#English history

[vox-anglosphere]

Spectacular

[city-of-ladies]

"A marginal note written in Latin and buried deep within one of the 16 heavy registers used by to record the business of the archbishops of York between 1304 and 1405 first alerted archivists to the adventures of the runaway nun. “To warn Joan of Leeds, lately nun of the house of St Clement by York, that she should return to her house,” runs the note written by archbishop William Melton and dated to 1318.

Melton, writing to inform the Dean of Beverley about the “scandalous rumour” he had heard about the arrival of the Benedictine nun Joan, claimed that Joan had “impudently cast aside the propriety of religion and the modesty of her sex”, and “out of a malicious mind simulating a bodily illness, she pretended to be dead, not dreading for the health of her soul, and with the help of numerous of her accomplices, evildoers, with malice aforethought, crafted a dummy in the likeness of her body in order to mislead the devoted faithful and she had no shame in procuring its burial in a sacred space amongst the religious of that place”.

After faking her own death, he continued, “and, in a cunning, nefarious manner … having turned her back on decency and the good of religion, seduced by indecency, she involved herself irreverently and perverted her path of life arrogantly to the way of carnal lust and away from poverty and obedience, and, having broken her vows and discarded the religious habit, she now wanders at large to the notorious peril to her soul and to the scandal of all of her order.”

Professor Sarah Rees Jones, principal investigator on the project, said the story of Joan’s escape, which she and her team discovered last week, was “extraordinary – like a Monty Python sketch”.

The scribes did not record whether Joan was returned to the convent or not. “Unfortunately, and this is really frustrating, we don’t know the outcome of the case,” said Rees Jones. “There are quite a lot of cases of monks and nuns who left their religious house. We don’t always get the full detail or know what the outcome was.”"

"Archive shows medieval nun faked her own death to escape convent", Alison Flood

[knighthelm]

The Boleyn sisters, side by side

[cesareeborgia]

↳ house woodville & house boleyn + parallels (requested by anonymous)

[queerquaintrelle]

2026 at the earliest we can do it y'all!

In the meantime may I offer one of the most underrated period dramas of ever to me. I sometimes critique period dramas for putting narrative over historical fact but this one does not lie unless one counts omitting something because it is obvious in the context of the narrative this in one is more or less true but condescended timeline. Also, its primary longrunning theme is about doing the right thing cause it is the right thing (which should be a good enough reason), so feels relevant again unfortunately.

(Content Warnings).

Alright, but now imagine him in 18th century hunting attire, covered in blood - Lestat sat on a stool in his CASTLE, looking up like this at his brother after he just killed 8 wolves & Augustin is like “LOL, No you didn’t” &….

[thomascromwelll]

Wolf Hall + Art (1/2) Queen Jane Seymour Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (x) oil on panel, circa 1536/37

[jaehaeryshater]

England’s Pearl and Their Beloved Queen

Mary I and Katherine of Aragon by @francy-sketches

Guys. I have not been so excited for a commission in my life. I know it’s not ASOIAF so definitely not as anticipated among my friends, but it’s just so well done. I adore Katherine and Mary and this turned out so beautifully. I cannot sing Francy’s praises high enough; after the initial reference pictures I sent her, I did not need to correct anything at all, she completely got the vision.

