Hexham as a crime scene

 

Is atmosphere of place important in crime writing?

I’ve just finished the latest Rebus and I wonder if I’m the only one who checks the locations on my ipad as I read? I used to know Edinburgh fairly well. As a young person I linked the city to Mary Queen of Scots and thought it terribly romantic. A cousin of mine, only a few years older, remarked dourly that it was a grim, dirty city. A friend who trained as a town planner did his work experience in Edinburgh and took me to see some of the desperate council estates that tourist rarely see.

If you read Ian Rankin’s books, and I own most of them, then Edinburgh is revealed in splendid misery. The town itself seems to breed the crimes that go on inside its buildings and has done for centuries. The history reeks of witchcraft, murder, grave robbers, back stabbers and their stories seem to rise out of the sooty stones of the city.

So yes, I think place is important and I’m wondering if Hexham is appropriate as a setting for murder. Has there ever been a murder in Hexham? It seems there has. Records of murder in the twelfth century, and more through the ages right up until Holly Newton died in January this year. I doubt there’s anything I can do will to make the pretty little market town of Hexham seem as grim as Edinburgh. There are ancient buildings, such as the Old Gaol, built in 1333 from stones taken from the Roman site at Corbridge. Surely those stones have memories? Maybe they can be made to give them up...

Pilgrimages were big business

Should you chose to go diving in your local river you might be as lucky as Gary Bankhead.

But take care, for river diving can be dangerous. I remember my parents warning me away from the edge of the riverbank at Durham because, many years earlier, they had witnessed a young man fall in and become trapped in the tree roots that stretch out under the surface of the water. Gary is a highly qualified diver as well as an archaeologist. 

He has recovered many small metal objects from various periods of history by searching the riverbed downstream of the twelfth century Elvet Bridge in Durham City ~ altogether 13,000 of them, probably “the largest collection of late- and post-medieval finds in the North of England: a unique regional/national resource.”

The location, so close to Durham Cathedral, is important. The Department of Archaeology in Durham University have adopted the site as a research project known as the Durham River Wear Assemblage (DRWA). Archaeology students and specialists work together to record and research the objects.

During the late medieval period, pilgrims would very likely have crossed Elvet Bridge on their way to St Cuthbert’s shrine in the apse beyond the high altar in Durham Cathedral. There is also the story of the bridge being so crowded with pedlars stalls that the Prince Bishop's sargeant ended up throwing stalls into the river when owners refused to move them.

Check pictures of some of the finds here: https://twitter.com/DiveIntoDurham

Pilgrimage was big business in medieval times. People travelled huge distances to and from sites like Durham Cathedral and Compostela in Spain. They needed taverns, food, and beds as they walked or, if they were lucky, rode. Every school child who has ever read Canterbury Tales will recall how Chaucer satirised the sale of religious relics sold to pilgrims.

Badges, crafted from lead alloys, were worn as proof of having completed a pilgrimage. One such 'souvenir' was recovered from the River Wear in 2011: a lead alloy cross with flared arms which had either been thrown or had fallen into the river.

BOWL HOLE CEMETERY

Not everyone knows about the Bowl Hole Cemetery at Bamburgh Castle.

Just 300m south of the castle some claim it was the burial ground of the royal court that once lived in the ancient castle beneath the current Victorian building. Discovered in 1816 when a winter storm blew sand away and revealed ancient stone grave markers, some investigation was carried out, but records were sadly lost and no one was sure of the location.

A research project was recently set up to relocate the site. 91 skeletons have been found and were sent to Durham University for analysis. Results declared the people to have lived in the 7th and 8th centuries – some of the earliest Christians in the ancient kingdom of Northumbria. Their stature, sex, diet and, in many cases, their birthplace, has been revealed. Characteristically tall, robust individuals they suffered from tooth cavities and plaque problems. Abscesses were common in people as young as twenty – possibly a consequence of rich food.

This led to the assumption that the skeletons were those of well fed, high status individuals of the ancient royal court. Few grew up in the immediate local area and many came from other parts of Britain. Western Scotland and Ireland were well represented in the findings, which could indicate a connection between the Northumbrian church and Iona. Others hailed from Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. Bamburgh was evidently well-known 1300 years ago.

Embalming medieval style

Honey bees live through the winter as a colony, unlike wasps and bumblebees. 

