Medieval Glasses and Viking Reading Crystals

As a leatherworker, I get extremely interested when I hear the phase "leather framed glasses".  I never knew such a thing existed until a few days ago, when I saw a link to an article discussing a rare book containing an even rarer imprint of glasses.  Yes, someone, several hundred years ago, shut their glasses in the back of a book they'd been reading:

 Impression of glasses left in the endpapers of a copy of the Opera of Fr. Luigi di Granata (1568-69).  This copy uses a page from an older manuscript.  It was pretty common for printed books of this time period to reuse old manuscripts for endpapers or as spine liners.  Photo by Pete Smith.  Original article:  http://www.utexas.edu/opa/blogs/culturalcompass/2012/04/17/medieval-spectacles/

The speculation is that these were leather framed glasses, an invention that was certainly in use in the 15th and 16th centuries.  It certainly makes you wonder how long those glasses remained in there before someone removed them though.  I also wonder how unobservant someone would have to be to lose their glasses in such a way...

Still, glasses are definitely up there in the most important inventions of the last 2000 years.  They were likely invented in Italy between 1268-1289, based on contemporary sources such as paintings and even sermons.  Although none of these early spectacles have survived (the earliest pair we have being from around 1400), we know that The Guild of Crystal Workers in Venice adopted the term "roida da ogli" in 1300 to refer specifically to lenses for glasses.

Before glasses were developed, however, monks had been using reading stones.  These were basically medieval magnifying glasses:

Between 1000 and 1250, presbyopic monks used reading stones, often made of beryllium or quartz, to read and work on manuscripts.  It would take another two centuries before someone thought to stick smaller versions of them into frames that sat in front of the eyes.

It was thought that these reading stones were mostly the property of monks, however, a set of crystal lenses made from quartz showed up in Viking graves in Visby, Gotland (Sweden).  Now, in fairness, Vikings were known for their love of pillaging monasteries.  They also had trade links though, which we often forget about.  Archaeologists believe that the lenses came from Byzantium or the Middle East, although unfinished lenses and rock crystal beads were found in 1999 in Frojel, meaning that someone could have been making them on Gotland.  The nifty thing about these lenses is that these people didn't have the mathematical knowledge to create them, still believing that light emanated from the eyes, rather than entering them.  They must have created these things through trial and error alone -- and it's believed that the know-how to do so was restricted to only a handful of craftsmen, if not only one at this time.

A range of the lenses found at Visby, although sadly, the largest and most impressive one has been lost since the 1950s.  Some of these were mounted and hung from pendants.  The others may have been waiting for mounting or were left deliberately unmounted.  Likely used for magnification, however, they could also have been used for starting fires or just as decoration.

Work undertaken at Aalen University of Applied Sciences concluded that although the mounted lenses were most likely used only as jewelry, the larger, unmounted lenses are shaped just like a modern projector lens.  The shaping was also deliberate, not accidental, so it's very difficult for the scholars to believe that these items weren't intended  to work as visual aids.  Certainly not during a time when such items did not commonly exist.

Refractive bling:  An aspheric lens mounted in silver, found in the graves in Visby, Gotland.  The lenses are suspected to be older than their mountings.  On the decorative pendants, like this one, the back of the mount is not open, but polished silver.  This smaller lens is purely decorative.

Either way, there's no disputing that if I were a Viking with a sight problem living on Gotland, I'd want one of these bad boys to help me see to do my crafts.  Also, it must be said that the smaller mounted lenses are really very pretty.  I'm a sucker for Viking bling, what can I say?

Gruesome: Blood of Decapitated King Found in Gourd

People like trophies of their victories; of course, that depends on the context of the victory.  When the victory is the execution of a king, trophies of blood appear to be the order of the day -- at least, in 1793 in revolutionary France (or if your name happens to be Tamyris).

It's always been rumoured that the people present at the execution of Louis XVI dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood that spilled from the neck of the dead king.  Now, thanks to DNA analysis, that claim has been proven in a report published last month in the journal Forensic Science International.

One of these handkerchiefs was stored in a dried gourd, made for the purpose.  Over time, the handkerchief deteriorated, however, the blood remained dried on the inside of the gourd:

 Gourd containing the dried blood of the executed King Louis XVI of France.  The inscription reads "On January 21, Maximilien Bourdaloue dipped his handkerchief in the blood of Louis XVI after his decapitation."  Via Livescience.

