http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

I read about this new painting program today, and it looks like a great tool, and even reasonably user friendly.

At the end of April, I was contacted by Baron Erich of Zweihammer Armory about making him a wappenrock for an upcoming ceremony. He is the Baron of the SCA group I played with while out in California for several years, and I was thrilled to be asked. As my schedule had opened up, I was able to take on the commission.

I asked him if I could keep a public diary of the project as I went along and he thought it would be a great idea.

As he is progressing towards a more period appearance, he wanted something documentable, that he could wear without needing to explain anything, yet he wanted the German flash and over-the-top appearance that he sees on the German guilds in California. He also wanted to be able to wear it over armor and without, and have his device embroidered on one sleeve.

Here are his arms set inside the double headed HRE eagle.


I decided to present him with seven different designs, ranging from designs based on the Livery books of the Duke's of Saxony to designs based on tourney wear.
( The Seven Choices )

Of the 7, #4 was definitely my favorite from the moment I completed the drawing, it just has that pizzazz to it.
Erich thought so too, and asked for a few changes, so this is the design I sent him last night. I haven't heard back what he things of it, but I think the upper sleeves need a little *something* more.


This is going to be such a fun project! I can't wait to get started. :)

For my birthday last month I was given an Amazon gift certificate, and I used it to buy several interesting research books, one of them came today.

Manifestations of Discontent in Germany on the Eve of the Reformation,by Gerald Strauss

Its a collection of writings from the period of 1430-1530, and includes sermons, poems and proclamations about a variety of topics. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in Early Modern Germany, it contains some real gems.

But now for the fun quote from the book,
From the Chronicles of Sebastian Franck, 1531, p 215-218
Concerning the Arrival of Two Plagues in Germany in the Time of Emperor Maximilian. To Wit: The Terribile Affliction Called "The French Disease" And the Destructive Landsknechte

"The same emperor's reign also witnessed the arrival of that useless breed of men called Landsknecht, a plague upon our land which invades us uncalled for and uninvited, seeking and causing war and visiting misfortune upon us all. Landsknecht are not citizens who respond to their lord's call to war. Such citizens are proper soldiers and loyal militiamen. They do what they are obliged to do out of a sense of duty and obedience, not gain. For Landsknecht, on the other hand, I find no excuse or justification, seeing that they are an unchristian, cursed tribe whose trade consists of gouging, stabbing, pillaging, burning, murdering, gambling, drinking, whoring, blaspheming, willfully killing husbands and fathers, persecuting peasents in war and peace, stripping fields and demanding tributes. They are harmful not only to others, but also to themselves. In truth, they are a plague and pestilence on the whole world. "

From the British History Online site
The port and trade of early Elizabethan London
Sample listing:

