Atlantia Link Library

Baroness Ellice de Valles's blog on medieval gardening and 14th-century living, with compiled primary and secondary gardening texts under 'The Art of Barrow and Basket.'

Full text of W. H. R. Curtler's early 20th-century history of English agriculture from ancient times through the late 19th century, free on Project Gutenberg.

Open-access PNAS study of archaeobotanical remains from 18 sites showing that Madagascar's early settlers grew Asian crops (rice, mung bean, cotton), the first hard archaeological evidence for the Austronesian settlement of the island.

Overview of Aztec staple foods and farming: chinampa raised fields, maize and nixtamalization, beans, amaranth, chillies, feasting, and the drinking of cacao and pulque.

A general crafting and cottagecore lifestyle blog with a medieval/fantasy bent; it does not mention the SCA directly. Posts cover leatherworking (a card-game organizer, armour pauldrons), Viking-style weaving, garden updates and personal life, with links to an Etsy shop.

Promotes the study of agricultural history and the history of the rural economy and society.

Describes food-gathering, food preparation, and dining in the Middle Ages, accompanied by illustrations from medieval (mostly 15th century) illuminated manuscripts.

Multi-year project blog from Wellington, NZ documenting growing flax from seed and processing it — retting, breaking, scutching, spinning and weaving — into linen for historical garments.

Educational essay on Chinese sericulture: silkworm raising, reeling and weaving technology, sumptuary uses of silk, and the westward spread of silk technology along the trade routes.

Survey of Inca staple crops (maize, potatoes, quinoa), terrace farming, freeze-dried chuno, food storage in qollqa warehouses, and elite feasting. Useful starting point for Andean foodways and persona research.

Open-access research article on terra preta, the anthropogenic dark earths that supported large pre-Columbian settlements in Amazonia, debating how these fertile soils formed. Entry point to pre-1600 Amazonian agriculture and settlement research.

Personal blog by Leena on dyeing with plants and mushrooms, in Finnish and English, covering dye sources, mordanting, growing dye plants, and lightfastness tests. It formerly supported a shop selling naturally dyed yarn; the author announced retirement in early 2022.

Experimental-archaeology A&S blog covering naalbinding, sprang, lacemaking, lucet cord, medieval cooking and feast planning, plus growing period foods and kids' Viking flatbread.

Manorial estates survived many centuries of change and appear to have been highly sustainabl e agricultur al systems. Yet this sustainabi lity was not achieved because of high agricultur al productivi ty -- indeed it appears that farmers were trading off low productivi ty against the more highly val

Free scholarly volume (Terra Australis 46) presenting the archaeology of Kuk Swamp in highland Papua New Guinea, one of the world's independent centers of agriculture, with evidence of taro and banana cultivation, wooden spades and drainage systems.

A dialogue on the labors of plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, and fishermen.

Scholarly project publishing and translating the Arabic agronomy corpus, especially the Andalusi 'books of filaha' on farming, horticulture, irrigation, and animal husbandry by authors such as Ibn al-Awwam and Ibn Bassal.

Research-based overview of the Hohokam of the Sonoran Desert, famed for canal irrigation, red-on-buff pottery, shell jewelry, and ballcourts, with links to further scholarship.

Oneida Nation account of corn, beans, and squash as the 'Sustainers of Life,' explaining the companion-planting system and its place in Haudenosaunee foodways and belief.

Well-sourced essay on Africa's independent centers of plant domestication - pearl millet and sorghum in the Sahel, African rice and fonio, yams, and teff in the Ethiopian highlands - and how these crops spread across and beyond the continent.

Charles McLean Andrews's study of the Old English manor as an institution in English economic history, digitized on Google Books.

This study returns to the traditional genre of medieval-estate studies to explore such missing links, emphasizing, in particular, the study of pastoral resources. The rich literature on seigneurial agriculture notwithstanding, historians know little about the local use of resources by agrarian insti

Personal SCA project documenting one grower's orchid cultivation alongside research into orchid history, from medicinal use as 'salep' in 16th-century herbals to appearances in Renaissance botanical illustration, with a blog, photo gallery, and research volumes.

Journal article (PDF) from the Agricultural History Review examining the agricultural geography of medieval England.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Illustrati ons of beehives, including depictions of skeps and tile hives.

For centuries, beekeepers have used skeps, carefully designed domed baskets, to house their hives. Learn how to make one.

Notes on medieval beekeeping from the Geoponika, a 10th-centu ry Byzantine work on farming.

Text of Palladius's 4th-century treatise 'On Husbandry,' at Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

Overview of food and drink available in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Charles Butler's 1609 beekeeping treatise 'The Feminine Monarchie,' on the nature and due ordering of bees, digitized on Google Books.

This excerpt is Chapter X of the book The Histori of Bees, written by Charles Butler, published by William Turner, Oxford, 1634. The book is a general work on beekeeping, going into enormous detail on all aspects of the subject. This excerpt is the final section, which concerns the use of the hive -

Archived FAQ on the mediaeval custom of skep beekeeping.

Entry on the bee from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Research article on alcoholic beverages and drinking customs of the Viking Age, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

Covers the design of bee-skeps in England up to the 16th century.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Online library of digitized historic and modern biology books, including natural history works.

The development of the garden in the Middle Ages (focusing especially on German gardens), and different types and functions of gardens.

Overview of flax processing from dense planting through fiber preparation, from AnneLiese's Fibers and Stuff (archived).

Asnapium: An Inventory of One of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800 from the Medieval Sourcebook. Examples of included items are: bed clothes, kitchen ware, farm implements, measures of dry goods and harvests, cattle and fowl, specific garden herb and trees.

An 1893 partial modernized translatio n of 'De Proprietat ibus rerum' by Bartholome w Anglicus.

Primer on modern botanical naming and plant identification for medievalists researching period plants.

Most, if not all, spices have existed from time immemorial . But that does not mean that everyone, in all times, used or had available all spices. Each culture and era has its own specific selection of spices, or "Spice Chest" . Curren tly includes: a late Roman spice Chest; a Norse spice chest; a m

An introducti on to medieval plants and gardening practices by way of the gardens of The Cloisters.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Peer-reviewed genetic study of early medieval cattle remains from a Scandinavian settlement in Dublin, compared with extant breeds, on PubMed Central.

Text of the chapter on cattle kept for profit from Harrison's 1577 'Description of Elizabethan England,' at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Asnapium: An Inventory of One of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800 from the Medieval Sourcebook. Examples of included items are: bed clothes, kitchen ware, farm implements, measures of dry goods and harvests, cattle and fowl, specific garden herb and trees.

Text of Palladius's 4th-century treatise 'On Husbandry,' at Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

One of the earliest manuscript s to deal specifical ly with 17th century agricultur e in Scotland was written by John Skene of the Hallyards, who succeeded to the estate in 1644, and died in 1669.

A dialogue on the labors of plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, and fishermen.

The size, weight and carcass compositio n of cattle and sheep in early modern Scotland.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Describes food-gathering, food preparation, and dining in the Middle Ages, accompanied by illustrations from medieval (mostly 15th century) illuminated manuscripts.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century. New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone,

Text of Palladius's 4th-century treatise 'On Husbandry,' at Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

One of the earliest manuscript s to deal specifical ly with 17th century agricultur e in Scotland was written by John Skene of the Hallyards, who succeeded to the estate in 1644, and died in 1669.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

From '' The Booke of haukynge, huntyng and fysshyng, with all necessary properties and medicines that are to be kept,' ' 1561, with an omission of matter restored from the edition of Wynken de Worde, 1496.

A modern English translation of a section of Lawrens Andrewe's The noble lyfe & nature of man: Of bestes, serpentys, fowles & fisshes y be moste knowen relating to "the natures of the fisshes of the See."

Links to images of fishing and fishermen in medieval and Renaissance works of art, from the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com.

Digitized edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's medieval encyclopedia, covering the science, geography, and animal and plant folklore of the Middle Ages.

An ongoing site with articles and links on fishing as it applies to the Middle Ages.

Scholarly bibliography on medieval hunting, falconry, angling, and horsemanship, from the ORB Online Encyclopedia.

Fish was an important element in the diets of the people of Viking Age Britain.

The consumption of fish was an important part of life in the early medieval period and therefore the catching, preparation, storage and cooking played an equally significant role in everyday life.

Overview of food and drink available in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

For almost a millennium , a modest wooden ship lay underwater off the coast of Serce Limani, Turkey, filled with evidence of trade and objects of daily life. The ship trafficked in both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds of its time. The ship is known as "the Glass Wreck" because its cargo included th

A dialogue on the labors of plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, and fishermen.

The carp, by the admission of most authoritat ive fish farmers and piscicultu rists, is one of the most important food fish in the world. however, their origins are shrouded in mythology. Even where serious attempts have been made to trace the origins of this fish in the British Isles, the difficult

Entry on fish from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Depictions of bird cages in illustrati ons and paintings from the 12th-16th centuries.

Chickens in medieval & Renaissanc e iconograph y. Includes illustrati ons relating to coops and shelters built to shelter poultry.

An online encyclopedia of poultry. Any kind of domestic or semi domestic bird used as livestock. Lots of history and other links!

Goose farming on late medieval English demesnes, based on manorial accounts from several eastern counties.

Text of the chapter on wild and tame fowls from Harrison's 1577 'Description of Elizabethan England,' at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Asnapium: An Inventory of One of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800 from the Medieval Sourcebook. Examples of included items are: bed clothes, kitchen ware, farm implements, measures of dry goods and harvests, cattle and fowl, specific garden herb and trees.

Digitized edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's medieval encyclopedia, covering the science, geography, and animal and plant folklore of the Middle Ages.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

On the rolling banks of the James River in Virginia stands a remarkable Tudor estate, actually built in Lancashire , England in the late 15th Century.

Describes a modern garden planted in the style of an Elizabethan knot garden.

An online exhibit, featuring the gardens of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome.

Some spiritual/religious content, but a lot of history and detailed how-to's. Chartre's Labyrinth was built in the 1200's; many pictures.

The development of the garden in the Middle Ages (focusing especially on German gardens), and different types and functions of gardens.

Museum in London celebrating the art, history and design of gardens, with collections, archive, exhibitions and gardens including Benton End.

Full text of William Harrison's 'Description of Elizabethan England' (1577), including the chapter on gardens and orchards, from the Internet History Sourcebooks.

Web edition of Marie-Luise Gothein's 'History of Garden Art' (1913), with articles, diagrams, and editorial notes and links.

A landscape design expert in Penn State' s College of Agricultur al Sciences points out that gardens created between 500 and 1500 A.D. offered a respite for the soul, as well as a source for food, household items and medicine.

An introducti on to medieval plants and gardening practices by way of the gardens of The Cloisters.

Overview of medieval gardens — kitchen, physic, and pleasure gardens — from Gode Cookery's 'Tales of the Middle Ages'.

Gardening advice from the Menagier de Paris (c. 1393), presented on historian Martha Carlin's site.

Features photographs of Japanese gardens designed from ancient times up to the 20th century.

Description of the Bonnefont Cloister herb garden at the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval branch in New York.

A living memorial to America's original English colonists, on Roanoke Island, NC.

Noteworthy Gardens, Events, Persons, Publications, and Facts in the History of Gardening References and Web Links Organized by Time Periods Some Information about Agriculture, Farming, Culinary Arts, Botany, Horticulture, Technology, Arts and Crafts

A blog about medieval plants and gardens, and specifical ly about the gardens at the Cloisters Museum.

On the Elizabetha n garden and the condition of horticultu re in Shakespear e's time. Includes descriptio ns and references to earlier gardens as well.

Essay on scent in the medieval world, covering herbal manuscripts, perfumes, and everyday fragrance, magic, and medicine.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Text from 1908 on the history of farriers, from the Vieux Métiers (old trades) series at France Pittoresque.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century. New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone,

Scholarly bibliography on medieval hunting, falconry, angling, and horsemanship, from the ORB Online Encyclopedia.

Text of Palladius's 4th-century treatise 'On Husbandry,' at Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

One of the earliest manuscript s to deal specifical ly with 17th century agricultur e in Scotland was written by John Skene of the Hallyards, who succeeded to the estate in 1644, and died in 1669.

The group of armored equestrian figures forming the centerpiec e of the permanent arms and armor exhibition has, for almost a century, been one of the most popular and dramatic areas of the Metropolit an Museum. Aside from the bards (complete horse armors of plate) displayed on the figures, the Muse

Entry on the horse from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Study of the medieval horse and its equipment, c.1150-c.1450, published by Boydell Press, on Google Books.

This study returns to the traditional genre of medieval-estate studies to explore such missing links, emphasizing, in particular, the study of pastoral resources. The rich literature on seigneurial agriculture notwithstanding, historians know little about the local use of resources by agrarian insti

Masters Thesis, discussing Scandinavi an horse burials, artwork, and literature during the Viking Age. Word document format.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

The deer in the parks, chases and forests of medieval England were managed more actively, and witha greater skill and care, than is perhaps generally realized. Their owners derived considerab le benefits from them, not only in the opportunit y to hunt, which was often subsidiary , but invenison, a h

Describes food-gathering, food preparation, and dining in the Middle Ages, accompanied by illustrations from medieval (mostly 15th century) illuminated manuscripts.

In the Middle Ages, deer were a primary source of food, resources, and inspiration, and the medieval table was often laden with a variety of venison. This site examines the popularity of deer as an object of the hunt and as an important source of protein in the medieval diet.

Entry on the hare from the Medieval Bestiary, with attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and images.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century. New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone,

A portal site with modern information for raising and caring for rabbits.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Entry on the rabbit from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Entry on the stag from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

This study returns to the traditional genre of medieval-estate studies to explore such missing links, emphasizing, in particular, the study of pastoral resources. The rich literature on seigneurial agriculture notwithstanding, historians know little about the local use of resources by agrarian insti

A translation from Olivier de Serre's Le Theatre d'Agriculture (1600). (A very large PDF.)

In the course of a study of the medieval fur trade, I have collected references to rabbits in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and these make possible a more detailed account of the introducti on of the animal in England than has hitherto been given.

Mostly an illustrated practical guide to small-scale sericulture, but with some SCA content, including tabletweaving and silk reeling using traditional methods.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Cistercian s occasional ly marketed an intrinsica lly better product and very often prepared their clip more carefully.

The approach I propose to make in this paper is first to look at modern breeds, and their distributi on in the recent past, to see how far their ancestry can be pushed back towards the Middle Ages. Then a brief considerat ion will be given of the meagre pre-mediev al evidence, including the origin o

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

One of the earliest manuscript s to deal specifical ly with 17th century agricultur e in Scotland was written by John Skene of the Hallyards, who succeeded to the estate in 1644, and died in 1669.

It has recently been maintained that computatio n by the 'great ' or 'long& #39; hundred of six score was "the prevailing usage in sheep-farm ing accounts&# 34; in medieval England. Since this contention , if correct, would profoundly affect the statistics of medieval sheep-farm ing, an examinatio n

A dialogue on the labors of plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, and fishermen.

Entry on the lamb from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Entry on the sheep from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

The size, weight and carcass compositio n of cattle and sheep in early modern Scotland.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Images and descriptions of animals and monsters from medieval bestiaries at the BNF.

Stories and proverbs from Latin bestiaries, along with Aesopic fables in verse and prose, plus other animal stories taken from various medieval Latin sources.

The deer in the parks, chases and forests of medieval England were managed more actively, and witha greater skill and care, than is perhaps generally realized. Their owners derived considerab le benefits from them, not only in the opportunit y to hunt, which was often subsidiary , but invenison, a h

Open-access zooarchaeology study of animal remains from Unguja Ukuu and Tumbe on Zanzibar (7th-16th c.), showing how fish, livestock, and introduced Asian species shaped diet in Swahili Indian Ocean trading towns.

In the Middle Ages, deer were a primary source of food, resources, and inspiration, and the medieval table was often laden with a variety of venison. This site examines the popularity of deer as an object of the hunt and as an important source of protein in the medieval diet.

Essay on medieval bestiaries, the Physiologus, bestiary illustrations, and their role in the birth of zoology, by Aura Beckhöfer-Fialho.

Entry on the hare from the Medieval Bestiary, with attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and images.

Digitized edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's medieval encyclopedia, covering the science, geography, and animal and plant folklore of the Middle Ages.

"This study considers the effects that variations in living conditions have on animals, in particular pigs, and how these difference s can be examined using the archaeolog ical record." And looks at the different ways that pigs were raised at six sites in Flanders from the 4th-15th centuries.

A portal site with modern information for raising and caring for rabbits.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

An index to the newsletter of the Slavic Interest Group, organized by article topics.

Iconograph y of squirrels from the 13th-16th centuries, including examples of the accoutreme nts created for pet squirrels.

True stories, fables, and anecdotes about cats in the Middle Ages, including the Irish monk's poem to his cat Pangur Ban, presented by Gode Cookery.

The Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen University Library MS 24) is considered to be one of the best examples of its type. The manuscript, written and illuminated in England around 1200, is of added interest since it contains notes, sketches and other evidence of the way it was designed and executed.

Article on the dromedary as the 'ship of the desert' that made trans-Saharan commerce possible, covering camel husbandry, hybrid breeding, caravan logistics and the golden age of desert trade from the 9th century CE.

A visual resource for the study of the Fantastic or of the supernatural in fiction and in art.

The goal is to gather all available information about the Medieval Bestiary and its antecendants, as well as related information on the medieval view of animals in general, both fabulous and real. Aspects of the general topic of animals in the Middle Ages, with an emphasis on the manuscript traditio

Entry on the cat from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Entry on the rabbit from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Entry on the stag from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

This study returns to the traditional genre of medieval-estate studies to explore such missing links, emphasizing, in particular, the study of pastoral resources. The rich literature on seigneurial agriculture notwithstanding, historians know little about the local use of resources by agrarian insti

In the course of a study of the medieval fur trade, I have collected references to rabbits in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and these make possible a more detailed account of the introducti on of the animal in England than has hitherto been given.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

An article discussing the difficulti es of differenti ating between wildcats and housecats from archaeolog y. Evidence from Hedeby, York and the Orkneys is analysed.

Chapter on the illumination of books from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

This website is a portal to worldwide collections of medieval polyphonic music manuscripts (the resource does not include plainchant). The music and the manuscripts date from approx 800 to 1500, and the original documents are kept in libraries and archives around the globe. This website includes det

Click on "Recherche" to search for books and manuscripts in the collection of the national library of France.