The gourd has been held by a wealthy Italian family for a number of years and until now, there has been no real way of proving the inscription.  This is mostly because the French royal family had a bit of a hard time of it (to say the least) during the French Revolution, even the dead ones.  The royal family was so hated that revolutionaries actually went to the cemetery at Saint-Denis, took the long-dead bodies of the royals from their tombs, mutilated the corpses and tossed the remains into pits.  In 2010, however, a head from one of these mutilated corpses surfaced and was made available to the scientific community for DNA testing.  It was said to be the head of this man, Good King Henry:

 Before death and desecration:  Henry IV of France -- Good King Henry rose to the throne in 1589 when his cousin, Henry III of France, was assassinated by a fanatical Catholic monk.

Good King Henry was actually considered to be a pretty awesome ruler, as rulers go, trying to improve the lives of all his subjects and quoted as saying things like "If God keeps me, I will make sure that there is no sharecropper in my kingdom who does not have the means to have a chicken in the pot every Sunday!"  However, given the anger of the revolutionaries, and the fact that his reign ended in 1610 -- and that the revolution took place in the 1790s...  It's hardly surprising, really, that they revolutionaries desecrated the graves, even if it is really very grim.  And it is really very grim.  Check it out:

 After death and desecration:  The head of King Henry IV of France, found in the garage of a French pensioner in 2010.  You can actually see where his ear was pierced too.  Born in 1553, died 1610 when he was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic.  Who knew that death to religious fanatics could be hereditary across cousins?

The first genetic tests on the head were inconclusive, however, they later retested with materials taken from inside the head that had suffered less deterioration.  From this material they were able to actually perform a DNA analysis which could then be compared to the blood from the gourd.  They compared the Y chromosomes and were able to determine that yes, these two individuals were very much more than likely related -- 250 times more likely to be related than not.  Additionally, both samples showed characteristics exhibited by people in the Bourbon region of France, where they were from.

Now the blood has been confirmed, scientists intend to map the genome of King Louis XVI of France, which could be one of the first historical genomes to be mapped. 

Why Doctor Who Fails at Time Travel in Medieval and Renaissance England

Today, I was doing some research into New Year's during different time periods and checking out some of the awesome calendars people made hundreds of years ago.  Calendars tended to last longer in those days and generally came in book form.  Rather than being the ephemeral items they are today, they were works of art and skill:

 A 1496 copy of the German calendar created by Johannes Von Gmunden (c.1380-1443).  It sold recently for £73,250 ($117,347).  Astrological in nature, but the book also contains a liturgical section.  The moon looks smug though.  It bothers me.

However, I was reminded of something I learned years ago in school -- these medieval and renaissance types used a different calendar back then.  At that point, as I was discussing the nuances of the Julian vs the Gregorian calendars to the other half, he just exclaimed "That's why The Doctor can't ever get anywhere or any-when at the correct time or place!  It's not a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff -- he's just not taking calendars into account!"

I thought about this a moment and was going to disagree because, well, Time Lord.  But then I remembered that The Doctor couldn't even think to save Rory and Amy from the weeping angels by going to 1935 to pick them up.  So it makes sense to me that he could miss the whole calendars thing, which I should probably now explain, given that I've had caffeine and it's showing.

Or this.  They could have done this.  That would have been fine too.  HOW DID HE NOT SPOT THAT?  Okay, calm.  But it illustrates the point.  No common sense.  Or perhaps New York is just too full of flanginium, that rarest, yet most common of metals.  Incidentally, if you know who the artist for this is, I'd love to give them credit -- this is something that I saw floating around the Internet... :(

See, people have found different ways of measuring time.  The Romans had a few ways, the last of which being the Julian Calendar, brought in by Julius Caesar in 46BC to start in 45BC (by our calendars).  Romans of course measured from the founding of their city, Rome, (Ad Urbis Condita) so this change happened in 708AUC and 709AUC.  For perspective, by their calendar, we're now living in 2676, by the way...

The Julian calendar was all very well and good, except for the fact that it was 11 minutes longer per year than nature allows for.  Doesn't sound much until you realise that over the course of four centuries, it gained around 3 calendar days.  By the time the more accurate Gregorian calendar that we use today was introduced to the Catholic countries of Europe in 1582, the vernal equinox was taking place on the 11th March instead of the church's date of the 21st, meaning that 10 calendar days had been unintentionally inserted over time.  This was unacceptable given that the celebration of Easter was tied to the equinox and the seasons were getting out of sync.

