#tudor women WHEN

[malkaleh]

@elephantlovemedleys @theladyelizabeth

TS12: concept album about maligned famous women throughout history interwoven with Taylor’s own feelings about fame, money, guys, and love

oh i would ADORE this

[taniatas]

[edwardseymour]

Catalina de Motril, credit to sheebsfeedandseed on Instagram

“In the records, Catalina is identified as a slave and royal bedmaker. She is not accorded a surname and Catalina was probably not her real name. She was born in Motril, Granada, which until 1492 was an autonomous Muslim kingdom. As such, she almost certainly grew up a Muslim moor. But before 1501 she was enslaved, probably converted and placed in the service of Catherine of Aragon.”

[fideidefenswhore]

i used to think the fatphobia in 'discourse' about hviii was more about him being like...an acceptable target (ie, Bad Man award), but now i'm starting to think it's more about there being this...commonplace and particularly visceral disdain towards people that start off as one body type and become another.

(and also, elements of ableism etc)

[rahabs]

My petty 2024 wishlist includes the ability to ban Six the Musical posts from both The Tudors tag and the general tags for Henry VIII's wives.

[cosmic-walkers]

Is it me or do I notice a chunk of Wolf Hall fans tend to not like Anne Boleyn. I think a lot of it has to do with how she was portrayed in both the show and the books...

I like her, a lot...but i notice a lot of people don't.

[izzy140105]

[hcfiles]

Of course, you can't believe everything you hear, and should not. If I write a lot of nonsense about HC on forums, who would believe that? It's simple: people lie, especially when they want to eliminate someone, they'll invent rumours to that aim. If you believe it without checking, you can easily believe in antivax and all the other conspiracy theories too! I see that there are a lot of rumours about him, but there's no proof. And of course it's always in the forums! The incident on the set of Tudor made him uncomfortable playing sex scenes because there were people around him. It must have been a gradual process. In the interviews with Amy Adams, she and the journalist made sexual references, and he was clearly uncomfortable. He realised why he was called in the films: for his looks. That couldn't help him excel. Finally, these accounts that reveal blinds do it mostly for the views.

You said something interesting: that he realized why he was called for the movies and that it was for his looks. Did he really have the illusion it was for his acting skills? Let's admit it: As an actor, he may have potential, but still has A LOT to learn and evolve. And, if surprised about the reason he was chosen, I wonder why. Wasn't he the first to sell himself as a sex symbol and to say he was on the job, for the money was good? What did he expect? As an actor, he's usually stiff (probably for being very shy and insecure). To the industry, he's great for action, hero movies. But, he needs to evolve his skills for drama and even comedy. He couldn't even let loose and relax on Boy George's video. He was clearly uncomfortable and showed that, depending on the role, he might only perform it if there's no choice and he sees himself trapped and obligated. Or he will arrange an excuse to leave or to be fired from production. But, this discussion he brought about sex scenes, as he touched on the subject in an interview for Josh, could be for feeling uncomfortable with them or TO GIVE THE IDEA HE IS UNCOMFORTABLE AND GENERATE THE DISCUSSION. People are being manipulated. And, what is curious about this is to see him bringing the discussion when it has been said his promiscuous PR is actually, a cheap porn actress. Don't get me wrong. I do believe he feels uncomfortable with sex scenes and I agree sometimes they seem unnecessary, despite appealing. But, this discussion called my attention and made me question: Why bring it? It is as if he had faced some trouble in a production because of it. So, was that the reason he left (was fired) from TW? For denying taking his clothes off and performing sex scenes? But, isn't he a jerk with women? A jerk with women wouldn't care and even would like to perform them. So, what's the truth?

[thesimline]

1500s WOMEN - PART 3

I found so many great headbands when I was gathering Tudor CC that I couldn't fit them all in the main 1500s collection, so I thought I'd put together a mini collection as an added little bonus.

You can find more of my historical content here:

1300s ✺ 1400s ✺ 1500s ✺ 1600s ✺ 1700s

1 - Cubic Button Velvet Headband by Rimings

2 - Pearl Crystal Hairband by Atelier Lena

3 - Pearl and Frill Hairband by Bed & Musae

4 - Hair Accessory 202008 by S-Club (TSR)

5 - Paradise Set by Ersch

6 - Headwear F 201703 by S-Club (TSR)

7 - Pearl Hair Band of Roses by Lark

8 - Large Headband by Waekey

9 - Pearl Headband NA046 by Mydarling20 (TSR)

10 - Gwynevere Headband by Sugar Owl (TSR)

11 - June Headband by Lin Dian (TSR)

12 - Pearl Headband by Suzue

With thanks to some amazing creators: @rimings @atelierlena @bedisfull @waekey

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Why do people still use Hilary Mantel’s words against Kate? Hilary Mantel defended her words saying she was taken out of context:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-21710158.amp

"My lecture and the subsequent essay was actually supportive of the Royal Family and when I used those words about the Duchess of Cambridge, I was describing the perception of her which has been set up in the tabloid press.

