SC - Fw: [Mid] Tudor Life

[Alderton, Philippa]

I'm forwarding this to both Lists because the articles contain interesting
information about finds relevent to both SCA-cooks and Medieval Leather.
Cousin Phillipa, enjoy ;-)


Phlip

phlip at morganco.net

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

The World's Need

So many Gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.

- - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
- -----Original Message-----
From: Warrwykk <warrwykk at geocities.com>
To: Middlebridge <sca-middle at midrealm.org>
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 1999 10:20 AM
Subject: [Mid] Tudor Life


>Thought this might be of interest to some of you.  A tudor trash heap
>that was used from about 1485 to 1600 has been discovered giving all
>sorts of glimpses into daily London Tudor life.  These 3 articles were
>
>all in the London Times today.
>
>Your Servant
>Robert Meryell of Warrwykk
>___________________________________
>
>June 16 1999
>                                                BRITAIN
>
>
>          Historians go a little bananas
>
>                   BY DALYA ALBERGE
>                  ARTS CORRESPONDENT
>  A BANANA discovered by archaeologists on a Tudor rubbish
>  tip near the Tower of London may have been nibbled by
>  Henry VIII. But it is the banana alone that is causing
>  excitement because it was in entirely the wrong time-zone,
>  about 300 years before such exotic fruits were regularly
>  imported to Britain.
>
>  The peeled and blackened banana - which, to anyone but an
>  expert, looks just like an over-ripe example today - was
>  found on a building site being excavated by Museum of
>  London archaeologists. Asked how they could be sure that
>  someone had not dropped it last week, Taryn Nixon, the
>  head of archaeological services, said that was impossible
>  because it had been buried "in a sealed context" next to
>  dateable objects. Bananas were cited by travellers in the
>  West Indies "quite early on", she added. "This could be one
>  of those. Whether it was just a curiosity or whether it was
>  passed from one ship to another is impossible to say. This
>  is puzzling."
>
>  John Georgie, a specialist in plant remains, said that this
>  was the first archaeological find of a banana: "They were not
>  imported on a commercial basis until the 19th century as
>  they would just go off. It wasn't a commercial viability until
>  the steamships."
>
>  David Cooke, a specialist at Kew Gardens, said this banana
>  might have originated in Asia. Because they take several
>  weeks to ripen, one might have been taken "straight to the
>  King" when a ship arrived.
>
>
>__________________________________________
>
>June 16 1999
>                                                BRITAIN
>
>
>    London fish tank reveals everyday
>                  life of Tudors
>
>          BY DALYA ALBERGE, ARTS CORRESPONDENT
>                        Links
>
>  THE discovery of a huge Tudor rubbish dump is giving
>  historians their best insights yet into the lives of the
>  Londoners of the day.
>
>  Archaeologists from the Museum of London have unearthed
>  thousands of objects dating from the 1480s to the early
>  1600s at a two-acre site around Tooley Street, on the south
>  side of Tower Bridge.
>
>  Shoes and spoons, toys and tools offer rare glimpses into
>  the lifestyles of all strata of society. Objects considered too
>  insignificant to have been recorded in documents or
>  paintings now reveal what Tudor Londoners ate, what they
>  threw away, how they dressed and how they played. Until
>  the site was found, relatively little archaeological evidence
>  had been discovered. "What we've found has proved we
>  didn't know half as much as we thought," said Simon
>  Thurley, the museum's director.
>
>  Among more than 400 leather shoes are some that are
>  perfectly preserved and as modern in design as anything for
>  sale today in Knightsbridge. A pair of stylish black suede
>  shoes with leather laces and an elegant buckle might have
>  been made yesterday.
>
>  To judge from some of the styles, Tudor Londoners were
>  prepared to suffer for fashion: one pair of shoes stuffed with
>  moss to stiffen the curled point would have been less than
>  comfortable.
>