They don’t hibernate but stay active and cluster together to stay warm, which requires a lot of food.   Bees have been collecting and  storing honey during the summer in the UK for something like one hundred and fifty million years. They need 20-30 lb of honey  to get the through an average winter.

In a good season, an average hive will produce around 25 lb (11 kg) surplus honey. It takes a huge amount of work, for the bees fly 55,000 miles to make one pound of honey. Romans valued it so much they paid taxes in it, and Neolithic farmers stole it from the bees when they could.

Bees collect the sweet sticky nectar from flowers, mix it with enzymes from glands in their mouths and then store it in honeycombs – the hexagonal openings  we are familiar with - until the water content has been reduced to around 17%. Then the bees seal it with a thin layer of wax until they want to use it. Once capped, the honey will keep indefinitely. Honeycomb found in the tombs of the pharaohs was still edible after three thousand years.

Melissopalynology is an established science that allows researchers to study the landscape and its vegetation over millions of years by analysing pollen extracted from soil samples. It is also useful in modern day analysis of soil samples in criminal cases or predicting hay fever levels.

I once listened to a lecture at a conference which I must admit I now remember imperfectly, but the gist of it was that a coffin from medieval days was opened a decade or two back in or around the locality of St Bees Head in present day Cumbria. Unusually, the coffin was sealed and unbroken. On opening, the archaeologists discovered the body had been embalmed in honey. The eyes were still “wet” but of course soon crumbled as air reached them as it did immediately the coffin was opened. 

I’m sure they will be a paper about this somewhere in some university library. I must remember to look it up and read it one day.

The long, hot summer

1911 was remembered as the year of the heat wave.

Summer temperatures climbed after May and hovered between 80F and reached 92F (33C) in King's Lynn in Norfolk breaking all previous records for East England. By the end of July the lack of rain and scorching sun resulted in a paucity of grass as pastures turned brown. Farmers were forced to raise the price of milk. By late July song birds were silent in the fields and lanes. In early August the health of England was faltering in the continuing heat.

The sun continued to burn down, and activity in meadow and field ceased. Water pumps and village wells ran dry. The relentless sunshine became oppressive. People crossed to the shady side of the street.

Sun-darkened skin was undesirable and acceptable only in the labouring class and sunburn was a serious hazard

On 11 September the average temperature suddenly dropped by 20 degrees and prospects of rain before long were expected

The Lady magazine was already devoting several pages to new autumn fashions, and sumptuous furs had arrived on the rails of the new department stores. The long, hot summer was over.

This is the background to my latest writing. Seen through the eyes of Ellen, an American dollar princess who finds herself in trouble because she seems unable to become pregnant – and there is a large estate dependent on there being an heir.

Sigtrygg II Silkbeard Olafsson

Since I'm editing a book set in Dublin in 1035/6, I thought I should maybe offer some factual information for the reader who wants to know the history behind the book to be published soon as VIKING SUMMER.

Sigtrygg II Silkbeard Olafsson actually existed. He glories in having several spellings of his name depending which source you read; he can be Sihtric, Sitric and Sitrick in Irish texts; or Sigtryg and Sigtryggr in Scandinavian texts. There were two Sitrics before him in the family tree and one of his sons was also named Sitric, so reading histories of the time can be confusing. As the Hiberno-Norse king of Dublin of the Uí Ímair dynasty, his dates are complicated too. He ruled - and these dates are the best I can glean from the different reports - AD 989–994, then again AD 995–1000; and restored once more in AD 1000 and abdicated 1036. Adding all that time together, he ruled for 46 years, which was no mean feat at the time.

He conducted a long series of raids into territories such as Meath, Wicklow, Ulster, and perhaps even the coast of Wales. He also came into conflict with rival Norse kings, especially in Cork and Waterford. 

He went on pilgrimage to Rome in 1028 and is associated with the foundation of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin and would have called himself a Christian, but that didn't stop him executing and blinding his enemies. 

His father was Olaf Cuaran, King of York and his mother the infamous Gormflaith ingen Murchada of Munster. They married in AD 972, and Sigtrygg was born around AD 974. He married Emer, daughter of Brian Boru, when he was 24 and forced her to watch the Battle of Clontarf with him from his fortress. It was the battle in which her father Boru died. They had 5 sons, who all died before Sigtrygg. He seems to have been related to almost every famous family of the time - his sister Gyda married Olaf Tryggvasson, who died in 1000. Their son was killed by Canute's son, Sveinn in 1033 in Norway. Sigtrygg's son Olaf married Slaine, daughter of Boru - though some reports have Slaine as Sigtrygg's wife. 

