Pre-1600s Toiletry Sets

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Eirny

Toiletry sets were popularized by the Romans throughout their empire. They became an important part of personal attire for women, and remained popular through the Victorian Age. Pre-1066 women’s sets usually consisted of a pair of tweezers, an ear-spoon, and a toothpick/nail cleaner, or just an ear-spoon and a toothpick/nail cleaner. Some sets also included a small brush – possibly for the application of cosmetics. Late in the Roman Era specialized, and essentially unusable forms of the toiletry set developed that were only intended as a sign of Romanization – the Toiletry Brooch. This was basically a decorative brooch, often enameled, with a bar that had tiny representations of the various toiletry items hanging from it.

Combination tools appear during the 1500 and 1600’s. They included several forms of tweezer-ear-spoons, and toothpick-ear-spoons. Very inexpensive, poor quality tools, made of wire also appeared at this time and were widely found in areas like London. Individual toiletry items such as a pair of tweezers or a lone ear-spoon are also found, and were probably stored in a small pouch,

Most toiletry sets were made of a copper alloy (bronze), but examples of silver and gold sets do exist.

This form of silver toiletry set on a silver chain is appropriate for both Viking and Anglo-Saxon women.

Men commonly carried a pair of tweezers, and sometimes an ear-spoon, in a pouch.

Viking women usually hung their toiletry sets from their brooches, on a chain or string. Anglo Saxon women hung their toiletry sets from their belts. Less commonly, both groups kept their toiletry sets in a pouch, which could be suspended from a belt.

Late 1500’s toiletry sets often included things like bodkins, for lacing clothing, and scissors, for sewing. They were often suspended from elaborate Chatelaines that hung from a belt.

I hope that this brief summary helps you have a better understanding of the nature and origins of toiletry sets.

The Perfect Medieval Palate Cleanser – Succades

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Eirny

If you are a fan of lemon, natural lemon, not any of those strange fake chemical lemon flavors, I have the perfect Medieval palate cleanser and treat for you – succades. A couple of years ago we were involved in the presentation of a Medieval feast as part of our SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) Yule celebration. It was a Tudor feast, with a fairly large number of dishes and LOTs of meat. We were searching for something yummy, that could be made ahead of time, and be something of a sweeter, lighter, palate cleanser. And there it was in the cookbooks – succades.

Now to the modern individual the concept of eating the peels from lemons may seem a little strange, even yucky. But, if you can imagine this issue from the prospective of a Medieval cook you may begin to understand. The Master of the house has procured a barrel of lemons for the use of the household. Now a barrel is not always the giant size of the metal oil drums that we think of today, but regardless of its size this is a valuable commodity! You use the insides of the fruit as flavoring or ingredients for making lemonade and now you have the skins left. Do you throw them away? Not on your life! They smell great – there must be a way to make them taste great, too! So what do you do to remove bitterness? Boil them! Now one of our modern mavens of domesticity has a recipe for succades that is much quicker and uses an oven for at least a portion of the process. Her recipe will keep for a week or two – the original will keep for months. The original purpose of creating the succades was to use and preserve a precious commodity.

The Original Recipe : Succade of Lemon Peels from The Treasurie of Commodius Conceites and Hidden Secrets by John Partridge, 1573

To make sucade of peeles of Lemmons First take off your peeles by quarters and seeth them in faire water, from three quartes to three pintes, them take them out, and put to as much more water and seeth them likewise, and doo againe, till the water wherein they are sodden have no bitterness at all of the peeles, then you are ready, now prepare a Sirop [of] the same liquor . . . one pint of rosewater, and for every quart of liquor one half pound of sugar; seethe them againe together on a soft fire of coles till the Sugar bee incorporated with the liquor, then put in your peeles, let them seeth softly till you percieve that your sirop is as thicke as lite honey. Put them in a pot of stone.

Modern Recipe: Cut the lemons into quarters and use the juice for another purpose. It can be frozen for later use. Most of the pulp of the lemons and the bitter white layer on the inside of the lemon peals needs to be removed. The simplest way to do this is by using a spoon. With a little practice you should be able to remove the pulp and a good bit of the white layer in one piece. Start at one of the points of the peel, hook the spoon under the white layer and peel the white layer and pulp away from the peel.

Once the peals are cleaned, they need to be boiled with 4-5 changes of water. It’s important that you start with a large quantity of water and boil until it is reduced by half. When you think the peels have cooked long enough and with enough changes of water, taste the water. If it is still bitter the lemons are NOT ready. Change the water again and boil them longer.

The cleaned lemon peels in their first pot of water. You can see how we cut the peels and how clean the insides of them are – very little white layer.

In a colander in between batches of water. The lemon peels are beginning to become more translucent.