Getty Museum exhibition on monastic illuminated manuscripts, 800-1200.

A website from a past exhibit which showcased examples of the vast array of lavishly illustrated nonreligious manuscripts that were produced between 500-1500 A.D.

Web Gallery of Art collection of illuminated manuscripts 1151-1200, including German, English, French works and the Fécamp Psalter.

An iconographic database covering about 15,000 of the illuminations in the BNF's Department of Manuscripts.

Digitized catalogue of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts selected for the beauty of their illumination and the significance of their texts, from the Posner Memorial Collection.

Collection of online historical fencing manuals and texts from the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA).

A complex, scholarly, multi-media electronic archive containing a medieval manuscript tradition -- that of Chrétien de Troyes's Le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot, ca. 1180).

The Schøyen Collection comprises most types of manuscripts from the whole world spanning over 5000 years. It is the largest private manuscript collection formed in the 20th century.

Chapter on the illumination of books from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

This website is a portal to worldwide collections of medieval polyphonic music manuscripts (the resource does not include plainchant). The music and the manuscripts date from approx 800 to 1500, and the original documents are kept in libraries and archives around the globe. This website includes det

Click on "Recherche" to search for books and manuscripts in the collection of the national library of France.

A website from a past exhibition which explored Italian manuscript painting from the 1200s through the 1500s, focusing on five centers of manuscript production in Italy -- Bologna, northeastern Italy, Lombardy, Tuscany & Umbria, and Rome -- each with its own artistic traditions.

A website from a past exhibition exploring the influence of Byzantine art on manuscript painting in Germany, Italy, and Armenia.

A webpage on an exhibition displaying a style of manuscript illumination that evolved around the 13th and 14th centuries, characterized by a naturalistic style of painting and a sense of liveliness in the format of the page. Gothic illumination, which flourished in northern Europe from about 1200 to

Web Gallery of Art collection of Gothic illuminated manuscripts 1201-1250 from Germany, England, and France.

Web Gallery of Art collection of Gothic illuminated manuscripts 1251-1300, including the Spanish Alfonsine codices.

An iconographic database covering about 15,000 of the illuminations in the BNF's Department of Manuscripts.

Digitized catalogue of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts selected for the beauty of their illumination and the significance of their texts, from the Posner Memorial Collection.

Special treasures from the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen University Library MS 24) is considered to be one of the best examples of its type. The manuscript, written and illuminated in England around 1200, is of added interest since it contains notes, sketches and other evidence of the way it was designed and executed.

Collection of online historical fencing manuals and texts from the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA).

A complex, scholarly, multi-media electronic archive containing a medieval manuscript tradition -- that of Chrétien de Troyes's Le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot, ca. 1180).

The Schøyen Collection comprises most types of manuscripts from the whole world spanning over 5000 years. It is the largest private manuscript collection formed in the 20th century.

Chapter on the illumination of books from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

A 14th Century Book of Hours that belongs to Oberlin College Library's Special Collections, known as the Artz Hours after the donor, Frederick B. Artz. Here you will find a digital facsimile of this book -- you can look through the book page by page.

Illustrations from the Manesse Codex, with descriptions of the illustrations.

This website is a portal to worldwide collections of medieval polyphonic music manuscripts (the resource does not include plainchant). The music and the manuscripts date from approx 800 to 1500, and the original documents are kept in libraries and archives around the globe. This website includes det

Click on "Recherche" to search for books and manuscripts in the collection of the national library of France.

A website from a past exhibition which explored Italian manuscript painting from the 1200s through the 1500s, focusing on five centers of manuscript production in Italy -- Bologna, northeastern Italy, Lombardy, Tuscany & Umbria, and Rome -- each with its own artistic traditions.

Getty Museum exhibition on courtly illuminated manuscripts 1380-1450 in the International Gothic style.

A webpage on an exhibition displaying a style of manuscript illumination that evolved around the 13th and 14th centuries, characterized by a naturalistic style of painting and a sense of liveliness in the format of the page. Gothic illumination, which flourished in northern Europe from about 1200 to

Web Gallery of Art collection of Gothic illuminated manuscripts 1301-1350, including English, French, Italian works and the Codex Manesse.

Web Gallery of Art collection of Gothic illuminated manuscripts 1351-1400, including French, Italian, and herbal manuscripts.

7 historiated initials with extensive white work and diaper paterns.

The Red Book of Montserrat is a collection of late medieval songs collected at the end of the 14th century for the pilgrims to sing at the church of the Blessed Mary of Montserrat. Also available in modern musical notation or as MIDI samples .

An iconographic database covering about 15,000 of the illuminations in the BNF's Department of Manuscripts.

Digitized catalogue of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts selected for the beauty of their illumination and the significance of their texts, from the Posner Memorial Collection.

The University of Chicago celebrates the acquisition of a manuscript of Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose) and its reunion with Le Jeu des échecs moralisé (The Moralized Game of Chess), a manuscript that has been in the Library's collection since 1931. Each of these two popular mediev

Special treasures from the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Collection of online historical fencing manuals and texts from the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA).

A digital facsimile of a 14th century book of hours; you can look through the book, page by page.

A complex, scholarly, multi-media electronic archive containing a medieval manuscript tradition -- that of Chrétien de Troyes's Le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot, ca. 1180).

A reproduction in facsimile of the 14th century Holkham Bible Picture Book.

The Schøyen Collection comprises most types of manuscripts from the whole world spanning over 5000 years. It is the largest private manuscript collection formed in the 20th century.

Waterford is Ireland&#3 9;s oldest city, founded by Viking raiders in 914 A.D. The city centre was extensivel y excavated between 1986 and 1992 and the range, quantity and quality of what was found from Waterford& #39;s Viking and Medieval past, surpassed all expectatio ns. Waterford Museum of Treas

Chapter on the illumination of books from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

A collection of notes on Books of Hours in Danish collection s intended for students and scholars already specialize d in the analysis of medieval manuscript s. Use the CHD Guides to Pictorial Resources to view illustrati ons.

Interactive resources from an exhibit about the work and lifetime of the Limbourg Brothers.

This website is a portal to worldwide collections of medieval polyphonic music manuscripts (the resource does not include plainchant). The music and the manuscripts date from approx 800 to 1500, and the original documents are kept in libraries and archives around the globe. This website includes det

Digitized copy of Alfred W. Pollard's 'Early Illustrated Books' (1927) on the decoration and illustration of 15th- and 16th-century books.

Click on "Recherche" to search for books and manuscripts in the collection of the national library of France.

A webpage from a past exhibition from the Getty's permanent collection exploring manuscripts dating from the mid-1100s to the mid-1500s, including illuminated books of hours and their earlier monastic precursors, psalters and breviaries.

Getty Museum exhibition on courtly illuminated manuscripts 1380-1450 in the International Gothic style.

A website from a past exhibition which explored Italian manuscript painting from the 1200s through the 1500s, focusing on five centers of manuscript production in Italy -- Bologna, northeastern Italy, Lombardy, Tuscany & Umbria, and Rome -- each with its own artistic traditions.

A website from a past exhibition which explored the role of textiles in medieval manuscripts.

A website from a past exhibit which showcased examples of the vast array of lavishly illustrated nonreligious manuscripts that were produced between 500-1500 A.D.

High-resolution digital facsimile of the Göttingen Gutenberg Bible, freely available online from the Göttingen Digitization Center.

Web Gallery of Art section of Hungarian illuminated manuscripts, 1451-1500 (page has moved to a new address).

Heidelberg University Library holds among others 27 late medieval illustrate d manuscript s originatin g from three of the most popular 15th-centu ry German workshops. The project involves not only the digitizati on of the 27 manuscript s, but also the cataloging of the themes and motifs of the illu

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France's online class analyzing the Book of the Hunt of Gaston Phoebus.

An iconographic database covering about 15,000 of the illuminations in the BNF's Department of Manuscripts.

Digitized catalogue of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts selected for the beauty of their illumination and the significance of their texts, from the Posner Memorial Collection.

Special treasures from the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Collection of online historical fencing manuals and texts from the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA).

Twelve pages with an English transcription. Includes instructions on painting foliage, illuminated letters, and patterns.

Photos and description of a book "produced c1500 ... filled with designs for different styles of script, letters, initials and decorative borders."

The Schøyen Collection comprises most types of manuscripts from the whole world spanning over 5000 years. It is the largest private manuscript collection formed in the 20th century.

Chapter on the illumination of books from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

A collection of notes on Books of Hours in Danish collection s intended for students and scholars already specialize d in the analysis of medieval manuscript s. Use the CHD Guides to Pictorial Resources to view illustrati ons.

"In the early 16th century, Cardinal Patriarch Marco Cornaro commissioned [this] illuminated manuscript, the famous Cornaro Missal. A missal is a book containing all of the prayers and responses to celebrate the Roman Catholic Mass throughout the year. In the early 1600s, the missal was bound in a R

Digitized copy of Alfred W. Pollard's 'Early Illustrated Books' (1927) on the decoration and illustration of 15th- and 16th-century books.

Click on "Recherche" to search for books and manuscripts in the collection of the national library of France.

A website from a past exhibition which explored Italian manuscript painting from the 1200s through the 1500s, focusing on five centers of manuscript production in Italy -- Bologna, northeastern Italy, Lombardy, Tuscany & Umbria, and Rome -- each with its own artistic traditions.

An iconographic database covering about 15,000 of the illuminations in the BNF's Department of Manuscripts.

Digitized catalogue of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts selected for the beauty of their illumination and the significance of their texts, from the Posner Memorial Collection.

Web Gallery of Art collection of Renaissance illuminated manuscripts 1501-1550, including French and Flemish works.

Collection of online historical fencing manuals and texts from the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA).

The UK's College of Arms shows two 16th century grants of arms and crest by letters patent.

Photos and description of a book "produced c1500 ... filled with designs for different styles of script, letters, initials and decorative borders."

The Schøyen Collection comprises most types of manuscripts from the whole world spanning over 5000 years. It is the largest private manuscript collection formed in the 20th century.

With an emphasis on Polish manuscript s.

Waterford is Ireland&#3 9;s oldest city, founded by Viking raiders in 914 A.D. The city centre was extensivel y excavated between 1986 and 1992 and the range, quantity and quality of what was found from Waterford& #39;s Viking and Medieval past, surpassed all expectatio ns. Waterford Museum of Treas

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Illustrati ons of beehives, including depictions of skeps and tile hives.

For centuries, beekeepers have used skeps, carefully designed domed baskets, to house their hives. Learn how to make one.

Notes on medieval beekeeping from the Geoponika, a 10th-centu ry Byzantine work on farming.

Text of Palladius's 4th-century treatise 'On Husbandry,' at Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

Overview of food and drink available in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Charles Butler's 1609 beekeeping treatise 'The Feminine Monarchie,' on the nature and due ordering of bees, digitized on Google Books.

This excerpt is Chapter X of the book The Histori of Bees, written by Charles Butler, published by William Turner, Oxford, 1634. The book is a general work on beekeeping, going into enormous detail on all aspects of the subject. This excerpt is the final section, which concerns the use of the hive -

Archived FAQ on the mediaeval custom of skep beekeeping.

Entry on the bee from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Research article on alcoholic beverages and drinking customs of the Viking Age, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

Covers the design of bee-skeps in England up to the 16th century.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Short book (PDF) on the art of medieval falconry as practiced in a modern world, by Eule von Haginbald.

Brief article about possible hawking bells, and hawking by Norse aristocrac y.

Digitized edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's medieval encyclopedia, covering the science, geography, and animal and plant folklore of the Middle Ages.

Scholarly bibliography on medieval hunting, falconry, angling, and horsemanship, from the ORB Online Encyclopedia.

Some of the sports, games, music, verse, dancing, toys, and other pastimes of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Despite the full agricultural year that most people faced, there was always time for folk to partake in games, challenges, tests of skill and general larking about.

Saint Bavon' s Company of Falconry is an SCA group dedicated to researchin g and recreating the noble arts of falconry and hawking as they were practiced within the medieval and renaissanc e period.

Philip Stubbes started writing around 1581 producing small tracts in which he sharply denounced the manners, pastimes, fashions and culture in England. His major work, The Anatomie of Abuses, was first published in 1583. P hilip Stubbes had a gift for keen observatio n. Although his comments should

Entry on the hawk from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

Article (PDF) on women falconers through history, from the International Association for Falconry.

Hypertext edition of a Book of Hours, with Latin text and English translation drawn from the 1599 Primer and manuscript images from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

Information about manuscripts from Antiquity and the Middle Ages now housed in Switzerland.

A thousand images spanning seven centuries of manuscripts in the Bodleian Library's collection.

Images & Exhibts from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Columbia University Library Collection.

Treasures from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, including manuscripts from the 8th century to the present.

This site provides access to over 80 early manuscripts now in institutions associated with the University of Oxford.

Click on "Recherche" to search for books and manuscripts in the collection of the national library of France.

Hill Museum & Manuscript Library collections of Western European, Eastern Christian, Islamic, and other manuscripts, with online exhibits and images.

Illuminated manuscripts (miniatures) from the 12th to 16th centuries from the Web Gallery of Art.

The history of illumination of vellum manuscripts, from classical times down to the decay and virtual disuse of the art which resulted inevitably, though not immediately, from the introduction of printing; describing the main characteristics of the most important periods and schools, and following t

An online book from an exhibit at the Brandeis University Library in conjunction with the Society of Bibliophiles.

Introduction to the medieval manuscript collection at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, at the Internet History Sourcebooks Project.

If you don't know where to go to find manuscripts - go here. Many sites are listed, not all of the links work all of the time but it's a fantastic resource leading to many other places. Definately worth a browse.

Digitized catalogue of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts selected for the beauty of their illumination and the significance of their texts, from the Posner Memorial Collection.

Digitized catalogue 'The Illustrated Book,' covering illuminated manuscripts, early woodcut books, engraved illustration, atlases, and maps, from the Posner Memorial Collection.

A central index for pre-1600 books, both books directly on the web, and information for finding interesting books in libraries.

The Schøyen Collection comprises most types of manuscripts from the whole world spanning over 5000 years. It is the largest private manuscript collection formed in the 20th century.

A searchable collection of thousands of paintings and other artworks, useful for documentation.

Includes: Coronao Missal 16th c and a growing collection of Islamic manuscripts and single sheets. The museum's goal is to offer digital surrogates of the entire collection of Islamic manuscripts and single sheets.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Peer-reviewed genetic study of early medieval cattle remains from a Scandinavian settlement in Dublin, compared with extant breeds, on PubMed Central.

Text of the chapter on cattle kept for profit from Harrison's 1577 'Description of Elizabethan England,' at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Asnapium: An Inventory of One of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800 from the Medieval Sourcebook. Examples of included items are: bed clothes, kitchen ware, farm implements, measures of dry goods and harvests, cattle and fowl, specific garden herb and trees.

Text of Palladius's 4th-century treatise 'On Husbandry,' at Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

One of the earliest manuscript s to deal specifical ly with 17th century agricultur e in Scotland was written by John Skene of the Hallyards, who succeeded to the estate in 1644, and died in 1669.

A dialogue on the labors of plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, and fishermen.

The size, weight and carcass compositio n of cattle and sheep in early modern Scotland.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

The American Sighthound Field Association (ASFA) is an organization of Sighthound fanciers dedicated to the common goal of preserving and further developing the natural beauty, grace, speed and coursing skill of the Sighthound.

Article about dogs, and their accessorie s, found in Vendel-per iod graves. Includes a descriptio n and photograph of an early medieval collar.

Text of the chapter on English dogs and their qualities from Harrison's 1577 'Description of Elizabethan England,' at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

A quick and fun little project to make your best friend a handsome coat to wear to events. It serves the dual purpose of adding to the atmosphere and having the additional benefit of making your pup's ownership easily identifiab le - so you'd be best served by putting one on only your best trained h

Essay on the history of the Irish Wolfhound, weighing early myths and legends of the great Irish hound against documented accounts.

Includes the Dog Collar Museum, with a unique collection of historic and fascinating dog collars.

Digitized edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's medieval encyclopedia, covering the science, geography, and animal and plant folklore of the Middle Ages.

Caius' treatise on English dogs; an English translatio n published in 1576. (Large ZIP file containing GIFs of each page.)

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Philip Stubbes started writing around 1581 producing small tracts in which he sharply denounced the manners, pastimes, fashions and culture in England. His major work, The Anatomie of Abuses, was first published in 1583. P hilip Stubbes had a gift for keen observatio n. Although his comments should

Entry on the dog from the Medieval Bestiary, with attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and images.

Introduction to hound coursing in the SCA, with Trimarian coursing rules, articles, and photo albums, from the Trimaris Coursing College.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

Waterford is Ireland&#3 9;s oldest city, founded by Viking raiders in 914 A.D. The city centre was extensivel y excavated between 1986 and 1992 and the range, quantity and quality of what was found from Waterford& #39;s Viking and Medieval past, surpassed all expectatio ns. Waterford Museum of Treas

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

From '' The Booke of haukynge, huntyng and fysshyng, with all necessary properties and medicines that are to be kept,' ' 1561, with an omission of matter restored from the edition of Wynken de Worde, 1496.

A modern English translation of a section of Lawrens Andrewe's The noble lyfe & nature of man: Of bestes, serpentys, fowles & fisshes y be moste knowen relating to "the natures of the fisshes of the See."

Links to images of fishing and fishermen in medieval and Renaissance works of art, from the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com.

Digitized edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's medieval encyclopedia, covering the science, geography, and animal and plant folklore of the Middle Ages.

An ongoing site with articles and links on fishing as it applies to the Middle Ages.

Scholarly bibliography on medieval hunting, falconry, angling, and horsemanship, from the ORB Online Encyclopedia.

Fish was an important element in the diets of the people of Viking Age Britain.

The consumption of fish was an important part of life in the early medieval period and therefore the catching, preparation, storage and cooking played an equally significant role in everyday life.

Overview of food and drink available in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

For almost a millennium , a modest wooden ship lay underwater off the coast of Serce Limani, Turkey, filled with evidence of trade and objects of daily life. The ship trafficked in both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds of its time. The ship is known as "the Glass Wreck" because its cargo included th

A dialogue on the labors of plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, and fishermen.

The carp, by the admission of most authoritat ive fish farmers and piscicultu rists, is one of the most important food fish in the world. however, their origins are shrouded in mythology. Even where serious attempts have been made to trace the origins of this fish in the British Isles, the difficult

Entry on fish from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Depictions of bird cages in illustrati ons and paintings from the 12th-16th centuries.

