Medieval Women, Riding, and the Side Saddle
Women and riding is not a common topic in the historical annals. Did women ride side saddle or astride in the Middle Ages? To the right is a side saddle from the 17th century. It is clearly designed to limit a woman’s ability to ride athletically–more of a way to carry her from one place to another at a walk, then as a sensible mode of transport. This saddle is, however, a later invention. In England (and Wales) it appears that women in the Middle Ages rode astride much of the time, either on their own or pillion behind a man. Here are two pictures of women riding: The Prioress from The Canterbury Tales (dated to 1532) rides aside and The Wife of Bath (1410) rides astride (the Ellesmere Manuscript, c. the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA). For more discussion http://ilaria.veltri.tripod.com/sidesaddle.html Read more…
King Arthur’s Round Table
. . . has not been found, despite recent news to the contrary. This article states with the very generalized ‘historians believe’ that King Arthur’s round table is actually the ampitheatre in the City of Chester. When the Romans abandoned Britain, they left their forts and roads behind. Many archaeologists believe that in the ensuing chaos, the Britons no longer used the ampitheatres for their original purpose, if they used them at all. As I said in this post of the Romans, “within a generation or two, little trace of them, except for their roads and ruined forts–and their religion, Christianity–remained. Everything had fallen into disrepair. The ‘Saxons’ descended from the east, the Scots from the North, and the Irish from the West, driving the original Britons west, into what is now Wales.” The Chester ampitheatre was discovered in the Read more…
Guest Post: Anna Elliott, author of “Twilight of Avalon”
Why I love Arthurian Stories In the Spring of 2007, I woke up from a very vivid dream of telling my mother that I was going to write a book about the daughter of Modred, son of Arthur and the great villain of the Arthurian cycle of tales. I’d been writing historical fiction and sending books around to agents and editors, always coming close to being published but never actually getting a book sold. I was four months pregnant with my first baby at the time, and had been starting to think that as much as I loved writing, maybe a professional career wasn’t going to happen for me–or at least not for some time. Something about this dream, though, just wouldn’t let me go. I had been an English major in college with a focus on Medieval literature Read more…
Buried Treasure
The impulse to bury treasure, gold, or much-valued objects is long-standing. “An amateur treasure hunter armed with a metal detector has found over 52,000 Roman coins worth $1 million buried in field, one of the largest ever such finds in the UK, said the British Museum. Dave Crisp, a hospital chef, came across the buried treasure while searching for “metal objects” in a field near Frome, Somerset in south-western England.” http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/09/uk.roman.coin.treasure/ “The find includes more than 760 coins from the reign of Carausius, the Roman naval officer who seized power in 286 and ruled until he was assassinated in 293. “The late third century A.D. was a time when Britain suffered barbarian invasions, economic crises and civil wars . . . Roman rule was finally stabilized when the Emperor Diocletian formed a coalition with the Emperor Maximian, which lasted 20 Read more…
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