To candy the peels, pour off the last batch of boiling water. Replace with enough water to barely go over the top of the peels. Add sugar enough to make a light syrup – it is hard to give exact amounts because we have NO idea how many lemon peels you have. When we made these for the feast we did it on the scale of a small industry – buying 20 pound bags of lemons and processing them all for juice (we served fresh lemonade) and succades. Simmer until the sugar/water mixture achieves a medium weight of syrup. Remove the peels from the pot and place over a wax paper on a rack to cool – I recommend using tongs – the sugar syrup is REALLY not. Do NOT leave the pot unattended once the level of syrup in the pot gets low. Sugar can burn and once it is burned the only solution is to start over.

Here is a picture of some of our racks full of drying succades.

Once the peels have dried, layer them in a jar with sugar. Cover loosely. Let stand for 3-5 days. Serve. The “scraps” of lemon “jam” in the bottom of the pot can either be used as jam or rolled in sugar and served as lemon candy. If you roll them in sugar, allow them to dry overnight before you pack them in more sugar in jars. They will resemble the “fruit jelly” candies that you can buy, only they will taste waaay better. If you wish to use the jam as jam – it is really good on toast or with shortbread.

I hope that you will give this process a try. It takes several hours, but does not require a large amount of attention until the final stages of candying. I usually just set the timer and check the water level every fifteen minutes while the lemons are cooking. Our family has added this item to our lists of Medieval “goodies” to take to potlucks and they always disappear rather quickly.

Annular and Penannular Brooches

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Eirny

Annular, Penannular, Ring, and Open Ring Brooches? What the heck are they talking about? All I want is something that works! How many times have I heard comments like those? Lots! But let’s try to unravel the confusion – it really isn’t that complicated. Why bother? I like knowing the correct names of things, but more important, if you ever want to do research on these sorts of brooches, you need to know what to call them when you go to the web or the index of a book.

As with many historical items, these types of brooches have two sets of names, based at least partially on where the writer lives in the world. In Europe, and among some American academics, they are called Ring Brooches and Open Ring Brooches. Others, mostly in America, choose to call Ring Brooches – Annular Brooches, and Open Ring Brooches – Penannular Brooches. According to Harold Newman, in “An Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry” Penannular Pin Brooches must have “a long pin whose length is at least double the diameter of the circle.” My personal research has not found any sort of consistency among authorities in the use of these terms. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use the terms Ring Brooch and Open Ring Brooch– as they are fairly straight forward descriptive terms that can help eliminate confusion.

So what do they look like? Well a Ring Brooch is simply a solid ring with a pin and an Open Ring Brooch is just a giant almost closed “c” shape with a pin. But more on that later!

History

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Open Ring Brooch was developed by the Iron Age Celts of Britain. The gap between the two sides of the brooch gradually became smaller, was then filled with a bar. The bar widened to become a complete ring and the Ring Brooch developed. Whether this is completely accurate or not, the open ring brooch can be reliably dated to at least the 1^st century BC and ring brooches to at least 3 AD.

What were Ring and Open Ring Brooches Used For?

…Just about anything that we would use a button for – like closing the neck opening of a tunic, or holding a cloak closed. I know people who use them to close their shawls or brats, and modernly fancy versions are sold to hold women’s knit lace shawls closed. Archaeologists find large numbers of tiny (less than 1 inch in diameter) Ring brooches during the 15^th and 16^th centuries. It is believed that they were used to attach portions of the undergarments and layers of clothing together. It’s particularly common to find one on each leg for men – to attach the hose to the under drawers. Ring Brooches lie very flat and would not open by themselves.

In addition to practical uses as closures, these brooches were often used purely for decoration. There are many thousands of decorative Ring and Open Ring brooches. The materials and level of decoration on these brooches ranges from simple cast lead or tin brooches, made in the style of pilgrim’s badges, to solid gold enameled and engraved brooches of the highest quality and craftsmanship. There are, of course, also many intermediate level brooches – simple silver brooches with cast, stamped or engraved designs. These brooches often included inscriptions on the back that were designed to protect the wearer. These inscriptions could be used in their full form, or in the form of abbreviations. One commonly used example of this type of inscription are the words “Ave Maria Gracia Plena” – the “Ave Maria” of the rosary – abbreviated as A M G P. The names of the three Magi – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, were also considered to be very prophylactic. This inscription is often found in the form C M B. The letters in either abbreviation may be left with simple spaces between them or separated by dots or asterisks – as in the following example: *A*M*G*P*.

Using Your Ring and Open Ring Brooches

Ring and Open Ring brooches come in many shapes, but the principal behind the use of all of the shapes is the same. A Ring brooch forms a complete ring – therefore the fabric must be pulled up through the center of the brooch before the pin can be inserted through the fabric. The Open Ring brooch has a break in its outside ring, which means that the pin is inserted through the fabric before the end of the pin is placed up on the ring.

This is an example of just a few of the sizes and forms that basic Open Ring Brooches come in.

This example of a Ring Brooch is in the form of a heart. Ring, simply means a closed ring, but the ring does NOT have to be round.

I hope that this helps give you a better understanding of Ring and Open Ring and Annular and Penannular Brooches, and how they work!