Chickens in medieval & Renaissanc e iconograph y. Includes illustrati ons relating to coops and shelters built to shelter poultry.

An online encyclopedia of poultry. Any kind of domestic or semi domestic bird used as livestock. Lots of history and other links!

Goose farming on late medieval English demesnes, based on manorial accounts from several eastern counties.

Text of the chapter on wild and tame fowls from Harrison's 1577 'Description of Elizabethan England,' at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Asnapium: An Inventory of One of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800 from the Medieval Sourcebook. Examples of included items are: bed clothes, kitchen ware, farm implements, measures of dry goods and harvests, cattle and fowl, specific garden herb and trees.

Digitized edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's medieval encyclopedia, covering the science, geography, and animal and plant folklore of the Middle Ages.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

Links to images of women riding horseback astride, rather than sidesaddle.

Equestrian activities information for the Kingdom of Atlantia.

The SCA Equestrian Handbook: rules, regulations, and policies for equestrian activities (PDF).

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

Hub for East Kingdom horse activities with an event calendar of equestrian competitions, the kingdom equestrian handbook, rules, and community contacts.

Long-standing article library covering period chest and bench construction (800–1600), jousting shields and lance racks, mead and cordial making, and seneschal/autocrat guidance.

Blog of the Lochac Kingdom Equestrian Officer covering horse archery, quintain, skill-at-arms, and rider authorizations in Australia and New Zealand.

Articles, links, and resources for the equestrians of the Barony of Madrone and the Kingdom of An Tir.

Middle Kingdom equestrian program pages from the Deputy Earl Marshal for Equestrian.

Text from 1908 on the history of farriers, from the Vieux Métiers (old trades) series at France Pittoresque.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century. New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone,

Scholarly bibliography on medieval hunting, falconry, angling, and horsemanship, from the ORB Online Encyclopedia.

Text of Palladius's 4th-century treatise 'On Husbandry,' at Fordham's Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Experimental-archaeology blog by Rhianna, an SCA member in the Barony of Politarchopolis, Kingdom of Lochac. Posts cover horse barding and caparisons, silversmithing and ring-making, pickled-vegetable recipes, a jester costume, and multi-period research.

Photograph of a Venetian saddle with carved bone plates, c. 1400, from the Bildindex image database.

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

One of the earliest manuscript s to deal specifical ly with 17th century agricultur e in Scotland was written by John Skene of the Hallyards, who succeeded to the estate in 1644, and died in 1669.

The group of armored equestrian figures forming the centerpiec e of the permanent arms and armor exhibition has, for almost a century, been one of the most popular and dramatic areas of the Metropolit an Museum. Aside from the bards (complete horse armors of plate) displayed on the figures, the Muse

Entry on the horse from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Study of the medieval horse and its equipment, c.1150-c.1450, published by Boydell Press, on Google Books.

This study returns to the traditional genre of medieval-estate studies to explore such missing links, emphasizing, in particular, the study of pastoral resources. The rich literature on seigneurial agriculture notwithstanding, historians know little about the local use of resources by agrarian insti

We are members of the SCA, as well as riders and horselovers. We attempt to recreate the activities and interests of our medieval counterparts. We do this in a variety of ways: recreating medieval tournaments, training games and skills used by the mounted warriors of our period as well as constructi

Masters Thesis, discussing Scandinavi an horse burials, artwork, and literature during the Viking Age. Word document format.

Photograph of a 16th-century tournament saddle, from the Bildindex image database.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

Blog of an SCA equestrian Laurel with research and how-to posts on medieval horse equipment, barding types, heraldic caparison construction, and adapting modern tack for SCA riding.

This is a working study of the methods used in the Middle Ages to catch birds. The methods outlined in this document all work, to varying degrees.

Online transcription of Sir Thomas Cockaine's 1591 'A Short Treatise of Hunting,' from Renascence Editions.

The deer in the parks, chases and forests of medieval England were managed more actively, and witha greater skill and care, than is perhaps generally realized. Their owners derived considerab le benefits from them, not only in the opportunit y to hunt, which was often subsidiary , but invenison, a h

Links to images of hunt scenes in medieval and Renaissance works of art, from the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com.

Emperor Maximilian 's book of advice on proper hunting clothes, with a transcript ion of the original German, modern German, and English translatio n.

Digital edition of Pedro López de Ayala's 14th-century falconry treatise 'Libro de la caza de las aves,' at the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.

Notes on hunting in Elizabethan England as aristocratic privilege, sport, and social occasion, from the Life in Elizabethan England compendium.

Essay on medieval hunting, illustrated with the hunt scenes from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The Hunting Museum of Finland, which presents exhibits on Finnish hunting from the Stone Age to the present day.

The Paris museum of hunting and nature (Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature), with collection highlights, virtual tour, and exhibitions; site in French and English.

Scholarly bibliography on medieval hunting, falconry, angling, and horsemanship, from the ORB Online Encyclopedia.

This paper seeks in the first place to give some indication of the range of these industries in a few English forests of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and then to describe their organizati on.

Some of the sports, games, music, verse, dancing, toys, and other pastimes of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Despite the full agricultural year that most people faced, there was always time for folk to partake in games, challenges, tests of skill and general larking about.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Philip Stubbes started writing around 1581 producing small tracts in which he sharply denounced the manners, pastimes, fashions and culture in England. His major work, The Anatomie of Abuses, was first published in 1583. P hilip Stubbes had a gift for keen observatio n. Although his comments should

Talbot Mac Taggart describes the process of training for huntsmen in the Middle Ages.

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

A history of medieval Italian textiles and their production .

Cistercian s occasional ly marketed an intrinsica lly better product and very often prepared their clip more carefully.

The approach I propose to make in this paper is first to look at modern breeds, and their distributi on in the recent past, to see how far their ancestry can be pushed back towards the Middle Ages. Then a brief considerat ion will be given of the meagre pre-mediev al evidence, including the origin o

Overview of the weaving industry in Anglo-Saxon and Viking England, from re-enactment society Regia Anglorum.

The fauna of Anglo-Saxon England was plentiful and varied, and included some animals that have since been made extinct in this country. The vast areas of uninhabited forests, heaths and fells were home to many creatures, in addition to the other wild creatures that inhabited the towns and villages i

Research notes on the quality and fineness of Anglo-Saxon and Viking cloth, based on textile finds from York, from Regia Anglorum.

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

One of the earliest manuscript s to deal specifical ly with 17th century agricultur e in Scotland was written by John Skene of the Hallyards, who succeeded to the estate in 1644, and died in 1669.

It has recently been maintained that computatio n by the 'great ' or 'long& #39; hundred of six score was "the prevailing usage in sheep-farm ing accounts&# 34; in medieval England. Since this contention , if correct, would profoundly affect the statistics of medieval sheep-farm ing, an examinatio n

A dialogue on the labors of plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, and fishermen.

Entry on the lamb from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

Entry on the sheep from the Medieval Bestiary, with general attributes, manuscript sources, bibliography, and image gallery.

The size, weight and carcass compositio n of cattle and sheep in early modern Scotland.

Q&A-style research article on dogs, cats, and other working and domesticated animals kept in Viking Age Scandinavia, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

This translatio n of Walter of Henley&#39 ;s Treatise on Husbandry, which was written in the third quarter of the 13th century. The treatise is aimed at the owners of medium and large estates who worked their demesne lands, rather than farmed them out for cash rents, but might have little direct kno

Chapter on embroidery from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

A history of medieval Italian textiles and their production .

Procopius describes how the silk industry was first introduced into Europe from the Orient.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century. New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone,

Could silk have been used when the stories Yellow Book of Leinster are supposed to have taken place -- before the 4th century AD?

Two-part article on the history and manufacture of silk, from the West Kingdom Needleworkers Guild.

A translation from Olivier de Serre's Le Theatre d'Agriculture (1600). (A very large PDF.)

Mostly an illustrated practical guide to small-scale sericulture, but with some SCA content, including tabletweaving and silk reeling using traditional methods.

Artserve photos from Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Three silk compound twill fragments found in France: 8th-9th c. from Western Asia, 10-11th c. Byzantium, 7th-8th c. Central Asia.

Documentat ion for a work-in-pr ogress for a drinking horn based on examples of richly-dec orated drinking horns on display in Denmark.

Full free PDF of the landmark Smithsonian exhibition volume on Ainu history and material culture, covering clothing, carving, ritual objects, subsistence, and relations with Japan across centuries.

The Allerley Mackel is an example of the popular kunstbuchlein, or collection of household & artisanal recipes, popular during the 16th century. My transcription was taken from the facsimile of the Allerley Matkel printed in Sidney Edelstein's article of the same name in the Journal of Technology &

Smithsonian program researching circumpolar cultures, with collections and online resources on Alaska Native and Inuit material culture, ivory carving, skin clothing, and kayaks.

PhD thesis "concerned with the technology and utilisatio n of skeletal hard tissue in prehistori c Scotland. The natural properties of skeletal tissues were considered , their reaction to particular methods of manufactur e and utilisatio n were studied and a detailed examinatio n made of material fr

The national Sámi museum of Finland presents duodji, the traditional Sámi handicraft tradition of wood, antler, bone, birchbark and textile work, in its permanent exhibition. Respectful, community-curated presentation of Sámi material culture.

The earliest copy of the Mappae Clavicula was a manuscript in the Benedictine monestary of Reichenau, dated to 821-822, which is no longer in existence. The translation below is based on the Phillipps-Corning Mappae Clavicula manuscript, currently in the Corning Museum of Glass at Corning, NY. This

Standard reference blog for bone, antler, and horn working in early medieval reenactment, including the 'Basic Bone Working 101' series and a substantial bibliography.

Evidence of horn used as a drinking vessel dates back at least to the 5th century BC in Northern Europe.

A step-by-step process takes you from the completely unfinished horn to the useable drinking vessel.

Step-by-step procedure for cleaning, shaping, and finishing your own drinking horn.

Peer-reviewed experimental archaeology article documenting the step-by-step reconstruction of an early 14th-century Mongol composite horn-sinew bow using period materials and techniques.

Skeletal material such as bone, antler and horn were widely used before the advent of modern plastics.

University-run research dissemination article on the history and meaning of duodji, Sámi handicraft in horn, wood, root, skin and textile. Includes discussion of historical sources and the craft's cultural significance.

University museum exhibit on the Thule, ancestors of modern Inuit and Yupik peoples, whose whale-hunting technology, dog sleds, and semi-subterranean houses spread across the Arctic ca. 1000-1600 CE.

Arts and sciences documentation for a reproduction 10th century Norse antler comb.

Article on making antler needles for nalbinding.

The militia of Amiens during the reign of Jean sans Peur (1404-1419 )

Combs, mostly in antler, bone, wood, or ivory, from period depictions and extant examples. Includes illustrations of hair-combing.

Tutorial on making a composite antler comb, from an early medieval bone- and antler-working reenactor.

Bone and antler performed many functions in the home and in the craft shops of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons.

Research article on Viking Age hairstyles, haircare, and personal grooming for men and women, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

The Allerley Mackel is an example of the popular kunstbuchlein, or collection of household & artisanal recipes, popular during the 16th century. My transcription was taken from the facsimile of the Allerley Matkel printed in Sidney Edelstein's article of the same name in the Journal of Technology &

Database of archaeological bone skate finds, with descriptions.

Medieval finds of bone needles, pins, seam-smoothers, and needlecases & needleboxes.

Mostly secular examples in bone & ivory, enamel, leather, metal, and wood.

The book these recipes were transcribed from is in the National Art Library in England. The volume is cobbled together from various chapters/volumes of the 16th c. bestselling work, the Secretes of Alexis of Piedmont. Originally published by Ruscelli in Italian, it was quickly translated into French

Combs, mostly in antler, bone, wood, or ivory, from period depictions and extant examples. Includes illustrations of hair-combing.

The earliest copy of the Mappae Clavicula was a manuscript in the Benedictine monestary of Reichenau, dated to 821-822, which is no longer in existence. The translation below is based on the Phillipps-Corning Mappae Clavicula manuscript, currently in the Corning Museum of Glass at Corning, NY. This

Ice skates made from bone are common archaeological finds in Viking-age Scandinavia. This webpage describes one person's attempt to re-create and use similar ice skates.

A website about archaeozoology, taphonomy and worked bone. You will find a diary, links and literature concerned with these subjects.

Bone and antler performed many functions in the home and in the craft shops of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons.

In spite of a large body of literature on the Norse world during the Viking era the topic of Norse pastimes is poorly represented. This paper is an attempt to provide a survey of what is currently known about the topic. A listing of available articles, archaeological artifacts, references from some

Features a history of chess, chess pieces, and chess game variants.

Chapter on carving in wood and ivory from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

A look at some ivory caskets of the Viking Age, and a modern one in a similar style.

Mostly secular examples in bone & ivory, enamel, leather, metal, and wood.

Combs, mostly in antler, bone, wood, or ivory, from period depictions and extant examples. Includes illustrations of hair-combing.

An online database of ivory sculptures made in Western Europe ca. 1200-ca. 1530, as well as neo-Gothic pieces. The Gothic Ivories Project is a database which aims at including all readily available informatio n on every surviving Gothic and neo-Gothic ivory, accompanie d by at least one image. This

Digitized copy of George Frederick Kunz's 1916 'Ivory and the Elephant in Art, in Archaeology, and in Science,' from the Posner Memorial Collection.

A gallery of photos taken during a trip to the museum, including a folding table (1480-1500); casting molds; a brooch; some wooden combs; six candlesticks (14th-15th centuries); a clasp (13th century); belts (14th and 15th centuries); carvings in ivory and wood; a pig-face bascinet; a mail shirt; a

Anna Maria Elizabeth Cust's study of the ivory workers of the Middle Ages, digitized on Google Books.

The basics of building an SCA combat sword from rattan, at Swordbrother.com.

Accessible scholarly article by the two leading researchers on South Indian crucible (wootz) steel, tracing its production, its fame as the raw material of Damascus blades, and its role in the birth of modern metallurgy.

Includes links and informatio n about many appliqued textiles, including medieval Mamluk panels, heraldic and armorial appliques, Swedish intarsia, and furnishing s.

Great place to go for help in construction, things for sale, references, and tons of other information about armor.

Assorted patterns, including a gauntlet, great helm, spangenhelm, and lamellar.

Assorted patterns, including elbows, knees, spangenhelm, and splints.

Doctoral thesis (PDF) on the tools, techniques, and workshops of late medieval armour production.

Directory of arms and armor resource links maintained by TherionArms, a dealer in reproduction historical swords, weapons, and armor.

The Rathore royal armoury at Mehrangarh Fort: katars with watered-steel blades, jewelled dhals, talwars, and maces representing the Rajput martial tradition (surviving pieces mostly 17th century and later).

Arms and armor holdings in the Saint Louis Art Museum's searchable online collection.

Paul Lacombe's descriptive survey of arms and armour in antiquity and the Middle Ages, digitized on Google Books.

Virtual gallery of over 200 highlights from the Pitt Rivers Museum's 12,000-object arms and armour collection, with regional tours including African weapons such as central African throwing knives (kpinga) and shields.

A list of references to arms and combat in the Íslendingasögur.

Chapter on metalwork from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

Long-established research network for traditional Asian archery, hosting articles on Mongolian, Central Asian, and other steppe archery traditions, hornbow construction, and thumb-ring shooting technique.

Overview of Mexica warfare: weapons (macuahuitl, atlatl), quilted cotton armor and feathered warrior suits, elite ranks like the cuachicqueh, training, tactics, and the flower wars.

In-depth reenactor reconstruction of an Estonian/Ösel warrior's clothing, weapons and mail, built from published grave finds with museum inventory numbers and a bibliography. Strong model of evidence-based kit for a Baltic-Finnic persona.

As new fighters, many people are faced with the question of how to acquire a set of armour. For a substantial number of people the solution is -- "I'll make it myself." Unfortunately, most people don't know where to start. In this article I would like to discuss three basic things: how to set up an

Work-in-progress pattern for early 15th-century Italian style body armour based on Churburg suit 18, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern for a breastplate, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Design plan for a collapsible armor stand.

Building a rattan sword that can be used safely in simulated combat, but that closely follows an actual medieval sword in weight, balance, handling and, ideally, appearance .

Free patterns for 14th- through 16th-century coats of plates and brigandines, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Article on the construction and use of lamellar armour in the SCA, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern for a cup hilt (SCA sport hilt), from the Armour Archive.

The illustrati ons from the Mendel and Landauer Housebooks , indexed by profession and with lists of items found in each illustrati on.

Project blog on mid-14th-century armor and helmets, garb construction, historic fencing, and doing the SCA on a budget, including an overview of High Medieval clothing.

Free pattern for a globose chestplate, by Rainald, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern and photos for a gorget, by Alan Bauldree of A.B. Hammer Armoury, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Free gorget pattern (front and back pieces) by an unknown maker, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Free gorget pattern with front and back pieces, by Rainald, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Deeply researched blog on Ming dynasty arms, armor, firearms, and tactics, citing period military treatises such as the Wubei Zhi and Jixiao Xinshu with measurements, illustrations, and museum specimens.

Photo of a 14th century greave from Chartres Cathedral, with pattern.

The following is a brief descriptio n of some different styles, designed to give the SCA newcomer an introducti on and is by no means complete.

Patterns for Viking and medieval armor, clothing, and accessorie s.

An Armor Archive tutorial on making leather axe heads for SCA heavy combat.

UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage entry on the kris/keris, the asymmetrical pattern-welded dagger of Indonesia and the Malay world, covering its forging by empu smiths and its spiritual role since the Majapahit era.

Pattern for knee pieces with articulation lames, by Alan Bauldree of A.B. Hammer Armoury, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Armour and material-culture research site (companion to the Knyght Errant YouTube channel) on 14th-century harness, arming clothes, joined hose, and living-history methodology, with an extensive resource list.

Asian Traditional Archery Research Network article on Korean traditional archery, covering the history of the Korean composite reflex bow, shooting technique, and archery culture.

Index of research articles by Prof. Thomas Duvernay on Korean traditional archery, covering the gakgung horn composite bow, historical practice, and shooting technique.

Greek experimental-archaeology and reenactment association reconstructing Mycenaean and archaic Greek warfare, including the Dendra panoply, boar's-tusk helmets, chariotry, and bronze weaponry, with research articles.

