#medievalmay

[cybiluncivilised]

Medieval May belated day 15 and 8: Clothing and Civilians

No unusual craft, today, but I have some pictures from a recent pilgrimage.

We took part in Pilgrimage21. The Company of Saint George had the idea of encouraging Reenactors from organisations across the world to recreate the experience of a pilgrimage to do on the same day. We walked from Radur Woods to Llandaff Cathedral, which is part of the Pen-Rhys pilgrimage.

Some of these pictures show how difficult the clothing can be. Being not a regular at wearing a wimple I'm probably wearing it wrong or just fastening it wrong because it loosened tremendously and I had to redo it 3/4 times. The image of me on the bus is from when I first put it on.

One of the images shows the Master at Arms having slipped in his boots. Medieval people would have trained themselves to walk easily without grips of any kind, walking more on the balls and toes of their feet. It takes a little while to get in the rhythm of it and, if you're not doing it regularly, it's a real workout. My hobnailed shoes mean I can't walk on hard floors without skating.

[stephaniegwen]

Tiny, but still so wonderful for the first time in a year and a half. Happy elevation day Melyssande! #meridianlaurels #meridianrose #costumerlife #preachain #preachain #bastarnae #meridies #mysca #crawhere #medievalmay #foxglovehouse #gullinari https://www.instagram.com/p/CO5mfPCn1xA/?igshid=ebip910vebm7

[cybiluncivilised]

Medieval May day 25: Colours

Unsurprisingly, people have always loved bright colours and this included the Normans. While we're mindful of the rank and profession of our impressions, when it comes to colours, we're also encouraged to use contrast and embroidery to emphasize the variety of colours we have. I like to use the colour wheel to illustrate how to do this. While shades of brown are always welcome, dyes like woad and madder were often used at the times - obtaining blues and reds respectively. A peasant can't afford the brightly coloured wools, which need to be dyed in several soaks, but can afford the paler or closer to natural colours of wool. While a priest and a king might both wear 'black', the kind of black matters. A priest would wear naturally dark brown wool, from black sheep, and a king would wear dyed black wool. Some hard to obtain dyes would be very restricted to certain classes but, since looking just a little wealthier than you are is desirable, attempts at imitation were always around.

At the top are pictures of some of our shields after they were varnished, my messy paint work sitting among them. In a chaotic battlefield, it really helps to have a clear signifier of who you are or things get very messy.

Below are pictures of two kit impressions side by side, both of peasants and one - the adultiest adult - being of a slightly wealthier peasant than the other.

[cybiluncivilised]

Day 1 of Medieval May

Introcution

Here's me!

I used to reenact the English Civil War. I joined Historia Normannis in September, it's a Reenactment group for the period between the battle of Hastings and the signing of the Magna Carta.

I'm 28, gender non conforming, and bi. I study Social Policy. I speak Welsh and English fluently, and speak passable French, and Norwegian, and I'm learning Polish and Japanese. I'm learning Polish because that's where one branch of my family comes from.

I joined Historia Normannis for the fighting, and stayed for the sewing and the memes.

These pictures are of my female impression. I like having the choice and I was so grateful to be a woman that day because I'd injured my leg in a foursome. XD

[cybiluncivilised]

Heraldry and colours

Medieval May Day 25 and 26

Ok, so I didn't post any more on Medieval May, I kinda got distracted and a little disheartened by my inability to post anything particularly exciting due to a lack of shows. Today, I have been sewing my group's heraldry (red background, white cross) and region's colours (red, white, black) into all my kit, and a number that refers to me in Roman Numerals.

Shows can get chaotic, you can end up getting changed from impression to impression and lending out bits of your stuff for impressions. Essentially, items can start to wander off. Labelling them helps them come home.

I'm scared of offending my group by being paranoid. I've had kit go missing before, and that was about a hundred quid worth of stuff so now I have trust issues. It's a widespread issue with reenactment circles. Some people say it's just people losing track of stuff and things accidentally going home with the wrong people but honestly I've had friends clearly mark their stuff and try hard to keep their stuff in regiment/group and somehow it ends up going on a little adventure.

At the end of the day, a lot of it is very expensive and very valuable. Some people just don't want to invest, I guess? I'm really bitter about it. I think my stuff disappeared because I was actually just not well liked, but that's what I would think! Hahah enough horribly pessimistic stuff.

I'm super proud of my work and my improvements!

[cybiluncivilised]

Ok, so, tomorrow is the beginning of Medieval May!

I have acquired from my group a list of prompts for every day. I know there aren't that many medieval reenactors on here compared to perhaps the number of other reenactors, but I might be mistaken. So, if you wanna take part and you're not medieval, feel free and tag it as something like "reenactorsmay" or at me in a comment or something. I'd genuinely love to see. Also, if you personalise a list for your time period then I'd love to see that, too! I'm not going to post for each of these because I think this was mostly designed around people who've been to a lot of shows, whereas my first show season has been canceled due to C19 so I have less to say and less to show. Here it goes:

Introductions

Reenactment

Encampment

Cooking

Castle

Relaxation

Silly Seventh

Civilians

Religions

Soldiers

Combat

Armor

Weapons

Craft

Clothing

Embroidery

Leatherwork

Unusual Craft

Behind the scenes

Small details

Luxury

Research

Improvement

Preparation

Colours

Heraldry

History

Love

Life

Death

Going forward

I'm tagging this as "medieval may" and I'm going to follow the tag. You don't have to post every day. It's going on on Instagram and Facebook also, I don't know if it's been brought here yet. Maybe this is how I'll find lots of new people to follow.

[cybiluncivilised]

Medieval May Day 17: Leatherwork

I tried to do leatherwork this month. It went horribly wrong. I've been recommended some better tools, thankfully, but this ain't bad, considering. Aul not pictured but that also broke and I luckily had more than one type of linen thread because that didn't go great the first time, either.

[cybiluncivilised]

A belated Medieval May Silly Seventh

I'm on the committee for a Trans safe space society where we frequently do "kindergarten crafts" with our members. Another member hosted bonnet making for Easter, with silliness being the goal, and I decided to draw (very) loosely from the St Bergitta Coife. I chose to photograph in really bad lighting, hahaha sorry.