"My speech ended with a plea to the press and to the media in general. I said 'back off and don't be brutes; don't do to this young woman what you did to Diana'.

"My whole theme was the way we maltreat royal persons, making them one superhuman, and yet less than human."

Mantel, whose latest novels are set in the royal court in Tudor times, said she believed she had been "set up" as a hate figure.

"I don't believe for one moment that there was any lack of clarity, after all, I have been practising my trade for a number of years now," she said.

"It was a matter of taking the words completely out of context - twisting the context - and setting me up as a hate figure.

"I have absolutely no regrets. What I said was crystal clear."

Mantel, who won the Costa Book of the Year Award for Bring Up The Bodies. added: "I do think that the Duchess of Cambridge is an intelligent young woman who, if she cares to read my essay, will see that I meant nothing but good to her."

I actually haven’t read the full essay because I can’t find it, so to those who have read the full essay, what was the context of what Hilary Mantel said?

The full essay is hard to find because it wasn’t actually a published essay, not at first. It was a lecture she gave, later recorded and published, called Royal Bodies, about media’s treatment of women. It’s an oral history of how famous royal women - Kate, Diana, Marie Antoinette, and Anne Boleyn - were portrayed and used by the media.

Mantel may have meant well and to be supportive, but it came off condescending and uppity. For example:

“Antoinette as a royal consort was a gliding, smiling disaster, much like Diana in another time and another country. But Kate Middleton, as she was, appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished.”

“Presumably Kate was designed to breed in some manners. She looks like a nicely brought up young lady, with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ part of her vocabulary. But in her first official portrait by Paul Emsley, unveiled in January, her eyes are dead and she wears the strained smile of a woman who really wants to tell the painter to bugger off.”

“She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture. Diana was capable of transforming herself from galumphing schoolgirl to ice queen, from wraith to Amazon. Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation.”

And the issue that many of us have with this lecture is that Mantel could have made her points without having to use Kate’s beauty, character, and mannerisms. Because if her theme was about the way the public and the media mistreat the royals - young royal women especially - and she was pleading for people and press not to do that, then why choose to focus on the women themselves? Focus on the media’s behavior instead; since you’re calling out the media, call out the frigging media. Leave the women and their bodies out of it.

She did to Kate in this speech exactly what she’s lecturing the public and the media not to do to Kate: turned her into a thing for which to criticize instead of leaving her to be her own person.

And Mantel can’t see that. She thinks she was taken out of context - and to a certain extent, yes, I agree she was - but when you spend several paragraphs drawing an image of a committee grooming Kate into a Royal Woman 2.0 after the Diana Experiment failed…did we really take you out of context or did you not make your point and now you’re uncomfortable that people are calling you out for the same misogyny you tried to shame the media for?

I mean, someone who justifies these comments by saying she’s a published author so she knows what she’s doing sounds a little like someone who’s very uncomfortable with the mirror that critics are forcing her to look into. Because again, if your whole argument is to take the media to task for how they portray a royal woman, which informs the public’s perception of her, then don’t use the woman to make your point.

Anyway. Here’s the full lecture. You can decide for yourself how badly Mantel was taken out of context or if the criticism is justified.

[cookiepie111]

König into role play and you can't convince me otherwise. König x black reader

History and a horny man don't mix well, especially when that horny man has access to a cute girlfriend.

He makes you play as some maiden from whatever time period he's fixated on, roman, viking, tudor. It's all the same, really (no, it's not he's tells you for the 47th time, noble tudor women were allowed to show affection to Knights and-zzz) its best to just zone him out. Trapped or kidnapped by some evil enemy and the oh so generous könig offed your kidnappers and saved you. It'd usually end with you thanking him and on your knees

But honestly, what else could a girl do with a hungry eyed giant standing over her, restless hands and bulging pants . you'd think he'd only want one thing

You're grateful. At least he keeps it different. It's nice playing the lady of Lake or a queen, and he some lonely soldier, and no, you don't want to get into whatever weird (power) dynamic he's into

[dresshistorynerd]