Portfolio site of an SCA artisan-fighter (a historical archaeologist by training) documenting A&S projects including armoring a new fighter, crossbow building and research, wood carving, weaving, and combat archery.

Pattern and materials list for a leather helm made from stiff 6-10 ounce leather, by Baron Sir Gerhard Kendal from an original by Strygo Alexandru von Talmetz, at the Armour Archive.

Patterns and instructions for lorica based on a few different examples.

Guild statutes provide precise indications for methods of fabrication of the objects of daily life in the Middle Ages. This webpage provides statutes from guilds for makers of aguilettes (points?), purses, armor, tallow candlesticks, hose, clothing, and writing-tables.

Peter Dekker's glossary and article library on Asian arms and armor, covering Chinese sabers, Indian talwars and wootz blades, Japanese swords and Indonesian keris with construction analysis and primary-source research.

A 600+ entry illustrated reference on antique Asian arms and armor terminology, with substantial coverage of Chinese swords (jian, dao), polearms, archery equipment, and armor, licensed CC BY 4.0.

Extensive article archive by Markus Sesko, scholar of Japanese arms and armor (associated with major museum collections), covering swordsmiths, blade schools, sword fittings, tameshigiri, and armor history from Heian through Momoyama and beyond.

Article (PDF) on martial surcottes of the 14th century in England and France, from Tasha Dandelion Kelly's late medieval fashion site La cotte simple.

Images of the various styles of heraldic surcoats, tabards, jupons, and cote-armor s worn by men in the Middle Ages.

Patterns and photos for mid-15th-century Italian style leg harnesses in stainless steel, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

An ongoing site with articles and links on armour as it applies to the Middle Ages, the SCA and to SCA combat.

Peer-reviewed experimental archaeology article documenting the step-by-step reconstruction of an early 14th-century Mongol composite horn-sinew bow using period materials and techniques.

Article in French on the history of the armorers' trade in the Middle Ages, from the Vieux Métiers (old trades) series at France Pittoresque.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century. New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone,

A collection of armor patterns, oriented towards SCA combat. You should probably have some previous armouring experience before you tackle these projects.

Pattern for a peascod breastplate, by William Hurt of Age of Armour, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Some observations on the construction of lamellar armour, and its representations in history books.

Stephen Markel's scholarly review essay on Elgood's two-volume catalog of the Jodhpur royal armoury, discussing khanda, talwar, and katar types and methods for dating Indian blades and hilts.

The UK's national museums of arms and armour, with galleries at Leeds and Fort Nelson, online exhibits, and a 3D virtual tour.

Patterns for sabatons with ankle, heel, foot, and toe pieces, by Mike Yancy, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

The definitive reference for Japanese personas in the SCA: armor construction (the katchū manual), clothing patterns, cuisine, language, etiquette, and heraldry. Created by the late Anthony J. Bryant and maintained in his memory.

Effingham/Anthony Bryant's classic manual on Japanese armour construction — URL updated to the site's current address.

A video discussing a medieval archer's bracer, how it was made, and how it was used.

Free pattern and instructions for a simple basket hilt in 14-gauge steel, from the Armour Archive.

Free pattern for simple greaves, by Rainald, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern for a simple knee cop, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Dallas museum devoted to samurai armor, helmets, masks, and horse equipment, with one of the finest private katchu collections outside Japan; site includes collection highlights and exhibition materials.

Article by Mongolian national archery champion Munkhtsetseg on the history, equipment, and practice of Mongolian archery, including its roots in the mounted archery of the Mongol Empire.

These plans produce a custom armor stand that will fold down for easy transport. It can be set up inside or outside, and optional stakes can be inserted in the base when used outside for windy conditions . The stand will support most parts of your armor, and, so far, is quite sturdy and stable.

Scholarly article combining codex sources and experimental archaeology, including a reconstructed obsidian-bladed macuahuitl tested on animal remains to assess battlefield performance.

Step-by-step instructions for constructing a suit of Wisby plates, coat-of-plates armor based on the 1361 Battle of Visby gravesite finds, by Rick Steeves (Master Corwyn Sinister).

Full-text PhD dissertation by Osarhieme Benson Osadolor analyzing Benin's army organization, weaponry and the reforms of Oba Ewuare and the warrior kings of c.1440-1600.

Essay on designing hardened leather armor that is cheap, light, and period-looking, from Cariadoc's Miscellany.

Article on making water-hardened leather armor, revisiting and improving an earlier beeswax-hardening method used for SCA combat, by David Friedman.

The Royal Armouries collection has its origins in the arsenal of the British army preserved at the Tower of London. Most of the medieval material at the Tower was disposed of in the modernisation of the army by Henry VIII in the 1540s

Personal repository site for Cataldo, an SCA member, covering his metalwork (chasing and repousse, casting, engraving), blacksmithing and armoring, and his martial activity in cut-and-thrust, fencing, and armored combat. Also touches on phaleristics (the study of awards).

Video tutorial on how to harden leather using wax, on YouTube.

Bowyer Adam Karpowicz documents the construction of replica Ottoman Turkish composite bows of maple, horn and sinew, with draw-weight and arrow-velocity performance data and period decoration methods.

Overview of the Byzantine emperors' elite bodyguard of Rus and Scandinavian warriors founded under Basil II c. 988, covering recruitment, axes and equipment, famous members like Harald Hardrada, and the unit's later Anglo-Saxon composition.

Plans for a weapons rack for use in the SCA, on Anpliça's personal arts and heraldry site.

Historic representations of coats of plates, recreations of coats of plates, and patterns.

Free patterns for Wisby coat-of-plates armour Types I, IV, and V, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Free pattern for a Wisby coat-of-plates with body, rib, breast, and spine plate diagrams, by Master Geoffery, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Indian Institute of Science paper by Sharada Srinivasan and S. Ranganathan on South Indian wootz crucible steel, its export across the medieval world, its metallurgy and its link to Damascus blades. Mirrored at the University of Illinois.

Portfolio of 15th-century images of female Flemish dress from paintings, sculpture, and monumental brasses, compiled by Hope Greenberg.

Enter the height, chest, and length, and this webpage will calcluate a pattern for a garment in the style of Herjolfsne s 63.

A fur primer for 14th and 15th century European clothing. Train your eye to recognize fur when it is depicted as part of clothing and hats in late 14th and early 15th century manuscript s.

Cynthia Virtue's theory and instructions for a rotated-corner, circle-plan houppelande.

Italian men's clothing of the mid-15th century has a distinctive style that involves many different layers. The images in this handout are from the northern part of Italy: Florence, Ferrara, Siena, Venice, and other nearby regions. The relative scarcity of images from southern Italy makes it difficu

Images of wide silk belts worn by ladies in the 15th century, organized by color to better understand which colors were used. (These are sometimes considered "Burgu ndian,&#34 ; but they seem to have been fashionabl e in France, Flanders, and England too.) In several of the paintings, one can even d

Written for members of a late 15th century re-enactme nt group. Primarily a costume guide, but includes informatio n on fighting apparel and crafts & games as well.

This class is a mix between a research lecture and a dress diary, in which I first provide some source analysis on a feminine style of clothing and headdress seen in figural art around 1480, followed by my use of this informatio n in the making of my own version of the outfit.

There are a variety of silhouettes in the body-hugging gowns worn by women in the fine art of the late 14th and early 15th centuries in Europe. Theories abound concerning the methods used to achieve the look of these gowns -- a look that more often than not hoisted the bust to attractive heights, or

A medieval friary in the north-east of England is not, perhaps, the first place you'd look for evidence of high-fashi on civilian clothing from the 14th and 15th centuries. Hoods, gowns, girdles and some of England&#3 9;s earliest underpants were a surprise.

The developmen t and possible constructi on of men's and women' s headdresse s of this time, primarily those of France and those countries with immediate French contact: England, Germany, and the Low Countries. Due to a paucity of extant evidence, the majority of research concerns representa tions i

Instructions for construction techniques observed in 15th-16th century clothing, including methods of lining and edge finishing, butted construction, and eyelets and buttonholes.

Dagging and dagged garments from the late Middle Ages, including dagged hoods, dagged sleeves, and dagged cloaks.

Photo gallery of extant medieval European garments and reconstructions, from the Thorsberg tunic and trousers onward.

The sources most commonly used for clothing research in the SCA are not original garments, but contemporary depictions of garments in art. To better understand how the researcher may best interpret visual sources, all of the sources of clothing information for the fifteenth and early sixteenth centu

Contains a rambling (but probably still useful) introduction to a paper which examines the way fitted gown layers are combined in the art of the 14thc and 15th centuries as well as a visual sampling of fitted gowns that have long buttoned sleeves and buttons down the center-front opening.

The use of bells to trim baldrics, belts, and other garments for 14th and 15th century outfits.

Gallery of costume images from 15th-century Spanish art for study, with links to larger views.

A catalogue of the garment-terms in the Paston letters of the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

This article examines the use of pockets in western Europe from the late fifteenth to the early seventeent h centuries, demonstrat ing that pockets were adopted into clothing much earlier than has often been believed. It discusses the physical form of pockets in the dress of both genders and the typ

Patterns for Viking and medieval armor, clothing, and accessorie s.

Pattern for 15th-century men's joined hose (archived).

A discussion of the forms a houpelande might take, from the simplest method, to the most complex, using diagrams and some modern pattern making theory. Few garments have survived from this time period, and those that have were not saved with a name tag on them to help us to identify them. Much of th

Analysis by Tasha Kelly of fitted dress styles depicted in late 14th- and early 15th-century art, examining layered garments.

Downloadable handout on making a supportive smock (underdress) for medieval clothing, from a Visby medieval week workshop, on the Neulakko blog.

Instructions for measuring a man for a medieval cotte (archived).

An article from Archaeolog cal Textiles Review on the pleating on the shirt fragments from Lengberg Castle, dating to 1485.

Once clothing became more fitted and could no longer be slipped over one's head, it became necessary to tightly close gowns and tunics. An overview of how and where to close clothing through the centuries, with practical advice of how to get it done. Includes, from extant examples and details from a

An essay reconstructing the clothing (shirt, jupon/doublet, hood/chaperon, and hose/chausses) of Joan of Arc, based on illustrations and artifacts from the 15th century.

Selected illustrations from a 19th century book on historic fashions.

Guild statutes provide precise indications for methods of fabrication of the objects of daily life in the Middle Ages. This webpage provides statutes from guilds for makers of aguilettes (points?), purses, armor, tallow candlesticks, hose, clothing, and writing-tables.

Easy-to-follow process for making a butterfly hennin or other truncated-cone hats of the 1400s, based on period illustrations.

Links to artwork demonstrating how women's clothing was modified for pregnancy in the 14th-16th centuries.

A hennin, or atours, constructed on a reed-woven structure; how to construct and wear this headdress. See www.eleanorlebrun.com/beadedHenin.htm for an example with beadwork ornamentation.

The second layer of the woman' s dress, in English referred to as the kirtle, was the developmen t of the cotte of the previous century. This cotte, first covered by the similarly styled cote-hardi e, and then by the voluminous houppeland e, was a tightly fitted gown with a round neck and long slend

Focuses on the 15th century doublet that was worn over the shirt and under a gown, houppeland, or other outer layer of clothing.

Links to images of particolored garments in medieval and Renaissance art, from the Larsdatter linkspages.

Patterns for medieval hats and caps, from Birka finds to hennins and horned headdresses, inspired by artwork and artifacts.

The issue of Joan of Arc's male clothing is one of the more controversial points related to her history, and an issue continually inspiring much writing which has often been based on an incomplete understanding of the evidence. Due to the greater availability of the Condemnation transcript in Englis

Catalogues the Scots terms for clothing referenced in the later 15th century works of Henryson.

Guidance & advice for clothing; mostly line-drawing patterns for medieval garments, including shirts & tunics, a hood, hose, doublets, and a few Middle Eastern garments.

For 15th century men.

A class handout covering the evolution of the sideless surcoat from the 12th century Spanish pellote to the 15th century.

Brass and iron and copper (enamelled) with silk. Enamelled. Additional photos at: http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI07909d09a.jpg http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI07909d11a.jpg

I've cropped a selection of ladies from photograph s of brass rubbings for analysis of their veil formations . The veils on some of these images are easy to understand . On others, not at all. Are we seeing a form of veil stylizatio n that can only be explained as the brass incising equivalent of vi

Collected discussion posts on the Gothic fitted dress by costume historian Robin Netherton (PDF).

Discussion of the black headband-with-loop seen in 15th-century images and theories on how it helped keep tall hats in place.

A searchable catalog of surviving garments from Europe and the Mediterranean from the dawn of time up through approximately 1500.

La grande assiette is a term for a tailoring method used in the mid/late 14th century and throughout the fifteenth century in which a sleeve was inserted into a deeply-set arm hole with the assistance of triangular gores or trapezoidal gussets. A freely moving sleeve piece set deeply into the body o

Discusses patterns and variations for 15th century northern European costume.

Study of clothing mentioned in Swedish medieval wills from 1200-1420, translated into English with the author's assistance.

See also: www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI07909f07a.jpg www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI07909f05a.jpg

Also (with ring) at http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI07909f12a.jpg

A 15th century Burgundian brooch in gold, with a man and a lady in enamels.

Here you will find some excellent metal detector finds made over the years.

Portraits of men (and some women) wearing livery collars and collars of various European orders of knighthood, with a few links to examples in museum collections. Includes the Collar (or Chain) of Esses and the Yorkist collar, and collars for the Orders of the Garter, the Golden Fleece, and Saint Mi

Cotswold Museum Service cares for around one and a half million archaeolog ical and social history objects in the Council&#3 9;s collection s. Many of the objects are displayed at the recently refurbishe d and extended Corinium Museum, Cirenceste r. See The Collection s to search for items.

Descriptions of different types of jewelry, and the circumstances in which they were given as gifts. Also at http://www.ostgardr.org/costume/mouche.gothic.jewelry.html and www.ctaylor-co.com/SCA/Costuming/Gallery/Gothic_period_jewelry.htm .

Rings made in the 14th and 15th centuries. Includes illustrations and paintings of men and women wearing rings.

Photos of early medieval earrings, and portraits with earrings from the 16th century; includes discussion of earrings in the 11th-15th centuries.

A gallery of photos taken during a trip to the museum, including a folding table (1480-1500); casting molds; a brooch; some wooden combs; six candlesticks (14th-15th centuries); a clasp (13th century); belts (14th and 15th centuries); carvings in ivory and wood; a pig-face bascinet; a mail shirt; a

Medieval and Renaissanc e rings with inscriptio ns, sometimes known as poesy rings or posie rings.

A set of links to signet rings in museum collection s, as well as portraits of men wearing signet rings. Includes late Roman, Merovingia n, Frankish, Byzantine, intaglio, and heraldic signet rings, and also rings with badges, monograms, and merchant's marks.

An initiative by members of the metal-detecting community to promote good practice within the hobby. It is an easy-to-use, friendly and supportive online facility for detectorists to record their finds and ensure that the information is preserved for future generations.

Transcribed wardrobe warrants of Queen Elizabeth I, 1567-1575 (PRO LC 5/34), with manuscript images, from the DressDB.

Images of children, and children&# 39;s clothing, in the Renaissanc e. Includes kids from Denmark, England, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain; from peasants & paupers to princes & princesses .

A basic tutorial for a 16th century shirt, also showing how it can be embroidere d.

In aid of stepping out and looking fabulous, I have drawn out a dozen different trim layouts (some with sleeve and skirt/shoulder tab treatments) for doublets, all from 16th and early 17th century sources.

The history of the parasol from Antiquity and the Middle Ages, with many examples from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Dedicated to the study of historical costume from 1475 to 1625. Photos and dress-diaries from the author's work in Renaissance-era costuming; image galleries and other research articles; and historically-inspired "Featured Attyre" from costumers all over the world.

An overview of 16th century parasols, with notes on constructi on.

A preliminar y survey of knitting references found in English literature (ballads, prose and drama) published between 1473 and 1600, grouped according to type of item, with some discussion of surviving items.

A survey of jackets and jacket fragments, comparing shapes, embroidery patterns, and constructi on details.

Translated summary of research on the gown of Mary of Hapsburg (made 1520-1530) in the Hungarian National Museum, with cutting diagram.

Mistress Grace Gamble provides instructions for a 16th century English shirt or high-necked shift.

Blackwork embroidery was used in many forms on a variety of different garments. This gallery is intended to assist costumers in looking at ways of incorporat ing blackwork embroidery into Renaissanc e-era costume. Links to portraits and to examples in museums.

What They Are Made From, and When Things Changed. Timeline of Support Materials.

Guide to the clothing worn by the Scots and Irish in the 16th century, with Celtic history background, by Meistr Gwylym ab Owain, OL.

Slides, spreadshee t, and Pinterest board on the constructi on of leather doublets and jerkins. These leather garments were treated just as if they were from any other cloth: could be decorated or not, assembled with regular sewing-typ e seams, etc. Research includes 81 extant doublets and jerkins b

Instructions for construction techniques observed in 15th-16th century clothing, including methods of lining and edge finishing, butted construction, and eyelets and buttonholes.

Patterns for historical hats and fans by Lynn McMasters, including Gothic through Elizabethan styles.

A rough overview of clothing in Elizabetha n times, mainly using Philip Stubbes' The Anatomie of Abuses as a source

A PDF version of a guidebook to English needlework of the 16th and 17th centuries at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Considering the scant current mention of pins in costume and clothing articles, it may be hard to believe how common these simple items were to the wardrobes of the Elizabethans. They were made in many sizes, from the "great verthingale pynnes" used to hold heavy skirts, to the smallest pins used to

Includes contemporary descriptions of clothing, as well as a glossary of terms relating to civil, professional, ceremonial, ecclesiastical, and military costume.

Embroidere d jackets (and portraits of women wearing embroidere d jackets) from late 16th and early 17th century England.

The very wealthy could afford to have their portraits painted and therefore, we know what they were wearing. There exist very few drawings of Middle Class people that were drawn in the 1500's even fewer in color. These watercolors were taken from the corners of a series on maps published in the 1572

Photo gallery of extant original Renaissance garments and scientific reconstructions, including the 1481 Cavaniglia farsetto and giornea.

Gallery of costume images from 16th-century Spanish art and artifacts, with links to larger views.