This was further compounded by the fact that yes, under the Julian calendar, the year sensibly started on 1st January.  But of course that didn't take Roman Catholic religious observances -- the liturgical cycle -- which began on 25th March.

A Medieval Calendar:  A page from an English Book of Hours (1401-1414) held at the British Library, helpfully filed as "Royal 2 A XVIII".  This page illustrates 25th March (the Feast of Annunciation), which according to tradition is the day Mary was told "Yo.  You're pregnant."  This was therefore the start of the New Year for countries using the Julian calendar.  

So in practice, there was a secular New Year's Day and a religious one.  The year, however, only went up on the religious New Year's Day, 25th March.  Therefore, if Queen Elizabeth were to write a letter dated on the 1st January, 1567, which is correct from her perspective, we'd view it now as 1st January, 1568, which is correct from ours.  She'd also go to bed on 24th March, 1567 and wake up on 25th March, 1568 and this would be entirely normal.

To make matters even more complicated, note how I mentioned that the Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582.  So most of Europe (Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, the Netherlands and all their territories) took this on board.  Britain didn't.  It was Protestant and firmly so; this new calendar thing was clearly a Catholic plot by the Pope to bring Britain back into line!  Many Protestant countries felt this way.  However, the new calendar eventually caught on, in time, because it was more accurate.

Britain, her American colony and her territories took on the Gregorian Calendar in 1752.  By this time, the calendar was in something of a bind, so some trickery was used to fudge the dates and bring them into line.  On 24th March, 1751, the next day was 25th March, 1752.  This was actually normal (religious New Year, remember).  But, it was decreed that the year ended on 31st December, 1752, and therefore the year went up, the next day, on 1st January, 1753.  The calendar was also still out by 12 days, however, so 2nd September, 1752 was followed by 14th September, 1752.  1752 was 72 days shorter.  I kid you not.  They just decided to not have those days that year.

A page from William Hunter's Virginia Almanack for September 1752.  Despite 1752 being 72 days shorter than every other year ever, I doubt he gave 20% off his Almanacks (source).

Apparently, this is all even confusing to historians, mostly because half of them update and half of them don't.  Not exactly helpful, but at least they generally state it at the start of their works.  The Gregorian calendar became the worldwide standard over time, though the last country to accept it was Greece in 1923.  The Greek Orthodox churches, however, still use the Julian calendar.

Just as a note:  This will blow my mind at 4am tomorrow night -- when I remember it and I've had a few.  Although no time travelers ever make note of any of these discrepancies, I'm really glad they don't.  It'd just be confusing.  But you'd think The Doctor could at least install some kind of upgrade for it!

A Medieval Christmas in England

Over the past few days I've read quite a few articles about how people in medieval times spent their Christmas.  My big bugbear about this is that many articles have spoken about the past as if it's all one big place -- and even as if all of Europe is one big place.  Having lived in a few countries myself, I know that the way one country celebrates Christmas is totally different from another; from that, it's fair to guess that one century also celebrated it in a different way to the others before or after it.  The main problem is that very few accounts still exist from various times that tell how people spent their Christmas -- therefore we amalgamate and extrapolate.  It's fair, though I've tried to keep this post to a limited time period (1340s - 1480s), which has actually been difficult to do.  It's sad that much of the evidence has gone.  Thing is, not all of it has.  Some of it is there, you just have to look for it.

For example, manuscripts sometimes show in their marginalia drawings of mummers and guisers ("performers in disguise") performing plays.  We know that in England's royal courts, for example, plays were written annually for the mummers.  We even have some picture evidence:

Mummers wearing full facial masks as part of a mumming (play).  Mummings took place at Christmas though apart from knowing that they used rhyming couplets, we know little else about the early mummings.  This is from a manuscript created in 1344 for the court of Edward III.  Source:  Bodleian Library.

Sadly, no play scripts or performance details exist from this time period.  In fact, it's only documented in that way from the mid-18th century, but we do know that tradition goes back quite away due to references in manuscripts and pictures like the one above.  We also know that these plays usually cast St. George as the hero and a Turkish knight as the villain.  They also often featured a theme of resurrection, usually where a doctor administers a cure for the fallen.