With English blood from his paternal grandmother, Eadgth, Alfred's grandaughter;  Irish blood from Murchadh, King of Leinster, his maternal grandfather, the mix was complete with his Norse bloodline reaching back to his great great grandfather Ivarr the Boneless. He abdicated in 1036, and died in 1042 

Marriages were repudiated seemingly at will, and Gormflaith, in spite of her famed beauty, was repudiated twice. Not only did Sigtrygg marry Boru's daughter, but Brian's third wife was none other than Gormflaith.  It is rumoured that Brian had four wives and thirty concubines and though Gormflaith gave him a son, it is doubtful that she was ever truly married to him.

Interesting scraps of information I found was that in the year 1000 AD, the temperature was 2-4 degrees higher than now. Population was so much less than now: in 1066 England had a population of 2-3 million, Ireland just under 1 million and Scotland and Wales a little over half a million. 

Summing up

The first detailed study of the genetics of British people has revealed that the Romans, Vikings and Normans may have ruled or invaded the British for hundreds of years, but they left barely a trace on our DNA. The Anglo-Saxons were the only conquering force, around 400-500 AD, to alter the country’s genetic makeup, with most white British people now owing almost 30% of their DNA to the ancestors of modern-day Germans.

The study found people in southern and central England today typically share about 40% of their DNA with the French, 11% with the Danes and 9% with the Belgians. Surprisingly the French contribution was not linked to the Norman invasion of 1066, but to a previously unknown wave of migration to Britain after the end of the last Ice Age nearly 10,000 years ago.

Prof Peter Donnelly is the director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford. “It has long been known,” he says, “that human populations differ genetically, but never before have we been able to observe such exquisite and fascinating detail.”

People from areas of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland emerge as separate genetic clusters, providing a scientific basis to the idea of regional identity for the first time. “They’re among the most different in our study,” said Mark Robinson, an archaeologist from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and a co-author. “It’s stressing their genetic difference, it’s not saying there aren’t cultural similarities.”

25% of DNA in the Orkney Isles comes from Norwegian ancestors who invaded the islands in the 9^th century. Scientists believe Welsh DNA most closely resembles that of the earliest hunter-gatherers to have arrived when Britain became habitable again after the Ice Age.

Surprisingly, the study showed no genetic basis for a single “Celtic” group. 

Scientists began collecting DNA samples from people in Orkney in 1994 and gradually worked across most of the British Isles. The participants were all white British, lived in rural areas and had four grandparents all born within 50 miles (80km) of each other. Since a quarter of our genome comes from each of our grandparents, the scientists were effectively obtaining a snapshot of British genetics at the beginning of the 20th century.

Sir Walter Bodmer, of the University of Oxford, who conceived the study, said: “We’re reaching back in time to before most of the mixing of the population, which would fog history.”

Data from 6,209 individuals from 10 European countries was studied to allow an understanding of how their ancestors compared with the genetic makeup of the British.

 Hannah Devlin @hannahdev reported on this in 2015

A geographical entity II

 It’s not known how or when the languages that we choose to call 'Celtic', arrived - they were already long established and had diversified into several tongues, when our evidence begins. Certainly, there is no reason to link the coming of 'Celtic' language with any great 'Celtic invasions' from Europe during the Iron Age, because there is no hard evidence to suggest there were any. Nor does language  determine ethnicity. If it did, then we wouldn't be English but German, since English is classified as a Germanic tongue.

Archaeologists widely agree the British Iron Age’s many regional cultures grew out of the preceding local Bronze Age, not from waves of continental 'Celtic' invaders. Calling the British Iron Age 'Celtic' is so misleading that it is best abandoned. There are cultural similarities and connections between Britain, Ireland and continental Europe, but the same could be said for many other periods of history.

The things we have labelled 'Celtic' icons - such as hill-forts and art, weapons and jewellery - were more about aristocratic, political, military and religious connections than common ethnicity.

The Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43 shows the profound cultural and political impact that small numbers of people can have. The Romans did not colonise the islands of Britain to any significant degree. Their army, administration and carpet-baggers added only a few per cent to a population of around three million.