This article examines the use of pockets in western Europe from the late fifteenth to the early seventeent h centuries, demonstrat ing that pockets were adopted into clothing much earlier than has often been believed. It discusses the physical form of pockets in the dress of both genders and the typ

Chapter 'Of Our Apparel and Attire' from William Harrison's 1577 Description of England, at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Analysis of fabric yardages used in late 16th-century women's clothing, by Susan D. Reed (Teleri Talgellawg).

Shown are costumes from all over Europe and even one of an American native. The images show the styles of clothing of women from narrow social ranks, from empress to servant, and are arranged by counties and cities. At the top and bottom of each woodcut there is a rhymed four-line stanza explaining

Clothing from 1560 to 1650, from an exhibit at the Germanisch es Nationalmu seum.

Once clothing became more fitted and could no longer be slipped over one's head, it became necessary to tightly close gowns and tunics. An overview of how and where to close clothing through the centuries, with practical advice of how to get it done. Includes, from extant examples and details from a

Selected illustrations from a 19th century book on historic fashions.

Definition s and descriptio ns of the different types of outerwear used in the second half of the 16th century.

Links to artwork demonstrating how women's clothing was modified for pregnancy in the 14th-16th centuries.

Sleevils are evil sleeves, or sleeves that do not fit because of various problems. This handout describes the basic parts of sleeves so that you can understand what parts must remain constant, and what can be changed, to improve the fit, comfort and range of mobility for your sleeve pattern. The las

Free patterns for elements of Elizabetha n costumes.

For most of London, secondhand was simply an economical way to get needed clothes.

Gathers images of English clothing from early Tudor to Early Stuart times, with a focus on the Elizabethan period.

The transcribe d contents of MS Egerton 2806, the complete record of what Queen Elizabeth' s tailors made, altered and bought between the years 1568 and 1588.

These documents are from a number of account books found in the Essex Records office. Some are account books belonging to William Petre, D/DP A6 and D/DP A10, and some belong to his some John Petre (D/DP 17-22). There is one book per year, from Michelmas to Michelmas, and they record all expenditur

Digitized edition of Jutta Zander-Seidel's Textiler Hausrat, a study of clothing and household textiles in Nuremberg, 1500-1650 (in German).

Research into an inventory of objects belonging to Mary Queen of Scots in Edinburgh Castle. The report specifical ly focuses on evidence for dolls or puppets called 'pippens', their historical and cultural context and their significan ce.

Mistress Drea's site. If you want to do Elizabethan clothing - begin here. Tons of references and how to articles on everything from corset making (and a pattern generator) to fabric colors, to hats, to well, everything.

While individual commanders might dress their own men to show off, the majority of the militias that constituted what little "army" England possessed were private citizens who were given little money and less clothing for their pains. The one item issued with any regularity for parades and special o

Images and discussion of the Leonfeldner Schnittbuch, a tailor's masterpiece book from Enns now in the Linz Stadtmuseum.

Clothing and accessories, as well as articles on an array of other subjects dealing with 16th century Venice.

A searchable catalog of surviving garments from Europe and the Mediterranean from the dawn of time up through approximately 1500.

This collection has been put together to help me design a historically accurate English 16th century dress.

Photos of some of the clothing and accessories at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The following list is a breakdown of the common clothes worn by women in the early 1580s, documented from depictions of the period of working-class people.

Allows the user to design a 16th century style dress with various options.

Links to 16th-century portraits showing zibellini ('flea furs'), jeweled marten pelts worn as accessories, from the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com.

Roughly chronologi cal links to fashionabl e pendants from the Elizabetha n and early Stuart eras.

Photos of the 16th century jewelry collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Describes several techniques, as well as providing an overall look at his life and work.

Portraits of men (and some women) wearing livery collars and collars of various European orders of knighthood, with a few links to examples in museum collections. Includes the Collar (or Chain) of Esses and the Yorkist collar, and collars for the Orders of the Garter, the Golden Fleece, and Saint Mi

A flag-fan, glove, and pendant in the shape of a gondola, all from Venice ca. 1600.

Photograph of a gold engagement ring made in southern Germany in the fourth quarter of the 16th century (Bildindex image).

Descriptions of different types of jewelry, and the circumstances in which they were given as gifts. Also at http://www.ostgardr.org/costume/mouche.gothic.jewelry.html and www.ctaylor-co.com/SCA/Costuming/Gallery/Gothic_period_jewelry.htm .

Extant examples of belts, chains, and a necklace and bracelets worn in 16th century Germany and now in German museums.

Necklaces; pendants; rings; earrings; buttons, aglets & single jewels; billiments; girdles; rosaries; and links to other Elizabethan jewelry on the web.

Photos of early medieval earrings, and portraits with earrings from the 16th century; includes discussion of earrings in the 11th-15th centuries.

Links to extant pomanders from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, with portrait and 16th-century inventory references.

Medieval and Renaissanc e rings with inscriptio ns, sometimes known as poesy rings or posie rings.

Rings made in the 16th century. Includes portraits of men, women, and children wearing different types of rings.

A 16th century silver German pomander. More photos: http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI06468b11a.jpg http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI06468b12a.jpg http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/MI06468b13a.jpg

A set of links to signet rings in museum collection s, as well as portraits of men wearing signet rings. Includes late Roman, Merovingia n, Frankish, Byzantine, intaglio, and heraldic signet rings, and also rings with badges, monograms, and merchant's marks.

Photograph of a silver belt with knife and sheath, c. 1576-1600, from the Bildindex image database.

Photograph of a silver belt from southern Germany, c. 1600, from the Bildindex image database.

The pieces that comprise the Cheapside Hoard are chiefly in the Museum of London, and the most important items of jewellery are on permanent display. The collection, since its discovery has been an unparalleled marker for secular objects made prior to the second half of the 17th century. Indeed, so

An initiative by members of the metal-detecting community to promote good practice within the hobby. It is an easy-to-use, friendly and supportive online facility for detectorists to record their finds and ensure that the information is preserved for future generations.

Waterford is Ireland&#3 9;s oldest city, founded by Viking raiders in 914 A.D. The city centre was extensivel y excavated between 1986 and 1992 and the range, quantity and quality of what was found from Waterford& #39;s Viking and Medieval past, surpassed all expectatio ns. Waterford Museum of Treas

Small hand axes tended to just be wood-axes which were used for combat. The construction of all axes followed the same general principles.

Overview of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age helmets, including a replica of the Gjermundbu helmet, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Overview of mail body armour of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age and how it was made from iron rings, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Overview of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age missile weapons, including bows and arrows, javelins, and slings, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

The most prized and lauded weapon, but not the most common one, was the sword.

Almost all warriors, from the highest to the lowest carried a single edged knife known as a scramseax. Although primarily an everyday tool, in battle it could be used to finish off a felled opponent, and in the case of some ceorls, a mid to large sized scramaseaxe could have taken the place of a swo

The main weapon of the period was the spear, not only for the peasant but also for the professional soldier and even the nobility. It was the traditional weapon that Woden used and remained the weapon par excellence among the Germanic peoples even during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Archived instructions with diagrams for making scale armour, from the Danish Viking combat group ASK.

Official target archery pages for the Kingdom of Atlantia, with rules, marshal rosters, forms, awards, and Royal Round scores.

The current SCA-wide rules for target archery and thrown weapons.

Introductory historical overview of Old Magyar (Hungarian) archery by Chris Szabó, at the Asian Traditional Archery Research Network.

The idea of finding a more period target to use for archery in the Society for Creative Anachronis m has been much discussed lately.

Links to realistic period depictions of archers, their dress, and archery accoutrements in medieval and Renaissance art, from the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com.

Archery targets and ranges used for practice and competitio n in the Middle Ages and Renaissanc e.

Project blog of an Atlantian Pelican covering garb, archery, sand-cast medallions, painting, and event life, with a useful blogroll of other Atlantian SCA blogs.

Blog and portfolio (SCA) self-described as 'mostly apothecary, mostly 11th-12th c., mostly Mediterranean,' covering medieval apothecary and medicine, natural dyeing and fiber arts, calligraphy and illumination, metalwork and jewelry, foraging, and archery, plus class handouts.

Woodworker's blog documenting pole-lathe turning, bowl carving, and archaeologically based quiver reconstructions, with musings on A&S life in the SCA.

I have written this article in the hope of encouragin g the use of period targets and contests at our SCA archery competitio ns by providing informatio n on what some period competitio ns entailed. In most all cases they are easy to set up and run and are often more interestin g to watch for the aud

Portfolio site of an SCA artisan-fighter (a historical archaeologist by training) documenting A&S projects including armoring a new fighter, crossbow building and research, wood carving, weaving, and combat archery.

Step-by-step instructions by Ron Harris for making a Flemish twist bowstring, including building a string-making jig.

A blog post with photos of leather items found on the Mary Rose (which sank in 1545), including bracers, a mitten, an arrow-spac er, leather bottles and buckets, shoes and boots, scabbards, and pouches.

An ongoing site with articles and links on archery as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

A video discussing a medieval archer's bracer, how it was made, and how it was used.

Official site for the Shire of Dun in Mara, the SCA group in Dublin and Ireland's east coast (part of Insulae Draconis). It describes the shire's activities such as armoured combat, rapier, archery and arts and sciences, and carries a news feed of upcoming tournaments and events plus membership and

Project-documentation blog by an SCA archery marshal covering period archery, a 'plausibly period arrows' build series, and decorative metal stamping and other craft projects with photos and citations.

Practical SCA archery blog with starter-bow buying advice, arrow-building supply lists, and leather bracer/armor projects, mixed with period-style poetry.

Article on the Mongolian composite bow, its construction, and its significance in Mongol warfare and daily life.

Research site of a Mongol-focused SCA household covering Mongolian naming practices, scripts, culture, archery, and documentation standards for Mongol personas.

Furthers the study of the development of the bow and arrow across the world from earliest times until the present day and to consider all matters relating to the history of archery in general.

Australian SCA blog documenting event cooking and experimental recreations of historical recipes, alongside sewing and archery projects, with a substantial blogroll of cooking and costuming sites.

Assorted patterns, including elbows, knees, spangenhelm, and splints.

Patterns for arm armour (rerebrace and vambrace), by Alan Bauldree of A.B. Hammer Armoury, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Photo and pattern for a pauldron based on the statue of 'Orlando' in Dubrovnik by Bonino of Milan from 1413.

Photos of finished harnesses, with patterns for the rerebrace, elbow & lames, and vambrace.

Elbow cop pattern requiring minimal tools and no welder, by Sir Roderick Mandrake, from the Armour Archive.

Pattern for an elbow cop with rondel, by Samuel, from the Armour Archive.

Patterns for elbow armor, from the Armour Archive.

Pattern and construction notes for gothic floating elbows, by Darivs Architectvs, from the Armour Archive.

Pattern for a horseman's pauldron with lames, by Mike Yancy, from the Armour Archive.

Pauldron pattern by Alan Bauldree of A.B. Hammer Armoury, from the Armour Archive.

A video discussing a medieval archer's bracer, how it was made, and how it was used.

Free pattern for a simple elbow cop, by Rainald, from the Armour Archive.

Pattern and photos for spaulders, from the Armour Archive.

Photos and pattern for splinted arm armour (rerebrace and vambrace), from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Images of two bazuband variants and a small shoulder cop, by White Mountain Armoury, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

A pattern & instructions for someone with at least minimal sewing skills.

An arming cap is a quilted fabric cap which was worn separately or under additional head protection such as a chainmail coif, skullcap, or helmet. The quilted cap provided a layer of comfort and protection between the chain mail coif and the head. While chainmail is quite resistant to punctures, its

The different headcoveri ngs available to people of various classes during the 14th Century, with historical images and modern recreation s.

Instructions for making one- and three-piece coif patterns, the fitted linen caps worn before and after 1500.

Video tutorial demonstrating how to make an arming cap.

Patterns for the layers and accessorie s for a man's 14th century outfit, including braies, hose, a coif, a hood, and a pouch.

Links to depictions of medieval men (12th-15th centuries) wearing coifs.

The plain coif/cap is probably the most versatile piece of garb in the Middle Ages. It was worn for centuries and changed very little. It's comfortabl e, practical and easy to make.

This entry makes use of the Mary Rose data as well as iconograph ic and textural descriptio ns to reconstruc t a magazine of arrows as would have been kept ready at battle stations on the ship. (Al so online at www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/lalonde/SCA/arrow.html .)

This is really for the beginning archer and or fighter/archer who doesn't get out on the "line" very much.

Introducto ry informatio n on crafting quality SCA-legal arrows.

In pursuit of historical accuracy, stronger arrows, or a desire to build more attractive arrows, some archers would like to cut their own arrow shafts. The key to constructi ng your own arrow shafts is to first construct a jig that gives you the control you need.

Cotswold Museum Service cares for around one and a half million archaeolog ical and social history objects in the Council&#3 9;s collection s. Many of the objects are displayed at the recently refurbishe d and extended Corinium Museum, Cirenceste r. See The Collection s to search for items.

Manual by Dick de Bruin on making wooden selfarrows for the longbow and other traditional bows.

An ongoing site with articles and links on archery as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

Overview of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age missile weapons, including bows and arrows, javelins, and slings, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Lists types, line drawings of extant pieces included in three different exhibition catalogs by Neil Peterson.

The Metropolit an Museum of Art's collection of fourteen thousand pieces, unrivaled in quality, depth, and diversity, encompasse s objects from around the globe and across more than two millennia. Crossbows occupy a singular place in the history of weapons and their technology : they remained in use

Overview of combat archery crossbow designs for SCA use, by Jester of Anglesey.

A database of drawings and graphics of mechanical devices from Renaissance and late medieval sources.

Manual by Hans Schuurman for building a c. 40 lb. longbow, translated from Dutch by Dick de Bruin.

An ongoing site with articles and links on archery as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

Bede Dwyer's observations on reconstructing the Niya bow from a Han-to-Jin dynasty tomb excavation in Xinjiang.

Overview of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age missile weapons, including bows and arrows, javelins, and slings, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Information on archaeological finds relating to 10th century Hungarian bows, and hypothetical reconstructions of the bows.

British History section of the BBC History website. Includes articles & content relating to the Normans, the Middle Ages, and the Tudors.

Britain Express guide to English history and heritage, browsable by period from prehistoric Britain onward.

Details the entries in the Domesday Book relating to the town of Witham, in the county of Essex, in the UK.

The history of the Celtic nations which emerged in Britain after the withdrawal of the Roman Administration in the period generally known as the ''Dark Ages.''

Digitized text of Annie Abram's 'English Life and Manners in the Later Middle Ages'.

A collaborative database on the published sources of English medieval legal documents, with links to the growing number of online sources currently being developed. The guide has been created for the use of scholars and students of English medieval law, and it is our expectation that it will continu

These links connect to Western European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. They shed light on key historical happenings within the respective countries and within the broadest sense of political, economic, social and cultural history. The order

An interactiv e site with games and informatio n about archaeolog ical finds and the history of the city of Exeter.

Transcription of Richard John King's 1862 Handbook to the Cathedrals of England, on Bill Thayer's LacusCurtius site.

EuroDocs collection of links to online primary documents for the history of the United Kingdom, hosted by Brigham Young University.

Internet Medieval Sourcebook's selected primary sources for medieval England.

Feudalism was a social and an economic system. It combined elements of Germanic tradition with both Roman and Church law. The basis of English feudalism was that every person's position in society was defined through a relationship with land, because land was the major source of revenue and the real

Article by Gillian Polack, Ph.D., on the languages spoken in medieval England and the contexts in which they were used.

ORB Online Encyclopedia guide to online resources for late medieval England, edited by A. Compton Reeves.

I started this in response to a situation for the Queen' s Court of the Renaissanc e Pleasure Faire in Southern California , probably about 1987. I noticed during rehearsals that new people especially were missing some of the details that had been common knowledge in the group a few years earlier. A

Brief histories of selected towns and cities in the UK and Ireland.

The aim of the Medieval English Towns site is to provide historical information about cities and towns in England during the Middle Ages, with particular but not exclusive emphasis on medieval boroughs of East Anglia and on social, political and constitutional history. A growing selection of primary

A searchable bibliography of texts -- from private letters, wills, and household accounts to literary works, philosophical treatises, chronicles, court proceedings, church records, and a host of other documents -- that were written in the Middle Ages and are now available in printed or online editio

The database is now a living resource, constantly updated by our staff with several hundred new objects each day. The objects recorded by the Scheme, are known as "porta ble antiquitie s" and are found by members of the public. These objects range from the Palaeolith ic to around the 18th Century, a

This site was created to support the preparation of a substantially revised and greatly expanded edition of the Anglo Norman Dictionary. As part of the ANH project, this site makes available scholarly articles in the area of Anglo-Norman studies.

The Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies is an annual conference devoted to English and Norman medieval history and culture. It focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its purpose, as formulated by its founder R. Allen Brown in 1978, is 'to discuss and for

This site maps the streets, sites, and significant boundaries of late sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century London. You will see many of the theatres and landmarks of Shakespeare's time, and learn about the history and culture of the city in which he lived and worked.

Facts and information about Tudor England, 1485-1603, from EnglishHistory.net.

Full text of William Harrison's 1577 Description of Elizabethan England, at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

The Trust is well known for its investigations of the deeply stratified and well-preserved urban archaeological deposits of historic York.

Roughly chronologi cal links to fashionabl e pendants from the Elizabetha n and early Stuart eras.

Here you will find some excellent metal detector finds made over the years.

Portraits of men (and some women) wearing livery collars and collars of various European orders of knighthood, with a few links to examples in museum collections. Includes the Collar (or Chain) of Esses and the Yorkist collar, and collars for the Orders of the Garter, the Golden Fleece, and Saint Mi

Cotswold Museum Service cares for around one and a half million archaeolog ical and social history objects in the Council&#3 9;s collection s. Many of the objects are displayed at the recently refurbishe d and extended Corinium Museum, Cirenceste r. See The Collection s to search for items.

The database is now a living resource, constantly updated by our staff with several hundred new objects each day. The objects recorded by the Scheme, are known as "porta ble antiquitie s" and are found by members of the public. These objects range from the Palaeolith ic to around the 18th Century, a

Medieval and Renaissanc e rings with inscriptio ns, sometimes known as poesy rings or posie rings.

A set of links to signet rings in museum collection s, as well as portraits of men wearing signet rings. Includes late Roman, Merovingia n, Frankish, Byzantine, intaglio, and heraldic signet rings, and also rings with badges, monograms, and merchant's marks.