781. Edward of Milton (60) William Harison; Antwerp

[f. 241b] John Jackman: 24 cwt Castile soap, 150 lbs ginger £29 5s (31 Aug 1568). William Cockin: 600 foin tails, 20 mantles foin potes, 33 pair 'vents' £28 10s (1 Sept). James Harvie: 3½ doz. whip-saws, 1 doz. tenonsaws £5 11s 8d. William Hobbs: 974 ells hair tapestry, 16 pcs white blanket, 3½ doz. sealed carpets, 2 doz. blue lince, 1 last rape oil £63 5s. John Spencer: 100 bundles brown paper £3 6s 8d. William Gifford: 6 cwt unwrought flax £3 6s 8d. John Flower: 16 cwt estrige wool £13 16s 8d. Edward Bright: 8 doz. carpenter's saws, 8½ cwt iron pans £8. Thomas Gardiner: 1 cwt gunpowder, 50 bundles brown paper, 4 cwt aniseed, 200 lbs pepper £25 6s 8d. William Towerson: 750 ells wool tapestry, 16 doz. Ghentish carpets, 1 doz. cushion cloths, 6 cwt feathers £72. Roger Warfild: 2 brls argol, 1 cwt candy, 400 lbs matches, 18 cwt soap, 6 cwt almonds, 100 bundles brown paper, 6 cwt starch £43 10s. Alexander Sherington: 3 bales Ulm fustian £45. Thomas Brasie: 106 pcs unwatered camlet, 2 bales Ulm fustian £151. William Colles: 48 cwt madder, 8 cwt hops £36. Edmund Smyth: 2 bales Ulm fustian £30. Robert Taylor: 24 cwt madder, 6 cwt hops £19. John Borne: 10 doz. lbs pack thread, 6 grs thread points, 3 doz. coarse crewel pieces, 1 doz. lbs inkle, 4 doz. thou. pins, 1½ thou. thimbles, 12 thou. awl blades, 3 doz. lbs counters, 1 grs coarse hour glasses £16 10s. John Lambert: 72 cwt flax £48. John Car: 1 half-brl small nails, 4 hd iron plates, 8 doz. small candle plates £9 6s 8d. James Harvie: 17 cwt black latten £11 6s 8d. William Perrie: 90 lbs nutmegs £15. Robert Brook: 6 cwt hops £3. Nicholas Hewet: 13 brls rape oil, 12 pair andirons with 12 tongs 12 fireshovels, 18 cwt ton-flax £34 (2 Sept). William Hewet: 13 brls rape oil £16. Robert Exton: 5 cwt madder, 3 nests empty chests, 40 Turnhout ticks £18 13s 4d. Arthur Hall: 1 ton 'ames' iron, 1 half-brl head nails, 100 doubles, 4 cwt fireshovel plates £13. Roger Knot: 16 cwt battery £32. Thomas Eaton: 15 grs halfpennyware glasses, 3 grs thread-lace, 3 doz. thou. pins, 1 doz. lbs curtain rings, 6 thou. awl blades, 5 doz. lbs inkle, 2 doz. crewel pieces, 1 brl latten £29 1s 8d. Ancelm Becket: 6 cwt flax £6. Thomas Castlin: 2 packs flax £16. Hugh Bradborne: 90 cakes resin £15. Anthony Fytton: 4 brls yellow ochre £2 13s 4d. Richard Billam: 18 Turnhout ticks £14 13s 4d. Roland Erlington: 120 doz. thou. pins £20. Henry Smyth: 63 lbs Spanish silk, 12 doz. thou. pins £65 (3 Sept). Phillip Watkins: 30 lbs satin silk, 80 lbs ferret silk £66 13s 4d. William Sherington: 50 lbs ferret silk, 80 ells sarcenet £34 3s 4d. John Pasfield: 7 cwt iron wire £11 13s 4d. John Spencer: 50 bundles brown paper, 40 lbs thread £2 6s 8d. Francis Wootton: 60 ells sarcenet, 30 yds satin £23 10s. Robert Taylor: 3 pcs stammel £30. William Martin: 192 butts thread, 10 pcs watered camlet £19 3s 4d. Edmund Hugan: 80 half-pcs Genoa fustian £26 13s 4d (4 Sept). John Taylor: 3 bales Ulm fustian £45. Geoffrey Goffe: 250 ells hair and flax tapestry, 8 doz. lince £14 6s 8d. Robert Lence: 6 cwt wrought flax £6. Sir William Chester: 75 cwt madder £50.


Lots of interesting textile items in this list, like what is ferret silk?

If you are looking for a record of a particular commodity, you can look it up in the Commodity List and use that to find the item you are looking for.

A list of their 16th century documents

Oh, and for my living history friends who always wanted real unbleached linen canvas, Dharma carries 100% hemp linen canvas, $14.95 a yard

Sounds like the title of some slash fiction or bodice ripper in the grocery store, but no, its just me telling you about a couple of different sites for ribbon.

Since I can't find silk satin ribbon in the stores here, I'm guessing others can't as well. I was first introduced to it in Seattle, and have wanted a source for it since. Thank goodness for Google!

Silk satin ribbon, 9mm - 50mm wide, $1.59- 4.98 a yard

Dharma carries silk habotai ribbon by the yard , and silk sewing thread by Gutterman

Dharma also has a nice selection of cotton lace which I shall have to remember if I ever want to make Victorian somethings.

M&J Trimming also carries some chains by the yard that would work really well for replicating the chains seen in German portraits 16mm chain, 17mm chain

When it rains it pours!

Sometimes when you prospect for information (aka data mining) you hunt and hunt and turn up nothing but empty. Other days you are practically drowning in new discoveries and can barely handle everything.

Today is a "barely keeping my head above water" sort of day, here are the gems.

First, A Atlas, dated middle 16th century, WDB,
Cod.Guelf. 4.1 Aug. 4° (Battista Agnese, Portulanatlas, Mitte 16. Jh.)
http://diglib.hab.de/mss/4-1-aug-4f/start.htm

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Then this very odd box, also from the WDB
Cod.Guelf. 90 Aug. 8° (A. Kircher, Arca musurgica)
http://diglib.hab.de/?objekte=90-aug-8f

Its a wooden box, with wooden sticks, with writing on them, that have to do with music, as the box has musical scales on the sides for four parts. Its dated to the 17th century.