 It was the indigenous wealthy people adopting the new international culture of power who built the province's towns and villas. The islanders became Romans, both culturally and legally (Roman citizenship was more a political status than an ethnic identity). By AD 300, almost everyone in 'Britannia' was Roman, legally and culturally, even though of indigenous descent and still mostly speaking 'Celtic' dialects. Roman rule saw profound cultural change, but without any mass migration.

However, “Scotland” remained beyond Roman government, although the nearby presence of the empire had major effects. The kingdom of the Picts appeared during the third century AD, the first of a series of statelets which developed through the merging of the 'tribes' of earlier times.

In western and northern Britain, the end of Roman power saw the reassertion of linguistic and cultural trends reaching back to before the Iron Age. Yet in the long term, societies gradually tended towards larger states. The Irish-ruled kingdom of Dalriada merged in the ninth century with the Pictish kingdom to form Scotland.

The western-most parts of the old province created small kingdoms which developed into the Welsh and Cornish regions.

The Romans left Britannia around c.410 AD and bBy the sixth century, most of the country had been taken over by 'Germanic' kingdoms. It was once believed that the Romano-British were slaughtered or driven west by hordes of invading Anglo-Saxons. However, there was no such simple displacement of 'Celts' by 'Germans'.

How many settlers actually crossed the North Sea to Britain is disputed, but it is clear that they  mixed with indigenous populations which, in many areas, apparently formed the majority.

The new Anglo-Saxon kingdoms formed from indigenous and immigrant populations drew their cultural inspiration, and their dominant language, from across the North Sea. These people became the English. 

Contrary to the traditional idea that Britain originally possessed a 'Celtic' uniformity, in reality Britain has always been home to multiple peoples. While its population has shown strong biological continuity over millennia, the identities the islanders have chosen to adopt have undergone some remarkable changes. Many of these have been due to contacts and conflicts across the seas, not least as the result of episodic, but often very modest, arrivals of newcomers.

(Please click here http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/peoples_01.shtml#top  for  the link to the original article.)

A geographical entity I

Before Romans times, “Britain” was just a geographical entity with no political meaning and no single cultural identity. 

The gene pool of the island has changed slowly and the idea of large-scale migrations has been widely discredited. The island has always consisted of multiple cultural groups and identities, many of which looked across the seas for their closest connections - they did not necessarily connect naturally with their fellow islanders. Genetic studies are revealing much more of this island's past and it makes fascinating reading.

From the arrival of the first modern humans - who were hunter-gatherers, following the retreating ice northwards - to the beginning of recorded history is a period of about 100 centuries, or 400 generations; a vast time span we know very little about. 

Biologically these people were part of the Caucasoid population of Europe. The accepted regional physical stereotypes - red-headed people in Scotland, small, dark-haired folk in Wales and lanky blondes in southern England - existed in Roman times.

Different environments encouraged a great regional diversity of culture that consisted of small-scale societies, petty 'tribal' identities, typically lasting perhaps no more than a few generations before splitting, merging or disappearing. These groups were in contact and conflict with their neighbours, and sometimes with more distant groups - the appearance of exotic imported objects attest exchanges, alliance and kinship links, and wars.

At the end of the Iron Age (roughly the last 700 years BC), the first eye-witness accounts of Britain appear. Greco-Roman authors like Julius Caesar reveal a mosaic of named peoples (Trinovantes, Silures, Cornovii, Selgovae, and many more), but there is little sign such groups had a sense of collective identity.