As anyone who has ever encountered me before will have known, I am incredibly particular about commissions and therefore very involved. I usually like to give pieces I pay for extra thought and historical authenticity. For this piece, I went and looked for available quotes and contemporary accounts of Katherine’s fashion choices. I wanted to make sure from the base of the dress (the farthingale underneath) to the jewelry were all as accurate as was reasonably possible. I did even learn a thing or two, despite my initial intention of just checking to make sure everything I had previously believed was true. For example, I learned that Katherine sometimes wore a flemish hood, which I wouldn’t have thought that would align with her fashion sense; I was proven wrong. I have seen practically all the artworks available to the public that have been confirmed to be Katherine, so I had already guessed black was her favorite color to wear. But I did learn that her other favorites were purple and red. I decided to keep it simple with the black. It’s elegant and regal, black was an expensive color but still is not obnoxiously ostentatious. The jewels around her neckline as taken directly from portraits of her. The pearls seem a mainstay for her, but I did learn that her dresses had many other colored jewels tied into them. I just thought black looked the best. Her dresses were fur-lined, although I would definitely say we took some liberties on what the fur looked. The fur she wore was pretty much exclusively ermine. The sleeves also have true gold, which Spanish royalty traditionally loved (for hundreds of years, by this point, at least). Katherine’s Spanish outfits, of which she had many, definitely collected dust in favor of more traditional English outfits. There’s no indication that she was forced into this, as she did sometimes dress in the Spanish style when it struck her fancy, but it was important for her to present herself as English with English loyalties and priorities in mind. That being said, something as innocuous as gold embroidery, which was not completely foreign to the English court, was definitely something she could implement from back home without seeming like a foreigner. I have pomegranate embroidery on her sleeves, which is more of symbolism rather than something accurate. There’s no proof she ever wore pomegranate embroidery on her sleeve, but her official symbol was of a pomegranate, so I figure that was something important to her.

Katherine’s necklace is obviously a direct copy of the necklace she wears in several of the contemporary artworks depicting. This is pure speculation, but I personally believe that this necklace could have come from old English jewels that had been melted down and repurposed for her. Generally, people weren’t as sentimental in the same way we are today, nor worried about these aspects of preservation, so jewels were melted down and used for other purposes all the time. She also usually wore many strings of pearls, but it just would have looked like too much and would take away from the piece overall, so we decided just to do the necklace. Her gabled hood is also directly taken from her contemporary portraits, the gold and black with the red jewels was what she usually wore. She has a girdle belt with a long string of pearls. Sometimes she would wear a cross at the end or some black jewels that matched her necklace. What’s depicted in this is actually a pomander that turns into a rudimentary clock when it is opened. Katherine is recorded as having one of these; I thought that was very cool. I also asked for her to have some rings. She did have a wedding ring, but I found no description of it, so the artist just did basic gold. She’s wearing two which I think is pretty funny considering she was married twice, of course she wouldn’t have worn two wedding rings, but imagine if she did have the audacity to. Katherine had so much jewelry, more than any of Henry VIII’s wives. She had the royal collection available to her, pieces from Spain, and gifts from Henry specifically made for her. She usually decked herself out as expensively as possible.

Unfortunately, there is basically no information on how Mary dressed as a child. We know her mother dressed her and was having the clothes ordered herself, but beyond that, there’s really nothing available that I could find. I felt that Mary would be dressed similarly to her mother, but I wanted to give her a purple dress because purple fabric was generally the most expensive thing you could buy. I wanted to illustrate how loved and well taken care of she was. She has matching rings with her mother, but no girdle belt or necklace because I’m envisioning her as being 6-9 in this, so I wanted to give her something she could play in. She’s wearing a French hood. Katherine ordered her one in 1520, when she was four. My references on how hers should look is from portraits of her aunts Mary and Juana. I felt that Katherine would probably want to buy a style she was familiar with. Mary’s embroidery is of the Tudor rose. It turned out so beautifully. Similarly to Katherine, there’s no evidence that she actually wore that embroidery, but I wanted some symbolism in there.

My intention with this piece was to show the closeness between Katherine and Mary. Katherine loved Mary with all her heart and showed no outward indication of disappointment that Mary was a girl. She spent more time with Mary than any other highborn individual in this time period that I know of. I wanted to show that Katherine is someone that Mary deeply and completely trusted, even when court could be over the top and crowded, frightening for a child. I feel as if people other themselves from people in the past. People often feel as if people 500 years ago did not care as deeply about their children or weren’t attached to them. I believe this is true in some instances, but generally we are more like the people of the past than we like the believe. As far as any research I’ve done has shown, Katherine loved Mary as much as any mother of our time loves her children.

I believe Francy did a beautiful job, so all compliments go to her, I hope everyone checks out her page to see her amazing work. The caliber of this is unlike the commissions I’ve done in the past. I cannot thank her enough.

I hope this ended up being relatively historically accurate, I’m sure someone will let me know if it’s not haha.