---

This book is a "Varia" Book, dated 15th century. Its got some really interesting writings having to do with musical composition on page 33. In the 40 page range, it looks like class notes or similar and has diagrams about the music notation in use at the time.
82.6 Quod. (8a) = Heinemann Nr. 4045 (varia de poesi, musica, astronomia, 15. Jh.)
http://diglib.hab.de/mss/82-6-quod-8a/start.htm

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Not sure of the exact placement and time period of this book of hours, the WDB is very hard to get that information out of, they don't put it nicely where one can easily find it.

Cod.Guelf. 84.2.1 Aug. 12° ("Stundenbuch Herzog Augusts d.J.")

http://diglib.hab.de/mss/84-2-1-aug-12f/start.htm

More fun stuff from BSB

Paul Mair's De Arte Athletica, Volume I and II, Augsburg middle of the 16th century, BSB Cod.icon. 393 1 and 2
Volume 1: http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/codicon/Band_bsb00006570.html
Volume 2: http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/codicon/Band_bsb00007894.html

This book is in FULL color and has some of the most beautiful men's clothes I've ever seen! Here's an example from Vol 1

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Hans Burgkmair: Turnierbuch - Copy of the Original of Hans Burgkmair the Elder. - BSB Cod.icon. 403, Augsburg 1540
http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/codicon/Band_bsb00015125.html

Tourney book of Hans Burgkmair, lots of great horse barding, armour, and some clothes.

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Turnierbuch. Ritterspiele gehalten von Kaiser Friedrich III. und Kaiser Maximilian I. in den Jahren 1489 - 1511 - BSB Cod.icon. 398
Augsburg ? 1550
http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/codicon/Band_bsb00002178.html

Plates showing matches from tourney's in 1497, 1498, 1491 and 1511

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Schriber, Stephan: Spätgotisches Musterbuch des Stephan Schriber - BSB Cod.icon. 420
Urach um 1494
http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/codicon/Band_bsb00019746.html

Late Gothic Pattern Book, more cool calligraphy and illumination sample book.

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Kleinodienbuch der Herzogin Anna von Bayern - BSB Cod.icon. 429
München 1552 - 1555
http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/codicon/Band_bsb00006598.html

Jewelry catalog book of Herzogin Anna of Bavaria painted by Hans Mielich. Here's just a sample

Bellicorum instrumentorum liber cum figuris - BSB Cod.icon. 242, Venedig 1420 - 1430

For the earlier war time crowd, and other mechanical folks. Lots of interesting inventions and other sorts of diagrams. Not quite sure what to make of this one, but its certainly has some interesting ideas in it.

If your are looking for that off the wall A&S idea, this might be a good book to look through.

For my very early period friends, a Traditionsbücher from 1166-1196, the only surviving one to belong to a noble family and not a cleric.

Codex Falkensteinensis, Herrenchiemsee 1166

Today was not really the best day here, there was lots of failure on several fronts, but its always nice when the day ends on a good note.

First off, someone has posted really nice pictures of Jost Amman's Tourney picture from 1561 on Wikimedia.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Gesellen-Stechen_1561

Then the BSB has put up Talhoffer's Fechtbuch in color,
Thalhofer, Hans: Fechtbuch von 1467 - BSB Cod.icon. 394 a, [S.l.] Schwaben 1467
http://mdz10.bib-bvb.de/~db/0002/bsb00020451/images/

Then to cap the day!
Zeugbuch Kaiser Maximilians I. - BSB Cod.icon. 222, Innsbruck um 1502
http://mdz10.bib-bvb.de/~db/0002/bsb00020956/images/

The Zeugbuch or Thing Book, of Kaiser Maximilian I, is a beautiful full color illustration of his war machine in action. All the war equipment you could ever ask for, pages upon pages of cannon, with the occasional soldier thrown in for spice.

It is really cool in that it shows in exacting detail how the cannons are mounted on the carts, how they are transported.

Interesting buckets and bags

Pikeman, and pike parts

Not sure of this weapon, but I love the view of the hat on the ground

Smaller size guns, with the gunners

Small size cannons, with gunners, love the Rock on the guy on the left

Rough pen sketch of two soldiers

The calligraphy and borders are really nice too throughout the entire book, especially the decorative pen work capitals towards the back, really beautiful stuff!

Today I went out to the workshop to work on the new bookbinding sewing frame I'm making. Using Arn's workshop would be a whole lot easier, however, I really need to learn to do this on my own, and its a super simple project... (Famous last words...)

Exhibit A - A detail scan of The Bookbinder from Jost Amman's "The Book of Trades", showing the details of the sewing frame, you can click on the picture to see it larger.