Romans, modern archaeologists and the Iron Age islanders themselves all agree that they were not Celts. This was an 18th century invention; the name was not used earlier. Around 1700 the non-English island tongues were found to relate to that of the ancient continental Gauls, who really were called Celts. This ancient continental ethnic label was applied to the wider family of languages. But 'Celtic' was soon extended to describe insular monuments, art, culture and peoples, ancient and modern: island 'Celtic' identity was born, like Britishness, in the 18th century.

~~~~~

Dr Simon James is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. He specialises in Iron Age and Roman archaeology, Celtic ethnicity and the archaeology of violence and warfare. I found an very interesting article of his, quite long, and the above is my attempt to whittle out the main points so that I will remember them. You may wish to read the entire article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/peoples_01.shtml#top

Viking Scotland III

Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. Historically, the term referred to Britain as a whole and is ultimately based on the Indo-European root for "white." I would guess the white chalk cliffs had something to do with it, plus when viewed from the north coast of France, or the sea, the island is often under a layer of white cloud. Scottish Gaelic speakers used it as the name given to the former kingdom of the Picts around the reign of king Causantin mac Aeda (Constantine II) from 943–952. The region Breadalbane (Bràghad Albann, the upper part of Alba) also takes its name from it.

The name

There is no precise Gaelic equivalent for the English terminology 'Kingdom of Alba' since the Gaelic term Rìoghachd na h-Alba means Kingdom of Scotland. English scholars adopted the Gaelic name Alba to refer to a political period in Scottish history that existed between 900 and 1286.

The land

The territory of Alba extended from Loch Ness south to the firths of Clyde and Forth while The Hebrides, Orkneys and Shetlands, together with much of the mainland north of Loch Ness, remained under Viking control. Southwest Scotland (the Kingdom of Strathclyde) suffered under the same Norwegian Vikings who settled in Dublin. In the southeast, Lothian, once part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, lay under the control of the Danish Vikings who settled in York

The people

The people of this period in Alba were mostly Pictish-Gaels, or later Pictish-Gaels and Scoto-Norman, and markedly different to the period of the Stuarts, when the elite of the kingdom were mostly speakers of Middle English, which later evolved into Lowland Scots.

Life in the fifties

Life now is so different to the fifties when we all earned so little and we didn’t spend much because we didn’t have much spare cash. We had clothes that were “Sunday best,” few changes for every day and things were worn until they wore out. Shoes were polished and cared for because they had to last and trips to the cobbler were frequent. Segs were hammered into the heels of flat shoes to make them last that little bit longer. Colours were sober and the darker the better to hide marks.

Since a car was only for the rich, travelling to work on steamy, fugged up crowded buses – because people smoked then and there was little or no heating – through the dark gloom of winter mornings, was standard. Everyone rushed to get on board because waiting in the cold for ten minutes made the bus seem a haven of warmth and comfort. Chat with the conductor as s/he took the fare and punched out a ticket, and with fellow travellers that you met every day made for a noisy, but cheerful journey.

It was hard to get privacy for romance back then. You could invite your young man back home but since only one room was heated, that meant sitting with the family or freezing to death in the “front room.” Not a good option. So there was a huge need to get out and have your own place, even if it meant “taking lodgings.” If you’ve watched Endeavour then you’ll have seen the kind of place he was living in then. They didn't aim for five-bedroom houses with central heating and three bathrooms, but for much more modest accommodation. A small, "two-up and two down" that needed work might be all that they could afford, but at least they would be on their own - and they were young; they had the energy to re-decorate and make it better. 

Since the young were expected to contribute to the household expenses once they were earning, that too was an incentive to strike out on their own. Everyone saved for a deposit on a house and went in hope to the bank manager who would authorize a mortgage if he thought you could manage the repayments. Young people didn’t go out clubbing, or spending money on clothes, makeup, alcohol and mobile phones as they do today; they went out on a Saturday night “to the pictures,” sat in coffee bars spinning out a couple of coffees listening to Bill Haley or had a drink at the pub and then the man walked the young lady home. There would be goodnight kiss on the doorstep, if they felt so inclined.

Days gone by

I never seem to have enough time these days. My blog used to be as regular as clockwork but it is a trifle hit and miss now, though I still try to keep to three posts a week. Today I'm in the unusual situation of having time to do it and groping for subject matter. Most frustrating.