We also know from reports that Edward VI had a massive Christmas feast in 1482.  He reportedly fed 2,000 people per day, for the entire 12 days of Christmas.  He also took the chance to glam up (just as well as it was his last Christmas), with one guest noting that he was "clad in a great variety of most costly garments, of quite a different cut to those which had usually be seen hitherto in our kingdom."  He was a believer in style and in bling, even when it came to food.  They served up a variety of different meats, including the obvious boar and the not so obvious peacock:

 The feast of the peacock, 15th century.  Yes, when they served peacock, they served it with the feathers.  Well, they took the skin and the feathers off to cook it, and then wrapped them back around the bird when it was done so it was presented at the table looking more like it did when it was alive.  Sometimes, if they were feeling really extravagant, they gilded the combs.  True fact.  For more traditions, check out this blog.

Boar, however, was what Richard III preferred, which is no surprise given that the white boar was his personal emblem.  And it was popular because it's tasty.  Really tasty.  Peacock was, by contrast, pretty tough and not all that tasty, but it was really, really expensive.  In fact, it was the most expensive bird money could buy for around 350 years, according to records kept by London's poultry guild.  So, looks like it was the medieval version of caviar then.  Yes, I have opinions.

Exchanging presents is a fairly obvious custom, still practiced today as it was back then.  Gifts were often bestowed on the members of the court, but the gift giving didn't stop there.  Relics were sometimes gifted to churches.  Titles and honours were also presented to people.... and sometimes, they even threw in the promise of a wife.  In 1470, George Neville was granted a dukedom and a betrothal to Elizabeth of York as a way of trying to pacify the Yorkist supporters.

 Elizabeth of York, not just for Christmas:  Didn't marry Neville in the end.  She did much better for herself by marrying Henry VII and being the mother to Prince Henry (later Henry VIII).  She died when he was 11.

Course, Neville switched sides not long after, which kind of broke the marriage deal.  Still, Elizabeth got a better deal in 1484 when she and Anne Neville (yes, same family, only this one was married to Richard III) exchanged presents of clothing.  According to at least one source, there was a lot of dancing and singing that particular year, so apparently drinking and hangovers was probably also a part of these festivities.  A strong Church Ale was also sold at Christmas, often leading to a lot of dancing, singing and general merriment in the churches and churchyards, which some people frowned upon.  Then again, some folks will frown on anything.  Ah well, sucked to be them!  Happy hangovers!

If you want to read even more about this, head on over to this awesome site:  http://www.britainexpress.com/History/medieval/christmas.htm

The Jesse Tree

It's been a little while since my last posting... You know how it is -- December is a month for family and friends visiting and for panicking and shopping and, well, failing to get stuff done.  I even got a little bit of writer's block, if I'm honest, so I decided to turn to my leatherworking muse to try and shift it.  In doing research for tree designs, I came across the idea of a Jesse Tree -- an unfamiliar idea that actually should be very familiar, as it turns out.

A Jesse Tree from the Winchester Psalter, a 12th century book of psalms from England, made for the brother of King Stephen.  It depicts the line of Christ.  Yep, it's a family tree.

The chap lying down at the bottom is Jesse, father to David, who is the chap on the first fork of the tree.  It ascends up to Mary and then Jesus at the top.  The chaps at either side are actually prophets, holding the scriptures that point to the prophesy of Christ as the Messiah.  It's a fairly common theme in these scriptural family trees -- but they're not just kept to books.  Trees of Jesse are also depicted in stained glass windows in churches and as time went on, good grief, they got grand:

 

Stained glass Jesse Tree at Saint-Étienne's church in Beauvais, France, created between 1522-1524.  Jesse is the chap in the four-poster bed at the bottom.  To his left is Francis I of France and to his right is the Holy Roman Emporer Charlies V.  The rest are misc kings of Judea plus St. Louis.

It took two years for this to be put together -- it's no wonder really to look at it.  It's amazingly beautiful and detailed.  If you'd like to see better and more in detail pictures, check out this article by Professor Moriarty. 

It wasn't just stereotypical churchy things that got the whole Jesse Tree treatment either.  I came across a liturgical comb fragment that features this design:

Ivory comb fragment from Bavaria, Germany.  It's from between 1180-1220 and measures 3 5/8"x4" in size and has an insane amount of detail.  Each of the scriptures have writing in Latin, in incredibly small lettering...  How much skill?