>  Dr Thurley said that never before had so many Tudor objects
>  been found together in such closely dateable deposits and in
>  such a fine state of preservation.
>
>  The dump was discovered during excavations for a new hotel
>  complex two months ago. Its contents were preserved in the
>  waterlogged remains of a Tudor fish farm in an area that
>  was, from medieval times, home to the wealthy and
>  influential. The objects were thrown into the disused fish
>  tanks about 1560, when the property, known then as the
>  Pike Garden, was sold. Others were thrown into a nearby
>  sewer that was closed in 1610.
>
>  Dave Saxby, an archaeologist with the museum who is
>  supervising the search for artefacts, said: "If you excavate
>  any site in London, you're lucky to get one shoe or one
>  knife. The majority have broken bits of pottery and animal
>  bone. Here they are in mint condition, like the day they were
>  thrown in."
>
>  The finds portray all levels of society on London's South
>  Bank, from the wealthy with their padded armour to the poor
>  with their worn pewter spoons.
>
>  Pottery tankards and a bottle in a wicker basket point to the
>  taverns for which Southwark was famous. Many of the pots
>  were imported and a piece of Chinese porcelain is the
>  earliest example found in London.
>
>  Also extracted from the detritus was a delicate comb, which
>  has a circular indentation that may have held a mirror.
>
>  Vessels such as a huge copper cauldron in which people
>  would have cooked are almost intact. Other discoveries
>  include rare armour; perfectly preserved tools, including a
>  sickle, spade and shovel; and a musical instrument thought
>  to be a bagpipe.
>
>  There is also a dagger; part of a saddle; an intricate leather
>  fringe that may be from a belt; children's toys, including a
>  whistle; a wooden bowls ball; part of a window shutter; and,
>  of course, the banana.
>
>  Taryn Nixon, the head of the museum's archaeolgical
>  services department, said that the objects conjure up
>  "thriving industries of Tudor Southwark . . . people going in
>  and out of the ale-houses, the leather workers taking orders
>  from the finely turned out gentleman with his metal outer
>  corset, and perhaps even someone turning up their nose at
>  the thought that this curious soft, yellow food - well, no,
>  probably quite black and rotten - was to be eaten."
>
>  Dr Thurley said that the museum was keen to put the finds
>  on show as soon as possible.
>
>_______________________________________________
>
>June 16 1999
>                                                BRITAIN
>
>
>
>
>
>   Fruit and vegetables made for good
>                        diet
>  THE diet of the privileged person in Tudor times was a
>  healthy one, with plenty of fruit and vegetables (Dalya
>  Alberge writes).
>
>  While the banana is the most recent find, archaeologists
>  have in the past unearthed seeds and stones from grapes,
>  figs, apples, plums, peaches, walnuts and hazelnuts.
>
>  John Georgie, a specialist in organic remains at the
>  Museum of London, said: "They were suspicious of fresh
>  fruit. They used to cook it, as they thought it caused
>  common illness such as diarrhoea and dysentery."
>
>  He pointed to a comment from a 15th-century schoolboy
>  who complained: "I ate damsons yesterday, which made my
>  stomach so raw that I could eat no manner of flesh." One
>  contemporary document observed: "Raw pears a poison,
>  baked a medicine be."
>
>  Apples were pulped in a mortar and placed in tarts, while
>  strawberries and cherries went in pottages. Mr Georgie
>  noted that it was only in the 18th century that attitudes
>  changed and people started eating fresh fruit.
>
>  As for meat, Alan Pipe, a zoologist with the Museum of
>  London, said that the Tudors ate many animals we eat now -
>  chicken, duck, goose or rabbit.
>
>
>
>--
>Logician:  There you go arguing again!  You are so inconsistent!
>Sage:  How so?
>Logician: Because you admit that the good man does not argue, and you
>go
>on arguing with complete disregard of that fact.
>Sage:  I am not being inconsistent,  It just so happens that at the
>moment
>I feel more like arguing than being good.
>    -Raymond Smullyan
>
>
>From:  Warrwykk <warrwykk at geocities.com>
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