We had the first frost of autumn last night. There might have been a tentative frost earlier in October, but it was so tentative it didn't last til midday. When I took Tim down to the river bank today, the ground was frozen. It's been soft and squishy up until yesterday and while Tim romped about and got muddy, I had to keep my eyes on where I put my feet. I still slipped a few times, but didn't go down. Tim, on the other hand, hit a puddle at full speed this morning and skidded off to one side. He came back to sniff the ice, so no doubt he knows what to expect next time.

This sort of weather makes me very glad to be living in the 21st century. I tell myself a Viking hallhouse could be very cosy with the central hearth blazing and everyone wrapped up in furs to keep warm while the harper told a tale or two. But someone had to go out and find the wood or peat, drag it back and keep the fire burning night and day. Someone had to go hunting so there was something to cook and eat. Trudging through snow in leather boots without the thick, textured soles that we're so used to today would be no picnic. Maybe they packed straw and wool inside to add insulation, but there must have been many frozen toes, chilblains and even frost bite.

People complained of chilblains in the fifties, (a painful, itchy swelling on the hands and feet due to poor circulation and exposure to cold) and scorch marks on the skin over the shins from sitting too close to the fire. These things were not unusual even in the early sixties. No doubt they were common in Viking days as well. Nowadays, does anyone under forty know of chilblains? Do they remember running to the kitchen to make a hot drink before hurrying back to the one warm room in the house? A trip outside to the coalhouse to get more coal - no one wanted to do it, and it usually fell to the man of the house. Going to an icy bed was unthinkable without a hot water bottle, and three people in a bed doesn't seem such a bad idea in context of  ye olden days. Body heat times three was not to be sniffed at. Pity those who had outside loos....all these discomforts are mostly forgotten now. But it is life as it was lived in historical novels.

Durham, my home city

This advert caught my eye and I liked it so I'm keeping it here. 
What would life be like in Durham in 1414, the year the school was founded? There is so much history in and around Durham. They say settlement began in the area around 2000 BC but it was St Cuthbert who put Durham firmly on the map.

Symeon of Durham, medieval chronicler, tells how St Cuthbert's bier came to a mysterious halt at the hill of Warden Law, south west of what is now Sunderland, and refused to budge. The monks of Lindisfarne, having departed their original home because of Viking raids, had shuffled Cuthbert's coffin all over the north, and thought this refusal to move rather strange.  The Bishop of Chester-le-Street declared a three-day fast with prayers during which St Cuthbert is reputed to have appeared to a monk called Eadmer and told him to take the coffin to Dun Holme.

The coffin then allowed itself to be moved, but a milkmaid had to be consulted before the location of Dun Holme became known. Settling on the promontory above the river Wear, the monks built the cathedral to house St Cuthbert's remains. Symeon says it was the first building in the town, but there is nothing left of the modest building today. The Norman built a much grander structure on top of it. Cuthbert is still there, with pride of place behind the altar, and the Venerable Bede lies in the Galilee Chapel. 

Over the years the old name changed. The old words meant hill (dun OE) and island (holme, Norse), then became Normanised as 
Duresme and Latinised as Dunelm and finally at some time unknown, Durham.

Here are some links to the wonderful old city of Durham:
http://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/heritage

http://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/architecture/palace-green/cosins-almshouses

Harsh reality

"In 1206 Walter fitz Gilbert died leaving a widow, Emma and two daughters, Alina and Alesia. Herbert de Penewurth offered two hundred marks and two palfreys for the marriage of the widow, but at the price of two marks and one palfrey she obtained leave to marry whom she would, subject to the king's assent.
In 1207 she married Peter de Vaux, who paid the king five palfreys."

Such little snippets found in old manuscripts amaze and horrify women today. The thought of not being able to choose the man you married, and having to bribe the king in order to have any choice at all, is deeply upsetting. I don't know how men feel about it, but authors ought to take note of such transactions and include them in their storylines. Tales of feisty heroines running off into the countryside and meeting a handsome young knight who feels impelled to protect, love and marry them are just so much the stuff of dreams.

The reality is more likely a man of mature years seeking a second wife because his first has died in childbirth. His first priority may well be to ask what she brings with her in terms of land or property, and the size of her dowry. Her looks were probably immaterial, or at best a lucky bonus if she was passably handsome. He may well have battle scars, missing teeth and several children as old as the bride, but who wants to write, or read, of such marriages? But it doesn't hurt to inject a little reality into historical romances. Not every girl got to marry the equivalent of Mel Gibson.

Starvation

One thing I'm really not very interested in is food. I  barely register the pictures of food on Facebook, and  when I saw the Tudor Feast coming up on tv I hesitated with my finger on the record button. Then common sense clicked in. The programme was to be modern chefs cooking medieval food in the same way as medieval cooks would have done. Apart from the fact that I bet they didn't, watching people handle food revolts me at the best of times, so I took my finger off the button.