Isiah is stood on the left, holding a scroll that translates to "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse...".  I don't think they could have thought of a more unattractive way of putting it.  Yeesh.  That was probably the point though.

I've always wondered where the idea of a family tree actually came from.  Incidentally, the Jesse Tree bears no relation to the Christmas tree, even though I really looked for that connection -- well, you know.  It's December.  Everything has to be Christmas related, right?

The Geese Book

By the name of it, you'd think it was another falconry manuscript like De Arte Venandi Cum Avibus, but it's actually a two volume liturgical book that was created in Germany between 1503 and 1510.  It's called The Geese Book due to this illustration in the first book:

 Illustration from the bottom of a page showing a wolf leading a choir of geese, with a fox standing over them.  Keeping the fowl singers in line?  ...I'll get my coat...

The volumes largely contain musical notation for chants with several very decorative illuminations.  It's believed that one monk acted as scribe, whilst another chap was the artist.  Having researched it a bit, I found out that this book is huge -- 25.75" x 17.5" -- and made of vellum with pigskin bindings.  That's a lot of book, which doesn't sound massive until you see pictures:

 Left:  The cover of volume II of The Geese Book.  Sooo very pretty!  

Right:  Pictures of the book being digitised by the good people at The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 

The book contains a variety of chants for use at different times, some with some gorgeous illuminated margins and letters.  Some of these chants are suggested for use at very precise days, such as the first Sunday in Advent, which, incidentally, has a really beautiful page, with a really odd illustration at the bottom:

Bear and bear hunter in a bear hug.  It looks oddly like a reconciliation rather than the bear attacking...

Even after all these centuries, the gold on these pages is bright and looks absolutely stunning.  The best example is a page with notation for chants on Trinity Sunday.  The whole page is beautiful and in fantastic condition:

Look how shiny that gold is!  Also, I totally agree that the best time to shoot a deer with antlers like that is when it's asleep.  For a higher res and zoomable image, check this page out.

ACMRS has been digitising this manuscript since at least 2004.  It became available online yesterday.  I genuinely feel the need to thank the people who worked on this project for putting it online in this fashion.  Without their work, I would never have lost myself in these two books which were created by two talented men.  If you want to know more, examine the manuscript or even hear the chants (yeah, that hard work was part of the project too!), here's a link that'll take you straight to the online versions of the book:  http://geesebook.asu.edu/volumes.htm.  Enjoy!

America's First Pictures

So two days after Thanksgiving.  I was going to do an article about it, but then steak and beer happened, because what's more American than steak and beer?  Anyhow, it got me to thinking about the first Europeans to settle in America.  No, not the pilgrims and their first Thanksgiving in 1621, but the people who tried to settle at Roanoke, the lost colony.

Detail from Hariot's Briefe and True Account of the New Found Land of Virginia, 1590, showing Roanoke island, the colony and settlement of the local area.

In 1585, a group of 107 men were left on the island to establish a colony at the north end of the island -- probably not far from the one pictured above.  So, having had contact with them in 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh sent out an additional 150 colonists including several women and 9 children to settle on the island.  A friend and colleague of Raleigh's called John White led the mission, taking his daughter and son-in-law with him.  He was an artist and cartographer who'd visited before on the 1585 mission and created maps like this:

 Map of Virginia, from 1985, as printed in Hariot's book.  Roanoke is shown above and to the left of Trinitey Harbor.  Ah, those Elizabethans and their quirky spellings!

White also drew and painted pictures of the flora and fauna of the area, including pictures of the native peoples.  This was actually part of his and Hariot's mission, as people back in England wanted to know what was out there -- after all, resources tend to be good to have.  So they both wrote and drew the first pictures and descriptions of The New World.  The illustrations were mostly done by White and they're incredibly interesting.  For example, there's these two gorgeous pages of nature illustrations:

 Left:  "Meesquouns. Almost as bigg as a Parratt."  A Northern Cardinal.   From the British Museum Online.
Right:  A tiger swallowtail butterfly (Mamankanois) and a pufferfish (Tanborel).  This is one of 113 pages of drawings from White's explorations, done in pen, ink, graphite and watercolour.  British Museum Online.

He also created the first pictures of the local people.  I find the picture of the native woman from Florida the most striking:

Yeah, those are her tattoos.  I am such a wimp as I can't even bring myself to get one, much less anything this spectacular!