Ranking Men's Costumes in Period Dramas - Part II: The Good

Part I: The Bad

This is the second part to my ranking of men's costumes in Renaissance period dramas. I selected 10 shows and films which I think have great costuming for the female characters and ranked them according to their costumes for male characters. I have noticed that even when women's costuming is great, men's costuming might be absolutely dog shit. And that's very much what we saw in the first part, where I ranked the five worst entries. For some reason shows and movies are afraid to put men, especially the characters who are supposed to be cool, manly and hot, into historical costumes. And I'm not even asking for historical accuracy, I just don't want my male characters living in the actual 1500s in basically modern leather jackets and pants. Like I don't watch period dramas for vaguely historically inspired modern fashion, I watch it for the historical setting, which costumes help create. This time we will be looking some rare gems that actually imo have really good costuming even for the male characters. For the five best entries, we'll go from worst to best.

5. Eizabeth R (1971)

Elizabeth R is incredibly committed to historical accuracy in it's outfits, especially for queen Elizabeth herself, many of her costumes being directly recreated from her portraits. It covers the whole reign of Elizabeth, so this commitment is especially admirable as the timeline is more than 40 years, including a stark shift in fashion from less structured and more toned down Tudor fashion to the extremes of the highly structured Elizabethan fashion. It's not perfect, The hair is not always great and like many others they fail at French hoods, though they are not upward pointing or pseudo crowns detached from the hood, so could be much worse.

The men's costumes are also very good. They are faithful to history, they wear stockings, very short trunk hose, ruffs and even have some structuring in their doublets and jerkins. However, the reason this is not higher is that the men's costumes especially, but also many other costumes beside Elizabeth's are looking a little sloppy. There's some structure yes, but the men's silhouettes are just not bold enough and they end up looking a little costumy. Even the codpieces are shrunk so small I'm not even sure if they are there half the time. Cowardice. Here's two Robert Dudley's costumes and an actual portrait of him. I think the second costume is probably an attempt at recreation of that portrait, but it's just kinda halfway there.

4. Taming of the Shrew (1967)

This film is set in Renaissance Italy, the women's costumes fit well to 1520s-30s. They are honestly really great and cohesive. My only gripe is that their bodices have a very 1960s shape and the make-up is a little distractingly modern. But the costuming is not attempting to recreate historical accuracy, rather they took the historical silhouette and basic elements and crafted a very over the top but cohesive look. I honestly love these very much.

An interesting choice is made with the men's costuming, especially the main male lead, whose costume is based much more on the Renaissance German men's fashion of that period. His costumes resemble the over the top fashion of the German Landsknecht (first image below). In Italy (second image below) the doublets were also very voluminous and quite colourful but not to that extent as by the Landsknecht and literally no one, not even the other Germans, rocked that slashed style as hard.

This is not really criticism though. In fact I respect that choice a lot. His costumes are certainly not historically accurate, but they do fit the bombastic aesthetics of the overall costuming, they are loud, large and not afraid to fuck around. This man oozes sex-appeal much more than any character with some modern plain black pants and leather jacket. This is how you costume a Renaissance man who fucks.

3. Tulip Fever (2017)

I am stretching the definition or Renaissance here a bit, I admit. This movie is set during the 1630s tulip mania, by which point the remnants of Renaissance fashion had already been left to the previous decade. However, I do think most of the movies and TV set in Baroque era also struggle with the men's costumes. Though not as much, because black was fashionable for everyone, the cod piece was gone, trunk hose were replaced by more palatable Venetian hose, fashion was much more stripped down from embellishments, leather was not uncommon in jerkins and appeared even in doublets and hose and the Hollywood's beloved boots became actual fashion items. The men's silhouette in this period is very silly in my opinion and people seem to agree because it's usually skipped in costuming, but overall the period seems to fit modern masculinity standards much more easily than Renaissance era.

But I just really wanted to include this because the costuming is absolutely stunning (and let's be honest we are a bit desperate here trying to find 5 actually good examples). I have not watched the movie and probably never will because the post production was an absolute mess and it apparently came out as just a very bad movie, which is a shame, since the costumes are so good. The ruffs are perfectly crispy. The buttons are dense and look just right. The shoes, both boots and otherwise are so on point. The fabrics are honestly perfect. The silhouettes are just as goofy as they are supposed to be. And the women too have perfect silhouettes. All the details are just simply perfect. You rarely find costuming this meticulously created with historical details and great construction.

Honestly these top three could all be the best one. This final order was decided purely on which costumes I like more. And while I love the women's fashion of this period, I think the men's fashion is kinda stupid and boring, so I don't like these costumes on aesthetic level as much as the top two.