Hygiene in those far off days doesn't bear thinking about, particularly when food and eating are involved. Some of the medical concoctions include bat excrement and the like, so if that's what they think will cure you of an ailment, Heaven knows what they cook normally.

On the other hand, people's immune systems were probably vastly superior to ours. They would need to be, for starvation was common in medieval times. If a man's crops failed, what did the family eat? They couldn't rush off to the  supermarket, didn't have the cash to buy even if said supermarket existed. Poaching was forbidden and in some cases punishable by death. Your neighbours were likely as badly off as yourself. A man might walk many miles to find work, return with food and find his family dead of starvation.  In such conditions, the temptation to eat absolutely anything must have been horrifying.

The lowest ranks of society in medieval days were no better than slaves, bought and sold with the land, and starvation was common. Religious houses, and the homes of the rich, presented kitchen scraps at the back gate for the starving poor. Once Henry VIII got rid of the monasteries, those who had once lived within the protection of the religious orders were turned loose on the roads as beggars. Enclosures took away common land, and added to the problems of the lower classes. The odd thing is that these things have never been regarded in the same light as the potato famine in Ireland, the clearances in Scotland or the African slave trade and I wonder why. Perhaps it was because they took place in a time when a social conscience was a luxury few could afford. Perhaps it is because we had no one to blame but ourselves.

Ghosts

The hair on the back of my neck stiffens when I watch this 6 minute video entitled The Ghosts of Hampton Court Palace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PUlimd-VKY
It's not that there's anything outrageous there - well, maybe one thing that seems a little odd, but the whole thing is so atmospheric. It's one thing to go around the place in daylight, and quite another to contemplate going around it in the dark, after closing time when everyone has gone home. My house creaks as it settles at night, and its not twenty years old yet; imagine the creaks and groans that must come from a place that's five hundred or more years old. I once got locked in the library in a college where I worked - my fault - and that was a creepy place once everyone had gone home. I had to ring the police, who rang the caretaker, who came wandering along, laughing, with his Great Dane. The dog saw me through the glass doors and ran at full stretch along the corridor, barking, and then couldn't stop on the polished wooden floor and landed in an inelegant heap against the doors. I think caretakers and nightwatchmen must have nerves of steel and possibly little imagination, otherwise they'd be basket cases before too long.
I collected one or two more videos that I thought I'd want to watch again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Fpquak1so This one visualises Henry VIII as an old, middle-aged and young man. Curious how the clothes that look so fantastic on a big man look so odd on a young man. 
Then comes a piece with vocals from Claire Ridgeway on what she thinks Anne Boleyn looked like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfTI2ffP9j8. Lastly there's an eight minute piece on the execution of Anne using actors I do not recognise. I still think the Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold was the best Anne Boleyn...'get a child on that sweet, pale girl--if you can!' I can still hear her saying those words, but I think putting up bits of film here would be contravening copyright, so I won't attempt it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en_szNM4Dp4&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Things were different then

How have I missed Dr Ian Mortimer? I've only just discoverd he writes fiction as James Forrester, and yes, I've read them. Duh. Now I am deep into the Time Traveller's Guide ot Medieval England, and enjoying all the detail. He claims that medieval man  had no understanding of cultural development which is why the paintings on the fourteenth century church walls depict Christ and his disciples in medieval clothes.

He says, and I believe him, that almost everything about the fourteenth century is different from the modern world.  Consider the aristocracy of England, who have been speaking French since the Norman invasion in 1066. By the fourteenth century, they are only just switching to English. Edward III speaks English, books start to be written in English even though Latin is still the preferred language of law. English slowly becomes the tongue of the country even though old knights and ladies cannot be bothered to learn a new language "at their age." Cornwall persists in speaking Cornish, and Wales in Welsh. If dialects present problems today, they were so much stronger more prevalent and more difficult in medieval days.

Knowing the date is such an easy thing today. But medieval English people considered Lady Day, 25th March, as the start of a new year. Some aristocrats prefer 1st January, and clerks of the Exchequer begin their new year on Michaelmas Day, 29th September.