[wonder-worker]

"Scholars have offered a number of explanations for why Matilda chose to style herself as domina Anglorum [Lady of the English]. It has been suggested that she might have balked at usage of the term regina, which, translated into the Anglo-Saxon English cwen, implied the wife of a king. The title queen, then, carried with it representational difficulties, as it was the office of king, not queen, that Matilda was seeking. In contrast, the term domina, or hlaefdige in Anglo-Saxon (lady in modern usage), was used to describe a woman exercising political and military power, such as the ninth-century Mercian queen Aethelflaed. As some scholars have suggested, Matilda’s use of the term domina may be related to a wider European usage, as dominus, or lord, described any number of public roles and offices men such as kings performed. Yet another explanation is the convention of kings elected but not yet crowned using the title dominus during the interregnum before their coronation. The title domina Anglorum undoubtedly drew from a number of meanings present in twelfth-century Anglo-Norman society, but all described a woman exercising power. As the Lady of the English, Matilda advertised herself as an individual woman capable of possessing and wielding regal power."

— Charles Beem, "Empress Matilda and Female Lordship", The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History

[vox-anglosphere]

King Richard I

[victusinveritas]

In the early 15th century, Edward of Norwich, the 2nd Duke of York, wrote a list of over 1,000 names that he deemed suitable for hunting dogs. It's included in a book called "The Master of Game," and it's considered the oldest English-language book on hunting. The corresponding dog pictures We Rate Dogs used are just some visual context from the time period, but they have been carefully selected to match a name from the list.

[eve-to-adam]

I had a moment of enthusiasm and it shows.

Henry V x Catherine of Valois sketches.

[medievalistsnet]

Archaeologists Identify ‘Lost’ Anglo-Saxon Site Depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry

A team of archaeologists has uncovered evidence that a private home in England may stand on the site of a long-lost residence belonging to Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. Their findings suggest that this location, depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, was a major centre of power before the Norman Conquest.

[city-of-ladies]

"This woman, nicknamed ‘Piper’ by the University of Central Lancashire archaeologists who uncovered her in 2014, was buried in grave 116 in a sixth-century early medieval cemetery in Oakington, Cambridge. More interesting than the pipe, which was a pure accident of directional drilling, her grave was richly furnished. She had a brooch on each shoulder, wrist-clasps, and a large ornate cruciform brooch, indicating she had been buried in a peplos dress over a long-sleeved dress and wrapped in a pinned cloak. She also had a collection of glass and amber beads. These items in her grave indicate that she was a wealthy and important woman within her community at Oakington.

The more I researched this dig, which was overseen by archaeologists Dr Faye Simpson and Dr Duncan Sayer, the more the site was revealed to be a remarkable insight into early medieval gender and society. Piper was not the only high-status woman in the Oakington cemetery. In fact, there were a large number of furnished female burials, which acted as focal points throughout the cemetery, and very few male ones.

Duncan Sayer has called the Oakington dig suggestive of a ‘female-dominated matriarchal group’ in early medieval England. What’s more, around thirty percent of the 124 graves were those of infants. The high number of infant burials is disproportionate, indicating that women were in this area specifically to give birth within this matriarchal community.

During the past week there has been much excitement on social media and in the press about the findings of a recent DNA study, which provide evidence for matrilocal societies in Iron Age Dorset. Matrilocal societies are groups in which women stay within family groups, marrying outsiders, while male family members join different groups. Such societies would naturally revolve around generations of women. The Oakington site might provide a comparable example, though centuries later, of a similar kind of female-dominated group."

[queer-scots-geordie-dyke]

Paid a visit to Clifford's Tower, just a 5 minute walk from our hotel. Like rather a lot of historic buildings in England, it sadly has a tragic and horrific history as the site of one of the worst antisemitic massacres of the Middle Ages, in 1190, in which around 150 Jews (which constituted almost the entire Jewish population of York at that time) took refuge in the tower to escape a mob. Most chose to die by their own hands rather than be killed by the mob and some, who had been promised safe passage if they converted to Christianity, were promptly murdered as soon as they left the building.

[dxcstrange-stuff]

Another traditional print I did a few months ago, an etching to be precise. This specimen's proud owner is the lovely Sir Rylance himself! Even though he sighed looking at it as if he was mourning an old friend. Definitely makes watching the new season more painful 🥲