 Although there are also pictures of less friendly locals too:

Skirmish at Bloody Point, Frobisher Bay.  English with the St. George's cross flag, shooting at Inuit on a cliff.  Bet that went well...

White created around 113 pictures of this type, which you can find at the British Library Online. 

Sadly, when the colonists arrived on Roanoke in 1587, they found the previous 107 settlers all gone, with only a skeleton left at the barracks to tell a grim tale.  Of course, this made the colonists want to leave, but the fleet commander refused to sail them all back.  Making the best of a bad situation, the colonists set up shop and embarked on improving relations with the local Croatoan tribe, fearing that other tribes may kill them due to earlier cultural misunderstandings such as accused theft, raids and outright murder.  During this time of improving relations, the first European was born in America -- Virginia Dare.  She was White's granddaughter.

The colonists insisted that White go back to England to ask for support as they felt they were still at severe risk from the locals.  Sure enough, he went back that same year, leaving his family at the Roanoke colony.  However, he was unable to make it back to the colony for nearly three years thanks to a small problem with a massive Spanish Armada that required all the boats in the English Navy to be on hand.  By the time White made it back to the colony in 1590, all that was left were some dismantled buildings and the words "Croatoan" and "Kro" carved into a tree.  No one knows what happened to the colonists or White's family for sure.  It's possible that they were taken in by local tribes, that they died in a raid, or that they were kidnapped.  What is a certainty, however, is that they must have been brave to even consider settling there in the first place.

Edit:  I almost forgot!  If you're interesting in reading a transcript of Hariot's book, you can find it online here:  http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/hariot/hariot.html

Boccaccio's Famous Women

I was doing more research into Chaucer's works when I stumbled upon Boccaccio.  Boccaccio wrote the Decameron, published around 1353, which is the work that inspired Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  Boccaccio also wrote a work in 1374 called De Claris Mulieribus (Of Famous Women).  This book was unusual for it's time in that it was the first collection of solely female biographies ever written.  It includes 106 different biographies about famous historical or mythological women.  Of course, as this is a medieval work, there are several different copies of this manuscript.  On top of that, Boccaccio also decided that he'd like to revise his book a few times in the last 20 years of his life and send many of them to influential women.  As this was a very popular book, there were also versions printed after his death.  My favourite illustrations are from De Claris Mulieribus, 599, which is held by the National Library of France, which is dated as being 1401-1500, with no further information.  Sadly, their online copy is only available in black and white, which is rubbish because the illustrations in this particular manuscript are beautiful.  Hooray for Wikimedia Commons though, which has plenty of the illustrations in colour!

What I find surprising about this particular manuscript is how many women are pictured wearing armour.  Take Tamyris for example:

Queen Tamyris of the Massagetae, lead her army to victory against the Persians in 529BC.  "I warned you that I would quench your thirst for blood, and so I shall".  Wikimedia Commons.

Queen Tamyris became queen of her people in her own right after her husband died.  The Persian emporer of the time, Cyrus the Great, decided he wanted her land and asked her to marry him.  She refused and so there was war.  There were a few more complications than that, in all honesty; after all, her son was captured and committed suicide in shame.  That's going to make any mother angry, so when she and her army caught up to Cyrus, she had him killed, then beheaded and crucified, before putting his head into a wineskin filled with blood.  After that, she had his brain scooped out and turned into a bowl for wine, just in case that wasn't enough retribution for the loss of her son and the deaths of those in her armies. To clarify, Tamyris is a historical person, just in case any of that seemed too fantastic.

Another warrior woman shown in armour in the manuscript is Penthesilea.  Penthesilea was an Amazon queen who accidentally killed another Amazon queen whilst out hunting, so in order to be purified of the crime, she was sent to fight on the side of Troy in the Trojan War.

"Furious Penthesilea leads a battleline of Amazons with crescent shields, and she glows in the middle of thousands fastening golden belts around the exposed breast, female warrior, and the maiden dares to run with men."  From The Aenid.  The picture does not show exposed breast, but it certainly hints at it.  I also cannot help but wonder if it is inferred that there is armour plating under that skirt, but that's my personal speculation.

Penthesilea caught the attention of Achilles due to her prowess in battle and so he arranged matters to where he would face her on the battlefield.  She fought him, but sadly, she was fighting Achilles.  The story goes that as she died, Achilles saw her beauty, fell in love and actually mourned her.