How to make a spiral-looped, twisted, wire annular brooch. Based on two finds. Documentation included.

The pieces that comprise the Cheapside Hoard are chiefly in the Museum of London, and the most important items of jewellery are on permanent display. The collection, since its discovery has been an unparalleled marker for secular objects made prior to the second half of the 17th century. Indeed, so

An initiative by members of the metal-detecting community to promote good practice within the hobby. It is an easy-to-use, friendly and supportive online facility for detectorists to record their finds and ensure that the information is preserved for future generations.

Official Kingdom of Atlantia rapier combat pages, with rules, marshal rosters, warrant requests, and staff listings under the Earl Marshal's office.

The purpose of this class is to teach students, whether they are novices on a budget or experienced fighters, how to get garbed in a fashionable manner while complying with the Society's Rapier Armor Standards.

Some of us just need something legal and functional to fight in, and some of us won't step on the field unless we look as if we stepped from a 16th century portrait; but we all need armor. Hopefully the informatio n presented here will help you with the process of creating your own armor. This p

Many people have asked me about the fencing doublets I wear. They are good looking (always a considerat ion for fencers), adaptable to almost any body type, and easy to make.

Archived instructions for building a 15th-century arming coat for SCA armored combat.

Patterns for Viking and medieval armor, clothing, and accessorie s.

A technique for horsehair helm-paddi ng based on examples found in medieval helmets.

Allow me to tell a tale about the connection between the humble textile foundation of martial harness in the 14th century, called the aketon, and the subsequent popularity of padded, quilted garments occurring in France as a peace-time fashion. The former inspired the latter at a time of social chan

A pattern for a padded jack made from hemp canvas (inner and outer shell) with 8 layers of heavy linen for padding.

A detailed paper on the tailoring and constructi on methods used to create the beautiful coat armour on display at the Musée des beaux arts in Chartres.

This gambeson is designed for simple construction. It consists of two pieces and can be modified or altered to personal preference.

If the graveslabs of the west Highlands can be used as a guide, the most common form of Highland armour was the cotun or aketon , a leather garment that was quilted into tubes and stuffed with cotton, wool, or other material to form a rigid yet subtle and well padded form of light armour.

Assorted patterns, including a gauntlet, great helm, spangenhelm, and lamellar.

Free pattern and assembly instructions for articulated demi-gauntlets, by Rainald, from the Armour Archive.

Free demi-gauntlet patterns in medium and small sizes, from the Armour Archive.

Free gauntlet patterns by Alan Bauldree of A.B. Hammer Armoury, from the Armour Archive.

Free gauntlet patterns from the Armour Archive.

Free gauntlet thumb patterns by Cad, from the Armour Archive.

Pattern, measurements, and photo for an hourglass gauntlet, by Cad, from the Armour Archive.

Pattern for Italian-styled fingered gauntlets designed for free wrist movement for SCA fighters, by Thor Z, from the Armour Archive.

These photographs focus on the production of a copy of a mitten gauntlet for the new V&A Medieval and Renaissance Galleries that visitors will be able to try on. The orginal was made between 1510–30 in Germany. It is fully articulated, so that it would fit like a glove, enabling its wearer to keep

Pattern and photos for a mid-14th century style klapp visor bascinet, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive.

Free mitten gauntlet patterns by Clang, from the Armour Archive.

Pattern and photo for Wisby-style gauntlets, by Cad, from the Armour Archive.

Article by Sir Andras Salamandra on disguising SCA-legal helms to give the illusion of authentic early-period helmets in SCA fighting.

Assorted patterns, including a gauntlet, great helm, spangenhelm, and lamellar.

Assorted patterns, including elbows, knees, spangenhelm, and splints.

Free barbute helmet pattern by Allessandro, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Photos and pattern for a bascinet (shown with camail), with a bar grill added to meet SCA armor standards.

Pattern for a bevor with collar, chin, and face plate pieces, by Christoffel van de Keere, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern and build instructions for a 10th- to 13th-century conical helmet with nasal, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Photos and pattern for an early 14th-century style sugar loaf helm, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Patterns and photos for an English style close helm (c. 1510), by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

A catalog from an exhibition at the Metropolit an Museum of Art.

Free generic bascinet pattern by Master Cad, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern and photos for a great helm of the late 13th to early 14th century, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Photos and pattern for a greathelm, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Research article on Viking Age arms and armor and the limited sources for how the weapons were used, from Hurstwic.

Pattern with top, center band, and brim pieces for a kettle helm, by Jurgen, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern and materials list for a leather helm made from stiff 6-10 ounce leather, by Baron Sir Gerhard Kendal from an original by Strygo Alexandru von Talmetz, at the Armour Archive.

Pattern and photos of a finished Milanese-style armet (c. 1500) built in stainless steel with a bar grill visor, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern and cutting instructions for a Norman spangenhelm of single-row rivet construction, by Halberds, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

A gallery of photos taken during a trip to the museum, including a folding table (1480-1500); casting molds; a brooch; some wooden combs; six candlesticks (14th-15th centuries); a clasp (13th century); belts (14th and 15th centuries); carvings in ivory and wood; a pig-face bascinet; a mail shirt; a

Pattern and photos for a 14th-century German klappvisor pigface visor, by Cad, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Overview of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age helmets, including a replica of the Gjermundbu helmet, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Patterns and photos for a sallet, by Rainald, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Free spangenhelm pattern by Alan Bauldree of A.B. Hammer Armoury, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

Pattern and photos for an early 14th-century style visored sugar loaf helm in stainless steel, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

One of the most exciting aspects of the early period warrior persona is the possibility of constructing a helmet which is not only utilitarian but also beautiful.

How to create a helmet similar to the Coppergate helm, and ways to adapt it for use in SCA combat.

Comprehensive online manual of Japanese armor construction, from armor history and parts through making a do and kabuto, at Sengoku Daimyo.

Published by the Federal Research Division of the U.S. Library of Congress as part of the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998, offering a comprehensive description and analysis of the historical setting, geography, society, economy,

English translations of the Sarashina Diary (1009-1059), the Diary of Murasaki Shikibu (1007-1010), and the Diary of Izumi Shikibu (1002-1003).

Effingham's website includes several articles relating to Japanese history and culture.

Essay on gender difference in history and the status of women in China and Japan, from the Women in World History curriculum.

Guide to portraying a Japanese Buddhist monk in the SCA, covering garb, sects, monastic life, and persona play (archived).

Free pattern with panel measurements for a sendai do (Japanese torso armor), by Apocolypse, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

A discussion forum for Japanese in the SCA. Topics include arms, armour, costuming, and other research. Includes links to vendors of interest to Japanese re-enactor s.

Electronic notebook on chainmail construction, with progress notes and links to other mail resources.

The illustrati ons from the Mendel and Landauer Housebooks , indexed by profession and with lists of items found in each illustrati on.

Research article on Viking Age arms and armor and the limited sources for how the weapons were used, from Hurstwic.

A history of mail armor, with medieval illustrati ons and examples.

An ongoing site with articles and links on armour as it applies to the Middle Ages, the SCA and to SCA combat.

A gallery of photos taken during a trip to the museum, including a folding table (1480-1500); casting molds; a brooch; some wooden combs; six candlesticks (14th-15th centuries); a clasp (13th century); belts (14th and 15th centuries); carvings in ivory and wood; a pig-face bascinet; a mail shirt; a

Overview of mail body armour of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age and how it was made from iron rings, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

by Guillaume of Dublin

Published by the Federal Research Division of the U.S. Library of Congress as part of the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998, offering a comprehensive description and analysis of the historical setting, geography, society, economy,

Provides an understanding of Mongolian history, philosophy, geography, clothing, and language.

I started this page because it has been difficult for some SCA members to find informat ion dealing with the Mongols. Hopefully as this page grows, it will meet the needs of the populace.

Bibliography of useful literature on the Mongols, with the author's recommendations.

Narrative overview of Mongol history and chronology from ancient Siberian and Inner Asian origins.

Online resources on Mongolian history, compiled by the Indo-Mongolian Society of New York.

Retired virtual library of vetted and annotated links for Russian and East European studies, maintained at the University of Pittsburgh since 1993.

Promoting and furthering the study of Mongolia, its history, language, and culture.

Columbia University's Asia for Educators unit on the Mongols in world history, 1000-1500 CE.

The Secret History of the Mongols is the first literary monument concerning the Mongols. It is believed to have been written in the year 1240 A.D. The author of it still remains unknown. This is the only immediate source of informatio n about medieval Mongolian life and self-consi deration and also

Uighur Script, also known as Old Script, Mongol Script, Script Mongolian, or Classical Mongolian, is an alphabetic script written vertically from top to bottom with lines progressing from left to right. This article will show the letters, in their various forms, along with their Latin and Cyrillic e

Traditional Mongolian shields, and how to make a shield for SCA combat.

A discussion (with photos) on painted pavises and hand-pavises.

"Shield and Weapon Weights," "In Persona Storytelling," "Period Sources for Story Telling," "Concerning Heraldic Devices and Arms," "Notes on Islamic Clothing and Weapons," "To Tie a Turban," "The Perfect Armor," "The Perfect Armor Improved," and "Closed Form Heater: A Voice from A.S. IV."

How to make a list-legal shield out of quarter-in ch plywood.

Research article on Viking Age arms and armor and the limited sources for how the weapons were used, from Hurstwic.

Armour Archive forum tutorial on making an edgeless shield, by Sir Vitus von Atzinger.

Traditional Mongolian shields, and how to make a shield for SCA combat.

Overview of round shields of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age, their construction with boss and rims, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Making and using a shield press; quick and durable shield edging; putting shields together; some defense for oblong Viking shields; shield colors; an adjustable elliptical shield pattern; and simplified physics of spin for a center-gri p shield.

Includes a useful section on the terminology and history of shields .

Pattern and photos for a small 15th-century style buckler made from heat-treated spring steel, by Sinric, from the Armour Archive pattern archive.

A target modeled on a 16th century English gun shield. Made by applying steel plates to a carved wooden core. Lined with canvas and fringed.

The peanut shield is a wooden, center-grip shield with a metal boss to cover the hand and strike one's opponent. Most were made of wood, some (possibly court models) were covered with sheet bronze and enamel work.

The intent of this article is to give the shield a bit of increased exposure. A myriad of types and styles of shields have been used throughout history, and it would be nearly impossible for us to cover them all here. Instead, we have chosen to cover several classic shield designs in use during key

Dedicated to furthering the development, construction, and operation of period-style siege weapons in the Kingdom of Atlantia, and also to supporting the Atlantian Army when it takes the field against Atlantia's enemies.

Personal project page on building a trebuchet (page has moved to www.adb.ca/treb).

A database of drawings and graphics of mechanical devices from Renaissance and late medieval sources.

The companion Web site to the NOVA program "Medieval Siege." In the film, which is a part of the NOVA series Secrets of Lost Empires, a team of timber framers and other specialists design, build, and fire a pair of trebuchets, a devastating engine of war popular in the Middle Ages. The website inclu

The home of Team Tormentum, which builds modern siege engines, competes in charity Punkin Chunkin competitions, and makes guest appearances for classrooms and television shows.

Explanation of the physics of the trebuchet as a counterweight siege engine, with construction hints and links for medium and small designs.

Photo of a working, life-size trebuchet at Caerphilly Castle.

Plans for catapults, trebuchets, mangonels, ballistas, and other hurling machines, from a longtime maker of pre-cut siege engine kits.

Notes and experiments on trebuchets, with a short history of the siege engine from its Chinese origins to its 16th-century obsolescence.

This is a step-by-st ep instructio n guide to making a leather scabbard, using the known tools and techniques of the Medieval English leather worker. Basic leatherwor king knowledge is assumed, although some of the techniques may be new to the modern leatherwor ker.

Research article on Viking Age arms and armor and the limited sources for how the weapons were used, from Hurstwic.

Making a scabbard for a small dagger or other knife is a relatively simple process.

A blog post with photos of leather items found on the Mary Rose (which sank in 1545), including bracers, a mitten, an arrow-spac er, leather bottles and buckets, shoes and boots, scabbards, and pouches.

Virtual museum of the mediaeval sword, surveying sword forms from the Germanic Iron Age through the High Middle Ages.

This article shows how to make a fully functional, yet typically medieval belt sheath for a single-edged utility belt knife.

Brief descriptio n of the history and process of pattern welding.

The characteristics of leather were just as important then as they are today: flexibility, strength and durability.

The most prized and lauded weapon, but not the most common one, was the sword.

For almost a millennium , a modest wooden ship lay underwater off the coast of Serce Limani, Turkey, filled with evidence of trade and objects of daily life. The ship trafficked in both the Byzantine and Islamic worlds of its time. The ship is known as "the Glass Wreck" because its cargo included th

Photograph of a silver belt with knife and sheath, c. 1576-1600, from the Bildindex image database.

The main function of this paper is to make available to historians generally a selected number of passages in Arabic medieval literature (some of which were hitherto unpublished) which bear upon ferrous technology.

Waterford is Ireland&#3 9;s oldest city, founded by Viking raiders in 914 A.D. The city centre was extensivel y excavated between 1986 and 1992 and the range, quantity and quality of what was found from Waterford& #39;s Viking and Medieval past, surpassed all expectatio ns. Waterford Museum of Treas

Research paper by Viscount Tarrach Alfson, KSCA, describing the weapons a wealthy 7th-century Northern European warrior might be buried with.

The Alfred Jewel bears the inscriptio n "AELFR ED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN&# 34; ('Alfr ed ordered me to be made') and dates from the reign of King Alfred the Great (ruled 871-899). The jewel is made of gold and cloisonne enamel, covered with a transparen t piece of rock crystal.

Select bibliography of Anglo-Saxon studies covering archaeology, history, and material culture.

Photo and descriptio n of a brooch, probably made in Faversham in gold with cells inset with garnets, at the Metropolit an Museum of Art.

Anglo-Saxon history traditionally starts with Hengest and Horsa and their three ships invading Britain in the mid-fifth century, and ends with King Harold falling with an arrow in his eye in 1066. These pages fill in some gaps.

Chapter on jewelry and precious stones from Julia de Wolf Addison's 'Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages,' a description of mediaeval workmanship, on Google Books.

The Saxons ruled England for 600 years, forming the basis of its culture, language and borders. Articles and content relating to the history and culture of Anglo-Saxon England.

This is an online edition of An Anglo-Saxo n Dictionary , or a dictionary of Old English. The dictionary records the state of the English language as it was used between ca. 700-1100 AD by the Anglo-Saxo n inhabitant s of the British Isles.

Britain Express guide to Anglo-Saxon England: history, biography, and heritage attractions.

Here you will find some excellent metal detector finds made over the years.

"To Prepare a Most Honorable Feast" (translated from Maistre Chiquart), "To Make a Feast," "An Islamic Dinner," "A Dinner at Pennsic," "A Jeweler's Bibliography," "Books on Metalworking," and "Period Jewelery You Can Make."

Fosters, develops and coordinates research into all aspects of the Viking Age, with special emphasis on Scandinavian contacts with the British Isles, and on literary and linguistic sources for the period.

Survey of harp types from ancient to modern, including medieval harps, wire-strung and lever harps, and pedal harps, with a bibliography.

Archaeolog ists discovered an extraordin ary Anglo-Saxo n princely burial in Prittlewel l in 2003, but many of its secrets remained hidden, only to be revealed as experts began their painstakin g research.

Free digital versions of nearly all Viking Society for Northern Research publications from 1893 to the present.

Annotated links to resources on Anglo-Saxon culture, history, and daily life.

Recreates the lives and deaths of Anglo-Saxons, Norsemen, Normans and the other people of the British Isles in the centuries around the Battle of Hastings. An excellent collection of articles on life in Anglo-Saxon England.

Practical guidance on Anglo-Saxon embroidery: finding designs, choosing threads and colours, and working the stitches, from Regia Anglorum.

Some of the sports, games, music, verse, dancing, toys, and other pastimes of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Despite the full agricultural year that most people faced, there was always time for folk to partake in games, challenges, tests of skill and general larking about.

Saxon and Viking rondel embroidery designs suitable for embroideri es for court clothes as worn by the highest classes of English society around the 10th century.

Dr. Gale Owen-Crocker muses over the differences between modern English clothing (and attitudes about clothing) and the clothing of Anglo-Saxon England in the year 1000.

The Cithara (a form of lyre) discovered at the Sutton Hoo burial site is quite easy and inexpensive to make. It has been dated at circa 650 A.D. in eastern England, with similar models found in Germany.

It seems that we can be certain that when the Anglo-Saxo ns use the word 'hearp e' they are referring to a musical instrument that is played by plucking strings. It is not so much a matter that the Anglo-Saxo ns unfortunat ely used the word 'hearp e' to mean a lyre; rather it was the case that they

A reconstruc tion of a lyre found in an Anglo-Saxo n grave chamber.

Since the original builders of the Sutton Hoo instruments were not considerate enough to leave an owner's manual, any stringing or tuning of the reconstructed instruments is a guess.

An initiative by members of the metal-detecting community to promote good practice within the hobby. It is an easy-to-use, friendly and supportive online facility for detectorists to record their finds and ensure that the information is preserved for future generations.

Patterns for Viking and medieval armor, clothing, and accessorie s.

Research article on Viking Age arms and armor and the limited sources for how the weapons were used, from Hurstwic.

Small hand axes tended to just be wood-axes which were used for combat. The construction of all axes followed the same general principles.

Overview of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age helmets, including a replica of the Gjermundbu helmet, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Overview of mail body armour of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age and how it was made from iron rings, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Overview of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age missile weapons, including bows and arrows, javelins, and slings, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

The most prized and lauded weapon, but not the most common one, was the sword.

Almost all warriors, from the highest to the lowest carried a single edged knife known as a scramseax. Although primarily an everyday tool, in battle it could be used to finish off a felled opponent, and in the case of some ceorls, a mid to large sized scramaseaxe could have taken the place of a swo

The main weapon of the period was the spear, not only for the peasant but also for the professional soldier and even the nobility. It was the traditional weapon that Woden used and remained the weapon par excellence among the Germanic peoples even during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Beaded necklaces from the 6th to the 10th century.

Long-running research blog on Viking Age women's dress and textile production — wool and linen processing, natural dyeing, spinning, weaving, bead and jewelry research — plus well-known practical series on SCA camping and basic garb for newcomers.

