. Here’s a fifteenth-century coconut cup that came to Oxford more recently. While parts of it were added more recently, the original elements are medieval. This is the only medieval English coconut cup currently displayed online, and it shows how the shell was strapped into a goblet form using a harness of silver or gold. The English continued to make coconut cups after the medieval period—in the sixteenth century, seventeenth century, and beyond. They were numerous enough that by the fifteenth century, individual households might boast several coconut cups. One humble esquire highlighted the prestige of these cups when he willed his coconut cup to his heir in tail male, just like the Bennett estate in Pride and Prejudice or the Crawley estate in Downton Abbey.

But why make luxurious golden goblets out of coconuts? And how did they get to medieval England anyway, if swallows didn’t carry them?

In the Middle Ages, coconut palms were not yet as widespread as they are today. Coconuts grew in their native Maldives, in India, and perhaps parts of western Africa and the Middle East. (They were also growing in western Central America, but had gotten there on their own, crossing the pacific like small, tasty boats without a swallow in sight.) Coconuts formed a regular part of commerce across the Indian Ocean from Roman times, and this trade appears to have continued with little disruption straight through the ancient and medieval periods. Given England’s Roman history, it isn’t impossible that Life of Brian-era English might also have had access to coconuts. These coconuts weren’t transported all that way to be made into cups, however. They were imported as medicine.

Beginning regularly once again in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, medicinal coconuts arrived in England. This time, they were packed on Venetian galleys along with luxuries from silks to sugar, and next to exotic pets like monkeys and parrots. In turn, the Venetians got the coconuts from Alexandria and from the same trade networks that the coconuts had been part of for millennia. 

They were not called coconuts, either. The name “coconut” derives from the Portuguese and dates to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-after the medieval period. In the Middle Ages, Europe knew the coconut as the “Nut of India” or “Great Nut.” It was the great, big whopping nut that was transported all the way from India—the only nut large enough to make into a drinking cup.

Let It Be Known: Coconuts Migrate.

Coconuts Migrate.

dear reference desk how does one go about officially registering their name with the sca? do you have to provide documentation no matter the name or only if it’s “uncommon”? how do you define an uncommon name?

Dear Anonymous,

Officially registering a name is super awesome, so first of all – rock on you for doing it.

To register a name, you will go through your Kingdom’s College of Heralds. You can usually find it on your kingdom’s website, or by searching “<kingdom name> heralds” in Google. There is a form you fill out with basic information, the name you want, and your documentation.

So yes. Yes you have to have documentation. Even if your name is John or Katherine.

A lot of documentation for “common” names can be found on the SCA College of Arms website.

Heraldry/name registration isn’t really a magical, lost art form that requires animal sacrifice and perfectly drawn chalk diagrams. It’s just rule-following, forms, and documentation.

Happy registering! <3

Pen and parchment : drawing in the Middle Ages / Melanie Holcomb ; with contributions by Lisa Bessette, Barbara Drake Boehm, Evelyn M. Cohen, Kathryn Gerry, Ludovico V. Geymonat, Aden Kumler, Lawrence Nees, William Noel, Wendy A. Stein, Faith Wallis, Karl Whittington, Elizabeth Williams, and Nancy Wu :: Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications

Pen and parchment : drawing in the Middle Ages / Melanie Holcomb ; with contributions by Lisa Bessette, Barbara Drake Boehm, Evelyn M. Cohen, Kathryn Gerry, Ludovico V. Geymonat, Aden Kumler, Lawrence Nees, William Noel, Wendy A. Stein, Faith Wallis, Karl Whittington, Elizabeth Williams, and Nancy Wu :: Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications

I have seen a couple of references for 15th Century triple hennins. Nothing reliable. Can you see if you can find any reliable references for this? Thank you!

Greetings!

Okay, so to start, these are pretty fun. They look like starfish!

image

A wild hennin has appeared!

Ahem.

I looked in Google Books for henins*, and the only references to the “triple-horned” variety seemed sketchy – meaning they didn’t have citations.  it looks like the origin of this image and concept is from a variety of ladies journals from the 1880s. Yay Victorian myths about 15th century clothing.

But just in case, I reached out to a newly-minted Laurel who is known for her hats. She didn’t know of anything, nor could she find any solid research for this type of hat.

Sorry. 🙁

It looks like we’ll have to keep looking for ideas for 15th century Staryu cosplay.

*Google Book is a great place to start research, by the by, since it searches the full text of a book, whether you can see those scanned pages or not. It helps you refine terms and points you toward possible sources. I kind of adore it.

My hat is off to you as you continue your research into fancy headgear.

Okay, so dear reference guru, how even would I start trying to research and date kumihimo braid patterns to find some that are period? I mean, the basic spiral pattern is pretty safe because I can easily do it similar on lucet, but Japan, man. Halp?

Oh goodness! <3 Flattery!

Yeah, research into East Asia is difficult because of the language barrier – and that’s just the beginning.  Japan should be a little easier than China, though.

So with my initial Google searching, I found this website with a variety of publications written in both Japanese and English, which may be helpful.

My next step would be to look at museum collections.

The Tokyo National Museum has a 14th century pouch that has braided cord: [Link].

The Portland Art Museum had (at one point) an exhibit on Samurai that featured some kumihimo. They cite a book, but also feel free to reach out to the curators for more information: [Link]
Don’t limit yourself to the search term “kumihimo.” It’s translated most often as “braided cord” so don’t be afraid of using that term, especially in western museum collections.

Lastly, connect with other SCAdians who do Japanese crafts. There is a Facebook group for SCA Japanese, so someone there might be able to help.

Happy braiding! <3

Do you have any resources on building early period Norse helms starting with a premade helm top?

Greetings!

I don’t have any, but I reached out to some armorer-friends, and they suggested the following:

There is an SCA Armor Facebook group [Link] which you may find helpful.

A lot depends on what you’re starting with and what tools/skills you have.

Some armorers also make kits – pre-cut pieces that you assemble and fit [Example].

Hope that helps get you started. <3