The other two women to be shown in armour in this manuscript are Orithyia and Antiope, who were both Amazon queens who co-ruled:

Nice armour, ladies.  Although I'd love to know how Antiope intends to sit down without stabbing herself somewhere entirely unpleasant.

Antiope was the wife of Theseus and there are several variations on her tale, all ending in her death in a battle or fight.  Orithyia, likewise, died of her wounds after beseigeing Athens in order to get her sister back.  In a way, showing these four women in armour is not strange, as Tamrys and Penthesilea are two of the nine female worthies named by Eustache Deschamps -- individuals who personified the ideals of chivalry of the later part of the 15th century.  From there it's easily argued that if you show one Amazon in armour, you have to show the rest in armour too.

The manuscript has so much to offer in terms of showing female attire of the 15th century though.  For example you've a depiction of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife looking quite well dressed:

 I bet that headdress makes her at least a foot and a half taller.  However, you have to appreciate that neckline...

...and Epicharis, a freedwoman from Nero's Rome, who refused to betray her fellow conspirators to assassination, despite being heavily tortured.  She's shown in the manuscript with some very nice side lacing:

In case you're wondering, she's said to have strangled herself on her girdle in order to prevent her confession under a second bout of torture...

There are so many examples of good medieval female fashion in De Claris Mulieribus 599 that it's worth checking out the gallery on Wikimedia Commons.  I do believe this manuscript is also worthy of a few posts!

Henry VIII: The Prince in Mourning

When you think of Henry VIII, you think of a rather large ginger man who ate too much and always got his way.  The church disagreed with him, so he left and created his own damn church; he went through wives at a rate of knots; he was absolute ruler and commanded obedience in court.  He pulled no punches and seemed pretty heartless, but he also came across as a strong, charismatic leader, showing anger rather than sadness or vulnerability.

 Henry VIII.  Ladies... check out my cod.  WOOF!

Portrait from 1540 by Hans Holbein.

People forget that the man was once a child whose mother died when he was 11.  It had been a hard time for the family; his brother, Arthur, died of some kind of fever-based illness in April 1502.  Elizabeth, his mother, fell pregnant and gave birth to a girl called Catherine on the 2nd February, 1503, but the child died a few days later.  Elizabeth then died to a post partum infection a week after the child died.  You cannot help but empathise with the small child shown in this manuscript:

 Prince Henry weeping at his mother's empty death bed.  The two girls are his sisters shown in mourning attire, Princess Margaret (aged 13) and Princess Mary (aged 7).  Poor kids.

Image from the National Library of Wales.

Henry was known to be very close to his mother so it's no surprise that the young prince was devastated.  It's possible that his distanced relationship with his father was compounded by his mother's death, as according to one account, his father "privily departed to a solitary place and would no man should resort unto him".  Harsh.  Sometimes a kid needs his dad, even in 1503.

This image has had a lot of interest lately; although the Vaux Passional has been in the National Library of Wales since 1921, it's recently been digitised and therefore re-evaluated.  No one had really looked at it in a while.  People are interested in this image because Henry VIII has never been pictured as being vulnerable or even having grieved for anyone much, even as a child.  During the re-evaluation, it became evident that this Passional was likely part of the library of Henry VIII's father, Henry VII.  In fact, it's possible that the image below actually shows the Vaux Passional being given to Henry VII:

Illumination showing the possible presentation of the book to the king.  Prince Henry is weeping in the background.

The activity in the background has actually helped to date the piece somewhat, placing its creation at the start of the 16th century.  The manuscript, which is written in French, similarly follows themes of death.  It contains two bodies of work -- a Passional and Le Miroir de la Mort by Georges Chastellain.  The Passional calls on the reader to meditate on the arrest, trial, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.  It starts at the raising of Lazarus and ends with Judas and Pontius Pilate.  Le Miroir de la Mort is a work that discusses "the futility of wordly pleasures in the face of certain death".  Cheery stuff then.

 Illumination from the Vaux Passional showing "Christ between two thieves".  The source has stunning detail, available here)

The manuscript also shows the seige and fall of Jerusalem, which I think is my favourite illumination -- saving for that of Prince Henry:

It's worth taking a look through the National Library of Wales online gallery for this book.  It's all stunning, and all done by one person who lived in London back in the early 1500s.  No one knows who made it, but it's pretty clear they had a good understanding of death and sadness.  It's also a wonderful reminder that this "swaggering warrior king" was once a child.