My plan is to make it out of poplar, pegged together. I think that the top frame part won't be pegged in, but rather sitting in mortises in the base but still loose enough to pull out when I need to break it down. The plan is for it to be 24" wide, 12" deep and about 26" from top to bottom. I really need the top part to break down for easy storage in my workroom closet. The top part of the frame looks to have a slot for the hooks that are holding the sewing cords. The hooks don't look like they hook over the bar, but rather through it. Not sure how I'm going to do this part yet... A drawing of a frame from the 1700's shows a slot cut in the top bar that the hooks go through. I think I'll need to ask a friend for help on this one.

Now, why I'm grumpy.

I go to cut the first board for the base....
The Ryobi sawsall only works for things that are nailed down, clamping doesn't work to keep the boards steady enough to be able to saw a straight line. So I used a handsaw, good thing my shoulder is feeling fine these days!

The work bench is so tall that I have to stand on a step stool just to be able to use it.

Then I go to drill a test hole for the dowel...
We have four drills, but no drill bits that I can find. I know he's got them hidden somewhere. I did find ONE drill bit in the package, I think its a size that should work to drill the holes for the pegs.
AND Of the drills that we have, I can only manage to open two of them to be able to get a drill bit in. No instructions to be found either. One of the drills doesn't work worth a damn, the other one is out of battery juice.


So, sum total I got done in two hours? Plans drawn out, workshop cleaned, *one* board cut, four drills tested.

I know, whine, whine whine.... at least I *have* a space to work.

Maybe I'll go work on making some veil pins... That doesn't require power tools!

Finally, The Abegg-Stiftung is having an exhibition with the clothes that they have been restoring from Dresden! Its only been how many years since we got the sneak peak through the talks in LA? Four?

Thanks to myladyswardrobe for the heads up about it!

Here's the link, and there is a catalog too, for CHF 85 + postage.

http://www.abegg-stiftung.ch/e/museum/sonderaus/2008/bilder.html

Anybody want to send me to Switzerland?

Recently I've been playing around with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Digital Online Image collection.


One of the really cool manuscripts that they have online is the Scribal pattern book of Gregorius Bock, MS 439. Swabia, ca. 1510-1517

Here is the descriptive catalog entry for the manuscript This includes which scripts are used on which pages, this information is not included in the manuscript. The scripts run from basic book hands, bastards, decorative capitals, color work, its really quite inspiring!

Feel free to pass these links on to any lists or people that you feel could use this information, but please give proper credit for the find.

Jean Faucket was the King of Arms for Phillip, Duke of Burgandy.

Here's his commonplace book, containing letters, verses, writings on chivalric offices, heraldry, etc. Its online at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Digital Library.

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/getSETS.asp?ITEM=2027590

The BSB has been busy of late, and has put out a list of ALL of their many digital collections in English

Among the really cool finds I discovered on a very short search are:

Bonus, they are all in color!

BSB Cod Icon 341, Costume of the Men and Women in Augsburg, Nürnberg, Germany, Europe, Africa and the Orient.

BSB Cod.Icon 342 A circa 1600 copy of the Trachtenbuch of Christoph Weiditz

Zeichnungen von Trachten und Gebräuchen aus dem osmanischen Reich, Persien und der Neuen Welt - BSB Cod.icon. 342 k, circa 1570 Clothes and other things from the Turkish Empire, Persian and related countries.

Kostüme und Sittenbilder des 16. Jahrhunderts aus West- und Osteuropa, Orient, der Neuen Welt und Afrika - BSB Cod.icon. 361 Augsburg ? 1560 - 1570 Clothing and Portrait book from 16th century, of West and East Europe, the Orient, New World and Africa.

Here's the page that lists the subject matter that all the Iconigraphic Codices fall into. Click on the subject and it will pull up all the manuscripts. Not all are digitized yet, but a lot are.


Have fun!

I found this book today at Bodleian Library online. Its a collection of doodles, quotes, prayers and calligraphic alphabets. The doodles of men's and women's heads and hairstyles I found particularly interesting, the capital alphabets are really beautiful.

MS. Lat. misc. c. 66
Commonplace book of Humphrey Newton (1466-1536), of Pownall, Cheshire, in Latin and English
15th and 16th centuries
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/lat/misc/c/066.htm

I'm hoping that people on my friend's list have seen these books and can tell me if they are worth ordering via ILL or buying.

A Handbook of Indigo Dyeing by Vivien Prideaux

Eating Right in the Renaissance by Ken Albala A book explaining humoral theory


The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy by Douglas Biow

Bookbinding for Book Artists by Keith A. Smith, Fred A. Jordan

Anyone with an opinion on any of these books?

Here are several fascinating YouTube videos on dyeing with Indigo in India. The first video gives you an overview and has narration so you can understand what is happening in the second two videos.




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