2. Romeo and Juliet (1968)

This movie is a perfect counterpart to the movie with the worst men's costuming which I talked about in the first post, Rosaline. They are both set in Italy around very end of 15th century and retell Romeo and Juliet. Both have very good costuming for female characters but obviously I think differ greatly in the male character costuming department. Romeo and Juliet costuming takes some artistic liberties to create a heightened reality quite similar to Taming of the Shrew costuming, but follows history much more closely. The colors are bright, the hose are tight, the giorneas are voluminous, the sleeves are long and massive and the cod pieces are prominent. Even the hair is perfect, even for women, they even use hairnets. I imagine the men's hair was quite easy to get right as hairstyles in 60s and 70s were basically lifted directly from 1400s Italian men's hairstyles. The men are even wearing appropriate goofy hats??? Amazing.

The costuming perfectly captures the era, but they still clearly had fun with it too. Honestly even though I appreciate the meticulously recreated historically accurate costuming, like in Tulip Fever, I tend to like more costuming that does take some artistic liberties to create a distinct look and atmosphere for the movie or TV show. There's some small things they don't get quite right, like having standard lacing instead of ladder lacing, metal eyelets (which would become a thing as late as in 1830s) and most egregiously Juliet in one scene has this very dumb supportive undergarment without even shift under it (first picture below)?? The outer garments were supportive during this era, there was no such thing as supportive undergarment which was any different from the outer kirtle (or gamurra in Italy). Shift was the only truly undergarment. But I will forgive these errors because the costuming is overall so fun and gorgeous. And they did get some details so so right, like look at Romeo's arming doublet (second picture below)! It has Lombardian sleeves!! This was a very specific style of arming doublet for this era and place. However those errors does prevent it from taking the first place. Which leads us to...

1. Orlando (1992)

This movie has Tilda Swinton in flamboyant Elizabethan men's clothing. That's all.

Okay, I that is all that needs to be said, but I will say more. This movie spans centuries and shows excellent costumes from several different periods, but I will focus on the Elizabethan costumes only for the sake of this post. The costuming is not super historically accurate in all the detailing, and clearly not trying to be, but it is always impeccable. Even while it takes artistic liberties and the story has an immortality fantastical element it still captures the men's fashion's silhouette much better than any other movie or TV show I know of set in this period. It does that better than the "we recreated these portraits" Elizabeth R. But what really makes this the best in my humble opinion, is that the movie is not afraid of the effeminate and emasculated modern perception of Renaissance men's fashion, no, it leans into it and uses it to explore the themes. The whole story is very much about gender and gender fuckery. Tilda Swinton plays the titular Orlando who is a cis man in Elizabethan era, becomes inexplicably immortal and later inexplicably turns into a woman for the rest of their several centuries. He is the embodiment of "I'm not sure if they are a butch or a twink" and as a bisexual I can only be grateful. But in all seriousness I think the costuming and the casting (queen Elizabeth is also played by a male actor) are so perfectly utilized to highlight the arbitrary construction of gender without needing to say it explicitly.

Conclusion

I have some closing thoughts. I took on this task as a way to show a point, which is that for some reason in Renaissance shows and film especially men's costuming is piss-poor, even when women's costuming is great. Male characters tend to have very bad costuming in Medieval media too, though this is also an issue for female characters. I don't think I have ever seen a Medieval show or movie with truly excellent costuming for anyone. In Renaissance media the issue is clearly not lack of skill or knowledge, they choose to do so. My thesis was that the producers think that the Renaissance men's fashion is too effeminate and too unsexy for the Hot Very Heterosexual Male Lead, who the mostly female audience are supposed fawn over like the female characters do. After the analysis think my hypothesis holds up.

Though there's an interesting trend I only noticed while doing this ranking; every entry (except the least bad) in the worst five list are from 21th century, and every entry (except Tulip Fever which is a little bit cheating anyway) in this best five list are from 20th century. I have some theories on why it turned out this way. First is that the studios have become increasingly more concerned with growing profits so they don't take risks and they put pressure on movies and TV shows to be as broadly appealing as possible. This means they can't just make period dramas for the core audience of period dramas, aka mostly women who are history nerds, so they pander to the modern sensibilities in costuming and not to the people who love to see actual historical costuming. Secondly, I think this might also tie to the broader conservative backlash against loosening of gender roles and broader queer acceptance. Among the core audiences of period dramas there are two distinct groups, queer nerds and conservative women, who don't want politics in their media, which is why they love historical stories because obviously queerness wasn't invented yet and people of colour didn't exist yet (they were and did). (They are ofc not always this extreme, but you get the point.) As men wearing dresses has become a culture war issue, I think the studio executives are afraid that anything not masculine enough in modern standards might alienate the more conservative audiences, and more broadly those who don't want to feel like they are engaging with modern political culture war topics in their escapist media. Even if they knew about the queer nerds, they wouldn't care about them and assume they will go along with it anyway. After all not challenging modern gender roles is not seen as an active choice, it's the default.