Resource spotlight presenting Jaap Polak's reference work on Javanese gold jewelry and regalia of 750-1550 CE, with images of rings, ear ornaments, and ceremonial pieces.

Maryland bead society offering classes and workshops, meetings, bead challenges, a library, and a member gallery.

Describes Grizel of Dunfort's method for stitching seed beads, and provides instructio ns for a beadworked box.

The idea for this project came from a picture I saw of a diadem from Khokhlach Burial Mound, which currently resides at the Hermitage Museum in the former Soviet Union. The diadem, which dates to the first century CE, has deer processing to the tree of life around the upper edge. The trees have litt

Links to images of women wearing beaded necklaces from portraits and illustrati ons of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Examples of beaded embroidery from before 1600, from the West Kingdom Needleworkers Guild.

Links to images of beadwork from embroidere d items from the 12th century to the 17th century.

Met essay on African beadwork from 75,000-year-old shell beads through coral regalia of the Benin Kingdom, beaded thrones of the Cameroon Grassfields, and southern African glass beadwork traditions.

Bibliography of Viking era beads and bead production research, part of the Dark Ages Re-Creation Company's bead archaeology pages, by Neil Peterson.

The militia of Amiens during the reign of Jean sans Peur (1404-1419 )

Museum resource on Chumash traditional culture of the California coast, covering basketry, shell bead money, tomol plank canoes, food, and rock art.

Describes the construction of a floral beaded circlet, based on medieval chaplets.

A list of extant beadworked items in chronological order, with a lengthy description of the difficulties in researching beadwork.

SCA artisan blog on metal and glass work — pewter casting, jewelry, and beads — alongside a multi-part research series on the Picts and posts on SCA life.

Open-access peer-reviewed review of glass beads as evidence of pre-colonial African trade networks, covering bead morphology, chemistry, and distribution across the continent.

Tons of research and documentation and pictures on period beadwork. More extant pieces than pantings, so lots of solid documentation. Also has a extensive how-to section.

Exploration of historical glass bead making by a Lochac Countess, including period furnace builds, bead recreations from archaeological finds, and teaching notes.

Article (PDF) on historical embellishment using bead embroidery.

Open-access UCL repository copy of the Antiquity paper documenting indigenous glass and glass-bead production at Igbo Olokun, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, around the 11th-15th centuries.

SCA arts-and-sciences blog by Elewys of Finchingefeld (An Tir/Tir Righ). Posts document natural dyeing, lampworked glass beads, weaving on a warp-weighted loom, medieval garment-making (kirtles, coifs, hats), and running a camp kitchen.

Blog of an East Kingdom Laurel in glass beadmaking, documenting lampworking research, Roman-Gaulish hairstyles, clothing and foodways, with scholarly write-ups including instructive failures.

Documentation-rich blog on Russian goldwork embroidery (including the author's Laurel elevation collar), medieval garment construction, and lampwork beads — a rare English-language resource for Russian embroidery.

Research for a miniature beaded garden similar to descriptions of historical examples.

An ongoing site with articles and links on Glasswork and Beads as they apply to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

Calontir blog mixing period cooking, lampwork and crafting projects, and heraldic garb research by the kingdom's former Gold Falcon Herald.

Overview of glass bead evidence from the Norse world and production methods for glass beads.

The grant-level A&S award in the Midrealm, given to those who have both taught and shown excellence

Of all the applications of beadwork, the flowers captivated me the most. The main focus of my research has been the history of beaded flowers.

Official page of the Palanga Amber Museum, whose collection of some 30,000 pieces documents Baltic amber from raw inclusions to worked ornaments, a trade good of the region since antiquity. Branch of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.

Latvian costume-research project page reconstructing the dress of the Vends of the Cēsis area from excavated textile fragments, glass beads and metal ornaments. Part of a larger English-language site documenting archaeological Baltic costume.

I have been doing beadwork for almost all my life. In the past few years I have also been doing research into the historical aspects of beadwork prior to 1600. For the most part, my research has centered on European beadwork dating from 1000 to 1600ce. For the past four years I have focused on docum

Curated online exhibit of Silla gold crowns, belts, earrings, and vessels excavated from the royal tombs of Gyeongju, explaining how gold regalia displayed Maripgan-era royal status.

Detailed article on the 10th-century Preslav Treasure of over 170 gold, silver and jewelled objects — including a famed pair of gold cloisonné-enamel pendants — found near Veliki Preslav, capital of the First Bulgarian Empire.

Glass beads and necklaces were an important item of wealth and display in the Viking Age.

Viking Trade Bead Classification Charts based on Callmer and Henderson 1991 Glassworking at Ahus, South Sweden [Skane, 8th century AD] by Neil Peterson. Includes full color drawings broken down by time period.

The Onondaga Nation, keepers of the Haudenosaunee wampum, explains how quahog and whelk shell beads are made and how belts such as the Hiawatha Belt record treaties and the Great Law of Peace.

Historical bead reproduction blog centered on Viking and Anglo-Saxon glass beads, including a documented SCA masterwork project.

A review of the archaeological evidence for food plants from the British Isles.

An online exhibit, featuring the gardens of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome.

Online library of digitized historic and modern biology books, including natural history works.

The development of the garden in the Middle Ages (focusing especially on German gardens), and different types and functions of gardens.

Asnapium: An Inventory of One of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800 from the Medieval Sourcebook. Examples of included items are: bed clothes, kitchen ware, farm implements, measures of dry goods and harvests, cattle and fowl, specific garden herb and trees.

A calendar of the seasons for some of the plants, flowers, and fruits in 16th century London.

An 1893 partial modernized translatio n of 'De Proprietat ibus rerum' by Bartholome w Anglicus.

An ongoing site with articles and links on Herbalism as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

Illustrated survey of mythical plants believed in during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, from Gode Cookery.

Class notes on plants in the medieval garden and their kitchen, medicinal, and household uses, by THL Katja Davidova Orlova Khazarina.

Cornell University database of plants poisonous to livestock, searchable by botanical or common name and toxic agent.

Overview of the vegetation and flora of Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age England, from re-enactment society Regia Anglorum.

An introducti on to medieval plants and gardening practices by way of the gardens of The Cloisters.

Documentat ion for a rosary A&S project, with informatio n about the historical /religious context.

Documentat ion from projects to make paternoste rs in period styles. Includes a table of extant items and images.

Museum record for the Chasse of Champagnat, a Limoges enamel reliquary chest of ca. 1150, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here you will find some excellent metal detector finds made over the years.

The illustrati ons from the Mendel and Landauer Housebooks , indexed by profession and with lists of items found in each illustrati on.

Information about the history of paternosters and rosaries, including prayers, as well as extant images and artifacts.

Since relics were almost essential to the ordinary worship of the middle ages, and especially to monks, it was natural that men should everywhere seek and find. The following instance is chosen, out of scores or hundreds which might be found, on account of the celebrity of the saint, the reasonable

Necklaces; pendants; rings; earrings; buttons, aglets & single jewels; billiments; girdles; rosaries; and links to other Elizabethan jewelry on the web.

Chasse: The Crucifixio n and Christ in Majesty, ca. 1180–90 French; Made in Limoges

Christian belief in the power of relics, the physical remains of a holy site or holy person, or objects with which they had contact, is as old as the faith itself and developed alongside it. This webpage includes a history of relics and reliquaries, as well as photos and descriptions of reliquaries

Includes information on historical examples, how they were used, and how they were made.

Overview of medieval pilgrimages and pilgrim badges (PDF).

I propose to evaluate what the evidence reveals about the production and compositio n of prayer beads and rosaries, to consider the limits of these sources and to discuss the problems that emerge in interpreta tion of the evidence. In terms of production I aim to address several questions: Who mad

late 14th to early 15th century. Wooden box with tin alloy badges.

Many extant examples of paternoste rs and paternoste r-beads from the 13th-17th centuries; also features descriptio ns from medieval English wills and inventorie s, and literary references .

In Northern European convents from about 1480 to 1520 artificial flowers were created from silk thread, parchment, and coiled wire to decorated the reliquaries. These were later refered to as "hortus conclusus".

An article on the history and use of rosaries, with some comparison of their use at the time that this article was written (1899) and the medieval usage.

An initiative by members of the metal-detecting community to promote good practice within the hobby. It is an easy-to-use, friendly and supportive online facility for detectorists to record their finds and ensure that the information is preserved for future generations.

Waterford is Ireland&#3 9;s oldest city, founded by Viking raiders in 914 A.D. The city centre was extensivel y excavated between 1986 and 1992 and the range, quantity and quality of what was found from Waterford& #39;s Viking and Medieval past, surpassed all expectatio ns. Waterford Museum of Treas

List of medieval rose varieties with descriptions, bloom habits, and dates of cultivation.

Recipe for making rose beads from flower petals.

Site dedicated to roses in art, gardens, and history.

Essay on scent in the medieval world, covering herbal manuscripts, perfumes, and everyday fragrance, magic, and medicine.

Craft-research blog spanning brewing, soap-making, herbal medicine, cooking, and dyeing, combining original research with detailed academic bibliographies.

A commonplace book of recreated period recipes and household arts — metheglins, melomels and cysers, confit orange peel, pomades, leather care — documented experimentally from historical sources.

Historical brewing blog covering documented period sources, ingredient analysis, brewing competition logistics, and questions of authenticity in SCA brewing.

A short annotated bibliography of books and other materials useful for historical brewing. Some of these materials range up into the 1800s.

Personal recipe and feast site collecting redactions from English, French, German, Italian, Iberian, Slavic, Swedish, and Islamic sources, plus mead recipes and feast-cooking advice.

Personal blog and portfolio for Aneleda Falconbridge of the East Kingdom's Barony of Endewearde. Collects original songs (via Bandcamp), poetry, SCA scroll texts, and posts on historic cookery, brewing, and games.

Illustrated AramcoWorld feature tracing coffee from Yemen and Ethiopia through the rise of Ottoman and Arab coffeehouses in the 16th century, including bans, coffeehouse culture, storytelling, and the drink's spread to Europe.

This course is intended to give interested parties an introduction to the various types of period potables.

History of cordials and liqueurs, with period and modern recipes.

Referenced overview of brewing from its Sumerian origins, covering the goddess Ninkasi and her hymn-recipe, Mesopotamian tavern culture, and beer in Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

Article on brewing with period recipes, surveying historical brewing references from Diodorus Siculus onward, by Lord Corwin of Darkwater.

An arts and sciences blog by Baron Caleb Reynolds (Barony of the Rhydderich Hael, Æthelmearc) that mainly posts the wording of award scrolls he has written, alongside his work in brewing, cooking, heraldry, and leather carving.

This is an article from Cariadoc's Miscellany. The Miscellany is Copyright (c) by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook, 1988, 1990, 1992.

Education About Asia article tracing tea from its Chinese origins through Tang-Song processing methods, brick tea as currency, and its spread along trade routes to Japan, Central Asia, and beyond.

This represents the full table of contents from Hugh Plat's 1608 volume, Delights for Ladies. Here you will find the original table of contents as well as a text facsimile of the original table of contents of Hugh Plat's book. I have used a special font to present the recipes in as close a form to t

The illustrati ons from the Mendel and Landauer Housebooks , indexed by profession and with lists of items found in each illustrati on.

Folger Shakespeare Library essay on coffee's origins in Yemen and Ethiopia, its spread through Sufi circles and Ottoman coffeehouses in the 15th-16th centuries, and the controversies it provoked.

The Ancient and Venerable Order of Brewers, Vintners and Meadmakers of the East Kingdom, offering a structured panel feedback system for historical brewing, roundtables, competitions, and classes.

Field Museum announcement describing how its archaeologists recreated the purple-corn and pepper-berry chicha brewed at the Wari site of Cerro Baul, working from residue analysis of excavated brewing vessels. A modern reconstruction of a 1,000-year-old Andean beverage.

Feature on the Wari mountaintop brewery at Cerro Baul, Peru, where elite women brewed pepper-berry chicha de molle for diplomatic feasts before the site was ritually burned around 1050 CE.

Personal research site centered on translations and redactions from Italian Renaissance cookbooks, notably Scappi, along with feast planning notes and class handouts.

An embroidery blog by Hildegard Bergerin (Atlantia) focused on opus anglicanum and goldwork of the 12th to mid-14th centuries, with projects logged by year, class notes and videos, and smaller sections on tablet weaving, brewing, and headwear.

Links to a growing number of old culinary & brewing texts that are now available online.

Discussion of perry in the 14th-16th centuries and its making, drawing on a 1570 text, posted to the Historical Brewing mailing list.

Class notes on the history and use of hops in brewing, from ancient Babylon through their resisted adoption across Europe.

Documentation by Ellisif Flakkari; Recipe and Cordial by Tofi Kerthjalfadsson, Ellisif Flakkari, Leif Hjalmsson, and Barak Ben David (called "Red").

Beer, mead, wine, and cordial recipes plus brewing workshops and information, mostly medieval and SCA-related, from House Greydragon.

Homebrew Sake is very easy to brew using simple cooking tools and then you can enjoy the taste of Sake. Homebrew Sake called 'doburoku', rather than hazy Sake', is part of the culture of Japan. Even under the previously strict control of Liquor Tax law, some Buddist Temples and Shinto Shrines were b

Historical research blog on beverages, brewing, and tavern life by a Laurel who heads the East Kingdom Brewers Guild, with practical guides on documenting and blogging A&S work.

Te Papa curatorial blog post on kava in Tongan culture: preparation from the kava root, the ceremonial kava circle and its social hierarchy, and kava bowls in the museum's Pacific collection.

The Atlantian Brewers Guild is dedicated to the study of brewing practices within the period of history covered by the SCA. It promotes the production of quality beverages using period recipes, extrapolations of probable recipes, and modern sanitary brewing practices. It is the purpose of the Atlant

Long-standing article library covering period chest and bench construction (800–1600), jousting shields and lance racks, mead and cordial making, and seneschal/autocrat guidance.

An English translation (c. 1600) of Charles Estienne's essay on country life, "L'agriculture et maison rustique" (1564). This section covers French wines, the perils of wine, and ciders.

Research site on world brewing history; this section examines chicha production among pre-Inca Andean polities (Moche, Wari, Chimu), brewing techniques, and the political role of maize beer feasting.

An organized set of links related to Medieval and Renaissance brewing.

Venerable SCA link hub organizing primary cooking texts (Forme of Cury, Le Viandier, etc.), articles, redacted recipes, and a companion medieval/Renaissance brewing page.

A growing resource on historical brewing, with original works of research, recipes, essays, and lessons learned.

Research-heavy experimental brewing site on medieval mead, ale, gruit, and kveik fermentation, with extensive bibliographies for beer, mead, wine, cider, and vinegar.

Blog on homebrewing, homesteading, history, and how-to projects including boatbuilding, at Misha's Brewing.

An ongoing site with articles and links on Brewing as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

Article in French on the history of brewers and the brewing trade, from the Vieux Métiers (old trades) series at France Pittoresque.

A series of engravings that bring to us the very clear representation of the crafts and technology of his time, and the relative importance which these discoveries and inventions had in the mind of a well-informed layman of the 16th century. New Discoveries includes illustrations of: The Lodestone,

Article (PDF) on Norse drinking traditions from the Viking Answer Lady site.

English chapters from the Omotesenke tea school tracing chanoyu from tea's medieval introduction as medicine through Murata Shuko, Takeno Joo, and Sen no Rikyu's wabi tea in the Momoyama period.

An SCA A&S 50 Challenge project blog documenting fifty arts-and-sciences projects, from mead and catsear wine to bone carving and embroidery, with step-by-step photos.

A history of perry, and a descriptio n of the process of making perry.

Article on the fermented maguey-sap drink of ancient Mesoamerica, its production, the goddess Mayahuel, and the strict social and ritual rules governing pulque drinking among the Aztecs.

Peer-reviewed open-access review (Frontiers in Microbiology) covering the historical, microbiological, and technical aspects of pulque, including its pre-Hispanic origins, iconography, and traditional production from agave sap.

Overview of food and drink available in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Kingdom brewing guild site with recipe collections for beer, mead, and wine, a rotating beverage-of-the-month feature, championship info, and links to brewing guilds across the Known World.

Chapter of a documented study of t'ej (Ethiopian honey wine) by University of Pittsburgh journalist-scholar Harry Kloman, tracing references to Ethiopian mead from Strabo through medieval royal banquets and later travelers' accounts.

Harry Kloman's research site on t'ej, Ethiopia's honey wine, with chapters on its history from ancient and medieval sources (including royal accounts and gesho hops-substitute), its culture, and how to make it.

Overview of tea's history from early medicinal use through its Tang dynasty popularity, its effect on ceramics production, and its place in art, literature, and later ceremony culture.

SCA brewing log recreating hydromel, mead, ale, gruit, and hippocras from period sources such as Sir Kenelm Digby, with a substantial blogroll of other SCA craft blogs.

Full text of 'The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened,' a 17th-century recipe collection edited by Anne MacDonell, on Project Gutenberg.

Experimental-archaeology brewing blog recreating Viking and ancient beers and meads from grain processing onward, with companion period-cooking posts.

Smithsonian article on the archaeology of cacao: chemical residues in Mokaya and Olmec pots, Maya and Aztec chocolate-drinking vessels, and how the frothed cacao beverage functioned in Mesoamerican ritual and trade.

Site of the Right Noble Brewers Guild of Caid, with brewing contests, recipes, guild ranks, judging information, and a library.

English-language PDF from Japan's National Research Institute of Brewing explaining sake's history and traditional brewing process, including koji culture and the medieval temple and brewery traditions that shaped modern sake.

Research article on alcoholic beverages and drinking customs of the Viking Age, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

University news feature on archaeologists' excavation and experimental reconstruction of the Wari brewery at Cerro Baul, where elite women brewed pepper-berry chicha de molle around 600-1000 CE.

Article on sake brewing in medieval Japan, when women led household and commercial brewing before the rise of temple and guild breweries, drawing on period documents and brewing history scholarship.

Educational site on medieval brewing (SCA, Kingdom of Atlantia) with 'Learning to Brew' handouts, historical recipes and interpretation guides, a bibliography, and an Atlantian brewery pilgrimage list.

Homebrew recipe for a 16th-century style beer made with an ale-making process, from the Debatable Brewers guild.

A short annotated bibliography of books and other materials useful for historical brewing. Some of these materials range up into the 1800s.

Mailing list discussion of age, clarity, and smokiness in medieval beers, with period references to glass vessels and kilning.