All three systems were in use at the same time, and things are furthe complicated when you know that Florence and Venice work a year behind England. Portugal and Castile operate a different calendar altogether and sailing into Lisbon would have taken you into a future 39 years ahead of England. Nobody uses the term Anno Domini, either. They use the regnal year, ie I am writing this in the sixty first year of Elizabeth II.

Other things are different, too. Work and working condition, for a start. Then there's money, and dress and education....

PS We have frogspawn - and the little pond is frozen!

Medieval money

Medieval money is sometimes a mystery. The UK went decimal in the early seventies, but before that the system was based on the pound sterling, or the pound in weight of silver. The most common coin was the silver penny (1d). Twelve pennies made a shilling (1s) and twenty shillings made one pound (£1)

Until 1344 only silver was considered money. There was a big silver groat worth 4d, and pennies, half-pennies and farthings (1/4d or one quarter of a penny.) In 1344,  new coins arrived - a florin or double leopard worth 6s, along with a half-florin or leopard (3s) and a quarter-florin or helm (1s 6d).

In 1351 came the noble (6s 8d). Nobles, half-nobles and quarter-nobles were minted in gold. The earlier coins were minted in silver.

Just to confuse everything, there was also the mark, worth 13s 4d. Those of you who are good with numbers (which I am not!)  will realise that the noble (6s 8d) is exactly  a third of £1 and half of a mark. This made counting money much easier.

Between 1279 and 1399 there were perhaps 160 different sorts of penny struck, and this was because there were several mints operating at once. Three royal mints operated from Berwick, Canterbury and the Tower of London. The abbot of Bury St Edmunds, the bishop of Durham and the archbishop of York operated private mints and the marks changed when a new man was elected to the top post.

Scotland, needless to say, had its own mints and its own coinage.

Let's have a Coffee

Coffea arabica is indigenous to Ethiopia and Sudan. People took the beans on long journeys and chewed them for both nourishment and stimulation. There may have been a fermented drink, called kahweh, which is a word Moslems use for wine but it was viewed with disfavour.
By the fifteenth century a drink made from coffee beans and an infusion of water had became known in Arabia and it spread through the Middle East and reached Turkey by 1530.

Travellers brought the drink to England. The earliest coffee-house was set up in Oxford, at the Angel Inn, in 1650, though individuals had been seen drinking coffee there as early as 1637. Two years later, London had its first coffee-house in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill, and others swiftly followed. They catered to an all-male clientele.

Coffee was expensive,and soon became liable to excise duty, which added tot he cost. A dish of coffee sold for 1d (one penny) and in 1685 powdered beans sold for 3/- per pound. (Three shillings). By 1693, the price had doubled. The coffee houses did not raise the prices, but simply watered the coffee.

The Dutch took the bean to their East Indian colonies at the end of the seventeenth century, and later it was introduced into the West Indies, some Central American states and parts of South America. The Bedford family at Woburn Abbey first started drinking coffee in the late 1670s and they were typical of other families in that their consumption gradually rose until coffee succeeded ale and beer as the breakfast drink of choice. Chocolate, of course, was also taken at breakfast at this time.

Competition arose in the Georgian era, when tea arrived on the scene, and soon became a favourite with the labouring classes. Coffee remained  the favoured drink of the gentry. British colonists took coffee with them to Virginia, where it gained popularity  after a tax was imposed on tea. Continuing immigrants from Europe kept reinforcing the coffee habit until it became the preferred drink of the country.

Lawful trods

Virginia Creeper in autumn

If the trod crossed the border, there were rules to ensure that it was a legal pursuit. An agreement drawn up in 1563 describes "a lawfull Trodd with Horn and Hound, with Hue and Cry and all other accustomed manner of fresh pursuit".

According to Walter Scott, who immersed himself in Border Lore, and possibly invented certain touches, the pursuer was obliged to carry a lighted turf on his lance-point to signify his good intentions and lawful pursuit.  It strikes me that a burning turf would not have lasted long, and might quite easily have shattered into a million bits as the rider's pony scrambled up and down hills and hopped across ditches and streams and boggy bits.

He was also supposed to report to the first person he met over the border, or to ask at the first village and seek assistance there. Early rules directed the pursuer to sseek out some local worthy and invite him to join the trod as witness that all was as it should be. I can imagine that this rule was flouted on more occasions than not, but actually impeding a trod was a serious offence. In England in the 1550s, refusal to follow a trod was punishable by death. Later this reduced to seven days imprisonment and a fine of  three shillings and four pence.
If the reivers were caught, they were returned to face the Warden's justice. Sometimes they were killed on the spot, especially if caught 'red-hand', ie " in the deede doinge". Lynchings happened, without a doubt, but how common they were is unknown. It brings to mind the old Wild West films we used to watch when films had a story instead of computer graphics and impossible action.