This bears repeating: cowards.

As a thank you for reading all the way to the end I will leave you with the image of Tilda Swinton in mid 1600s men's clothing. You are welcome.

Part I: The Bad

[knighthelm]

Next two of Henry VIII's wives: Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves!

Putting a little explanation for these designs under the break:

Both of these women were painted by Hans Holbien, and their portraits by that artist played a pretty vital role in how I wanted to depict these women. For Jane, I decided to stick as close as I could, because I think Jane gets the most artistic interpretation than any of the other wives. She's a blank slate to a lot of directors in Tudor adaptations. This is brought on by the very scant records we have of what she was really like in life. We do know she loved quail while she was pregnant, and encouraged Henry to treat his daughter Mary better, which ultimately ended in her being welcomed back at court. Her family has kept samples of her embroidery through history, so it's fun to imagine her working on something in between breaks for her portrait.

For Anne, I went the complete opposite. Her Holbien portrait is extremely famous, but I feel like it creates the misconception that Anne never changed during the rest of her life in England. The portrait also has been used to cast doubts on her appearance (and whether or not her looks are exagerrated). In reality, Anne was dressed in typical English court digs when she arrived in England, and was noted to be very pretty. It wasn't until after Henry cast doubts on her appearrance, and even her chastity, in order to get out of the marriage as quickly as possible. I wanted to give these back to her, as white symbolised purity and chastity in this period. Anne lived a good life as Henry's sister, and outlived all the other of Henry's wives. She was known for being kind to her staff, and loving to pair cards with a good drink.

[edwardseymour]

new jane seymour fanfic just dropped!

where are the history books that call her a ‘sweet, docile angel’? name them.

[bbgliker-teehee]

(I actually sent this before, but something went wrong with my Internet, and I'm not sure if you received it, so I'm trying this again. Warning: long rant... again and possible grammar mistakes)

This... is starting to get concerning. Like seriously, what's up with Viv and her obsession with top hats? Almost all male characters wear a top hat: Lucifer, Husk, Sir Pentious, Vox, Valentino, Asmodeus, Stolas, Zestiel, GOD!?!?(I think?🤔) and now the hotel itself. 🤣 Am I missing someone? I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. And what's even more frustrating is that some of them wearing top hats don't make any sense. Lucifer is an easy example. He wore his top hat BEFORE HUMANITY WAS EVEN A THING!!!! We saw that at the beginning of episode 1. Like, WHAT? And don't get me started on Zestiel. Now, we don't know when he died exactly, but we can tell from what period he is by the way he speaks (and the fact that he is the oldest overlord right now also helps, kinda).

Early Modern English is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English, in the late 15th century, to the transition to Modern English, in the mid-to-late 17th century. (From Wikipedia)

This man spider-man doesn't look that he lived in any part of the Tudor period. Seriously, what was going through Vivzipop's head when she designed her characters? And if she likes top hats so much, why hasn't she made a female wearing a top hat? I mean, look at those women:

THEY LOOK AMAZING 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Lovesart23 in YouTube explains the situation with the character designs and fashion a lot better. Watch them if you haven't already 😉

The reason I really like Lovesart23 is because they actually do research!!!

And yeah...we NEED women in top hats!!!!!

[dragoneyes618]

"Certain skills commanded higher wages for both sexes. Ploughing always topped the list for men, while for women it was dairy work, and an ambitious youngster needed to find good masters and mistresses as early in their servanting career as possible if they were to maximize their earnings in the run-up to marriage. In a perfect world a young person in their mid twenties had accumulated not only a pot of savings but also the full range of skills necessary to begin married life as the head of their own household. Average ages at first marriage were twenty-four for women and twenty-six for men, and it was only when the wedding ceremony was complete and the new household established that full Tudor adulthood began."

- How To Be A Tudor, Ruth Goodman, page 120

So, all those misconceptions about most girls getting married at sixteen or seventeen and being looked down on and disapproved of if they weren't married by about twenty are just that - misconceptions.