Documentation by Tofi Kerthjalfadsson, Debatable Brewers' guildmaster; Ale (recipe and entry) by Tofi, Anwen ferch Morgaunt, Ellisif Flakkari, Leif Hjalmsson, and Barak Ben David (called "Red").

Homebrew recipe recreating a 17th-century apple beer from cider and malt, from the Debatable Brewers guild.

In the century from 1524 to 1625, beer replaced the more traditional ale as the constitutive national drink of the English, a fact enabled by the introduction of cultivated hops. Concurrently, this period, especially the latter half, saw an enormous growth in the sense of English self-identification

This recipe for beer is very similar to beer brewed by the ancient Egyptians and is probably a direct descendent of it.

A case study of beer-brewi ng, retailing and regulation within a single provincial community: Southampto n, a port town and incorporat ed borough on the English south coast.

Article on the history of dark beers and malting, reprinted from the SCA brewing newsletter Scum.

Article on brewing with period recipes, surveying historical brewing references from Diodorus Siculus onward, by Lord Corwin of Darkwater.

A recreation of an early 14th c. unhopped English ale designed and brewed by Tofi Kerthjalfadsson.

A recipe based on the records of the household of Elizabeth de Burgh.

Class notes on identifying and fixing the seven most common beer faults, taught at the University of Atlantia.

Homebrew dandelion ale recipe from the Debatable Brewers guild.

The illustrati ons from the Mendel and Landauer Housebooks , indexed by profession and with lists of items found in each illustrati on.

In general, beers from Elizabethan England would be somewhat heavier, somewhat sweeter, and less bitter than what is available in England today. They would range in color from light to dark brown, due to the malts used. They would have considerably less carbonation than today. And they would be pret

Class notes on evaluating beer by flavor profile - appearance, aroma, taste, and overall impression - for judging and quality control.

Annotated recipe and instructions for brewing a fool-proof first ale.

An ongoing site with articles and links on Brewing as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

An attempt to brew beer based on an ancient Sumerian recipe.

French-language article on limonadiers and historic drink sellers, touching on beers, hypocras, hydromel, and wines.

Homebrew recipe recreating a 15th-century style Bavarian Weissbier with period malting in mind, from the Debatable Brewers guild.

In medieval England, ale was an alcoholic drink made from grain, water, and fermented with yeast. The difference between medieval ale and beer was that beer also used hops as an ingredient. Virtually everyone drank ale. It provided significant nutrition as well as hydration (and inebriation). The ar

Discusses the ingredients in early medieval ales, and how to homebrew ale.

Recipe and Documentation by Tofi Kerthjalfadsson, Debatable Brewers' guildmaster; Ale made by Tofi, Anwen ferch Morgaunt, Ellisif Flakkari, Leif Hjalmsson, and Barak Ben David (called "Red").

The Assize of Bread and Beer (including the Lucrum Pistoris), only takes the form found in the printed Statutes of the Realm in 6% of all Common Law English statute books written up to 1350. More often the three component parts, the Assize of Bread, the Assize of Beer, and the Lucrum Pistoris, appea

The basic concept of brewing is a simple one: if you can boil water, you can brew beer.

Full text of 'The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened,' a 17th-century recipe collection edited by Anne MacDonell, on Project Gutenberg.

Essay on the development of beer from ancient Sumer onward, hosted by the Internet History Sourcebooks Project.

Article on the history of beer bottles from leather to glass and how to bottle homebrew, reprinted from the SCA brewing newsletter Scum.

This Ale recipe was first published in 1577 in William Harrison's "A Description of England", and was found in Lost Country Life, by Dorothy Hartley, on page 192. It is the recipe that William's wife used to brew for the two of them.

A short annotated bibliography of books and other materials useful for historical brewing. Some of these materials range up into the 1800s.

Mead in the SCA: How to Get Started. Includes general instructions and a few recipes.

Collection of mead and honey-based recipes, including basic wildflower mead and a mead from a 13th/14th-century English manuscript.

Homebrew recipe and notes for a dry black raspberry melomel, with period justification from Gayre's history of mead.

Homebrew recipe for a blueberry vanilla melomel fermented with sherry-style yeast, from the Debatable Brewers guild.

Homebrew recipe for a dark sweet mead using buckwheat honey and oak chips.

Homebrew recipe for a dry strawberry melomel made with orange blossom honey.

What follows is a step by step explanation from Duke Gyrth Oldcastle of Ravenspur on exactly how he makes mead.

Class notes comparing honey varieties, their composition, and their effects on mead, taught at the University of Atlantia.

Homebrew recipe for a lemon-ginger mead, from the Debatable Brewers guild.

Maple mead recipe from Master Terafan Greydragon's collection of mead and honey-based recipes.

Quick or short mead (weak honey drink) recipe credited to Master Robyyan, from Master Terafan Greydragon's mead recipe collection.

Master Terafan's clove mead recipe using honey, lemon, cloves, and tea.

Here is a recipe for a metheglin taken from The Closet of sir Kenelme Digby, Knight, Opened: A Receipt to Make Metheglin As It ls Made At Liege as Communicat ed By Mr. Masillon.

Guides both neophyte and more experience d brewers through the Mead-Makin g process.

An ongoing site with articles and links on Brewing as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

French-language article on limonadiers and historic drink sellers, touching on beers, hypocras, hydromel, and wines.

Documentation by Tofi Kerthjalfadsson, Debatable Brewers' guildmaster; Mead (recipe and entry) by Tofi, Ellisif Flakkari, Leif Hjalmsson, and Barak Ben David (called "Red").

A modern adaptation of a recipe which should prove satisfacto ry insofar as the herbs are infused in the finished mead.

Homebrew recipe for a raspberry-lemon melomel, with period justification from Gayre's history of mead.

Sample 17th-century mead recipes from Sir Kenelm Digby's Closet (1669), from Cindy Renfrow's A Sip Through Time.

Overview of food and drink available in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Step-by-step instructions for making a basic simple mead, written in persona.

Syr Michael of York mead recipe from Master Terafan Greydragon's collection of honey-based recipes.

Digitized edition of The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened (1669), a classic source of period mead and cookery recipes.

Full text of 'The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened,' a 17th-century recipe collection edited by Anne MacDonell, on Project Gutenberg.

Reference on mead types and ingredients, from sack mead and cyser to braggot and melomel, with mead-making guidance.

This page is dedicated to that most ancient of fermented beverages, mead, with informatio n on wine, beer and cider as well.

Research article on alcoholic beverages and drinking customs of the Viking Age, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

Period recipe for weak honey drink (small mead) from Digby, from the drinks section of Cariadoc's Miscellany.

White pyment recipe from Master Terafan Greydragon's collection of mead and honey-based recipes.

A short annotated bibliography of books and other materials useful for historical brewing. Some of these materials range up into the 1800s.

This entry is comprised of two distinct forms of Andulusian cordials made from syrups flavoured with various ingredient s. The first is an oxymel, which is a generic term for medicinal drinks combining vinegar with sugar syrup. The second is a jalab which is a generic terms for flavoured sugar syrup

Period drink recipes from Cariadoc's Miscellany, including small mead and sekanjabin, with original source texts and redactions.

From "Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke." London, 1652, by Capt. John Wadsworth. Apparently a translation of a book by Melchor de Lara, "Physitian General for the Kingdome of Spaine", 1631.

Collection of early texts (1529-1744) on coffee, tea and chocolate, hosted by the Institut fuer Germanistik, University of Giessen.

An ongoing site with articles and links on Brewing as it applies to the Middle Ages and the SCA.

Notes on the consumption of (and recipes for) a variety of non-alcoholic beverages.

A recreated recipe from a descriptio n in Pliny' s Natural History.

A recipe for sekanjabin with mint or cinnamon, based on recipes in Cariadoc's Miscellany.

Sekanjabin is a period drink; it is mentioned in the Fihrist of al-Nadim, which was written in the tenth century.

Period recipe for syrup of lemon, from the drinks section of Cariadoc's Miscellany.

Period recipe for syrup of pomegranates, from the drinks section of Cariadoc's Miscellany.

A short annotated bibliography of books and other materials useful for historical brewing. Some of these materials range up into the 1800s.

15th-century English recipe for caudell (wine thickened with eggs) from An Ordinance of Pottage, with original text and translation.

15th-century English caudell recipe (a frothy wine or ale drink) from Harleian MS 4016, with original text and modern translation.

Recipe for clarree, honeyed spiced wine, from the Forme of Cury, with original text and a modern redaction.

14th-century Forme of Cury recipe for clarrey (wine mulled with honey and spices), with translation and modern recipe.

French-language article on limonadiers and historic drink sellers, touching on beers, hypocras, hydromel, and wines.

14th-century recipe for potus ypocras (spiced mulled wine) from Goud Kokery, with original text, translation and modern redaction.

Recipes for mulsam, vin blanc, conditum paradoxum, and amygdala et malum.

Full text of 'The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened,' a 17th-century recipe collection edited by Anne MacDonell, on Project Gutenberg.

Recipes and documentation on wines and a recipe for a clarrey (spiced white wine).

Recipe for ypocras, the popular medieval spiced wine, from Goud Kokery, with original text and a modern version.

15th-century Italian recipe from Martino Rossi's manuscript for zambaglione (eggnog of yolks, sugar, cinnamon and wine), with translation and historic notes.

Recipes for inks and paints; also a small treatise on "the ordering of wines.&#34 ;

Article on the history and use of wine from prehistory through the Middle Ages, reprinted from the SCA brewing newsletter Scum.

Article on pressing your own fruit and extracting juice for home winemaking, with advice on choosing fruit.

A short annotated bibliography of books and other materials useful for historical brewing. Some of these materials range up into the 1800s.

The distillation of wine and the properties of alcohol were known to Islamic chemists from the eighth century. The prohibition of wine in Islam did not mean that wine was not produced or consumed or that Arab alchemists did not subject it to their distillation processes.

An English translation (c. 1600) of Charles Estienne's essay on country life, "L'agriculture et maison rustique" (1564). This section covers French wines, the perils of wine, and ciders.

Overview of food and drink available in tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England, from the reenactment society Regia Anglorum.

Philip Stubbes started writing around 1581 producing small tracts in which he sharply denounced the manners, pastimes, fashions and culture in England. His major work, The Anatomie of Abuses, was first published in 1583. P hilip Stubbes had a gift for keen observatio n. Although his comments should

Full text of 'The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened,' a 17th-century recipe collection edited by Anne MacDonell, on Project Gutenberg.

Research article on alcoholic beverages and drinking customs of the Viking Age, from the Viking Answer Lady site.

Recipes and documentation on wines and a recipe for a clarrey (spiced white wine).

This article is designed for the FIRST TIME brewer. If you are a first time brewer, and you follow this guide, you will have a very drinkable and enjoyable beverage.

A blog by Will McLean, known in the SCA as Master Galleron de Cressy, who recreated the late 14th and early 15th century and died in 2013, shortly after his last post. Subjects include tents and pavilions, hunting seasons, flags and gilding, board games, and guild oaths, alongside occasional science

Long-running research blog on Viking Age women's dress and textile production — wool and linen processing, natural dyeing, spinning, weaving, bead and jewelry research — plus well-known practical series on SCA camping and basic garb for newcomers.

First-person persona-immersion site for Annabella, a late-16th-century Scottish merchant woman trading wool and cloth around Cologne and Florence. Sections cover her persona narrative and medieval commerce research, an 'immersive hospitality' project about outfitting camp tents and day shades, and d

Woodworking guides for historically-inspired camp furniture — six-board chests, stake-leg benches, tusk-tenon trestle tables, X-chairs, and rope beds — aimed at SCA encampments like Pennsic.

Historical background on wheel barrows, and notes on building a 16th century barrow with an iron-shod wheel.

Detailed guide to how medieval tents were actually built and how to reconstruct them, with a design taxonomy, period iconography, a measurement calculator, and King René-style pavilion build write-ups.

A database of drawings and graphics of mechanical devices from Renaissance and late medieval sources.

An East Kingdom A&S guild studying historical outdoor living, wilderness survival, travel, and camp cooking, with ranks and research resources for members.

Craft blog reconstructing high medieval kit — turnshoes, foul-weather clothing, camp gear, and arms — with museum study visits and detailed build write-ups.

The whole idea of building a gypsy wagon, or Vardo, came about because I really don't like camping, but I really DO like going to Pennsic.

Swedish costumer's blog covering historical tents and period camp setup for events like Double Wars, plus hand-sewn medieval and Viking garb tutorials, with archives back to 2014.

An SCA household site whose articles include practical newcomer guidance, notably a detailed 'What to Expect at Your First SCA Event' guide covering garb, camping and event etiquette.

SCA arts-and-sciences blog by Elewys of Finchingefeld (An Tir/Tir Righ). Posts document natural dyeing, lampworked glass beads, weaving on a warp-weighted loom, medieval garment-making (kirtles, coifs, hats), and running a camp kitchen.

Our Middle Eastern medieval tent won the Open Craft Section at the last Conference.

Practical illustrated guide to disguising modern pop-up canopies as medieval pavilions — tower covers, drapes, over-shells, and sidewalls.

Links to photos of various structures built at Pennsic and other places (page no longer available).

Plans (PDF) for a portable cottage, from the Medieval Pavilion Resources pages.

Research articles and tutorial library from a Lochac Laurel on historical headwear, early 16th-century German women's clothing, pavilions, tablet weaving, metalwork, and pageantry.

Documentation-rich blog covering period tent design and patterns, a long-running 15th-century cottage kitchen build, fire-and-spit cooking technology, and medieval children's clothing.

Seneschauc ie is an anonymous document of the later 13th century, thought to date from the early 1270s, describing the roles of all officers and manorial servants on an idealised estate. It is not a guide to agricultur al practice, but to organisati on and man-manage ment.

An index to the newsletter of the Slavic Interest Group, organized by article topics.

Massive topically-organized archive of decades of SCA mailing-list posts and articles — cooking, camping, children in the SCA, personas, and hundreds more subjects — preserved in Stefan li Rous's memory after his passing in 2022.

Personal WordPress blog by Elias de Birton (SCA, Aethelmearc) documenting leatherwork projects, a 'trekking kit' for period camping, and a regional Forestry Guild challenge, framed around his forester persona.

Personal blog documenting one SCA member's hands-on projects. Posts cover woodworking (an oak spade, an Irish logboat, a birchbark cup), a slate whetstone, cool-weather camping tips, medieval forest-law terminology, and the author's habit of recording time and labour for arts-and-sciences documentat

The Mongolian yurt, or ger, is a round, nominally portable, self-supporting structure suitable for camping in comfort. It does not rely on ropes or stakes to hold itself up; rather, the walls, rafters, roof ring, and tensioning bands all work against each other, in a marvel of physics and engineerin

Making a replica of the cart found in the Oseberg Ship burial site.

Various things I've learned the hard way about tentmaking that I have not seen listed other places.

Links to images of wagons, carriages, and carts in medieval and Renaissance works of art, including the Oseberg cart, from the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com.

Links to images of wheelbarrows and hand-carts in use in medieval and Renaissance works of art, from the Linkspages at Larsdatter.com.

Materials and construction of a rope bed. A longer version of this article is in the 9th edition of the Miscellany .

Plans for a portable wood-frame bed for camping.

Article on ancient and early period bed designs.

Plans for a bed adapted from a Viking Age design, sized for a modern full mattress, with pegged slats and altered mortises for pine construction.

Overview of beds and bed fragments from the Viking Age Oseberg (c. 850) and Gokstad (c. 900) ship burials in Norway, with reproduction notes.

"A Period Rope Bed," "Building a Simple Period Table," and "Conjecturally Authentic Furniture."

This article compiles the notes and methods employed to create some heraldic bed hangings to enhance the aesthetics and functional ity of my medieval camping bed.

Illustrations of beds & bedding, as well as photos of extant beds.

Illustrations of infants' cradles from the 13th-16th centuries.

An ongoing site with articles & links on furniture as it applies to the Middle Ages & the SCA.

A gallery of photos taken during a trip to the museum, including a folding table (1480-1500); casting molds; a brooch; some wooden combs; six candlesticks (14th-15th centuries); a clasp (13th century); belts (14th and 15th centuries); carvings in ivory and wood; a pig-face bascinet; a mail shirt; a

Some useful notes on late medieval turned triangle stools, backstools, and chairs.

Woodworking plans for building a 15th century Savonarola folding chair.

A scaled-down & simplified version of a chair with a design that goes back to at least the 14th century; the 16th century version is sometimes called a "Dantesca" chair, modified to facilitate dismantling the chair for transportation.

This chair is generally consistent in style with illustrations from the 14th to the 16th centuries, though is not patterned on any particular example.

Plans for a folding medieval wooden stool based on a 16th century English oak original in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Syr Raim y Hynnddyl provides assembly instructions for a combination bench and chest based on a settle seen in a 15th century painting.

This article describes how to build a simple Gothic-style bench. The materials are very inexpensive - around ten dollars or so. The skills needed to make this bench are not very demanding, as the design is quite simple and does not require much experience with woodworking. Complex tools are not need

Article on ancient and early period chair designs.

Plans for sturdy plywood chairs that break down for transporta tion.

Plans for building the Irish Tuam chair.

Chairs in museum collections, with related illustrations and paintings. Arranged by category: box chairs, caquetoires, Dantesca chairs, Glastonbury chairs, Savonarola chairs, and sgabelli.

Pictures of Glastonbury chairs from cathedrals around the UK, pictures of the original chair in Wells, and pictures (and plans) for a reproduction.

Images of benches and stools from period manuscripts, and in museums. Includes a section on folding stools.

Plans for simple medieval-style benches to provide extra seating around an SCA encampment, with notes on prototype and working models.

An ongoing site with articles & links on furniture as it applies to the Middle Ages & the SCA.

A gallery of photos taken during a trip to the museum, including a folding table (1480-1500); casting molds; a brooch; some wooden combs; six candlesticks (14th-15th centuries); a clasp (13th century); belts (14th and 15th centuries); carvings in ivory and wood; a pig-face bascinet; a mail shirt; a

Paintings, manuscript illustrations, and museum examples of settles (long wooden benches with backs and arms) from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Plans for building the "Stargazer" camp chair.

Article and plans on the folding camp stools of Roman Britain.

Plans for the Sligo chair, a variation of the Irish Tuam design.

Plans for building a Viking box chair.

Archived notes on designing and building a Viking Age tool chest based on the Mastermyr find, for use as a feast gear box.