I've been planning to update the blog every Sunday for a while now, but obviously hadn't gotten around to it. I didn't realize it had been so long, until I checked it last Sunday, just before choir practice. I need to be a whole lot more consistent than I have been.
Update time:
I love my classes (no surprise - I love to teach!) even though they are late on a Friday morning. I have a grand total of 15 students: five in one class and 10 in the other. They are back to back, and in different buildings, so it's a challenge getting between them. They are willing to participate, and have a variety of backgrounds, so it can get interesting.
I passed my first panel, though they thought my writing style was a bit chatty. I couldn't disagree. I didn't have the time I wanted to write up what information I did have. But then who does?
One of the problems with my research is I am not able to focus on a single tool/part of the loom as all archaeological evidence is found together, and it would be a waste of time to go through the material for, say, pin beaters and ignore the warp weights only to have to go back through it again to look for those weights. So that avenue of research has width, but not depth. The secondary sources all go back to Marta Hoffman's book, a book by H. Ling Roth in 1911, and a travelogue written by an antiquarian in the late 1700's. These texts are quoted (and misquoted) with references to whatever archaeological information is under study or at hand to the author. This makes it difficult to say much of substance - yet.
A confusion between my thesis advisers was also cleared up at the meeting. PWR kept insisting there were surveys published on loom weights, pin beaters, and weaving swords. Gale kept asking if I'd looked at them yet. I had looked with every search term I knew in every library catalog I could get my hands on, but came up with nothing. During the skype call (PWR won't leave York), the question was directly asked about these survey texts. That's when it surfaced that what was meant was the write ups of particular sites like Flixborough and Coppergate, not a survey of something like loom weights in all of Britain, or even a single county. I now have to do the legwork of contacting every historical museum that might have archaeological evidence of looms in the whole country and document what they have. Good thing I'm not busy or anything.
To that end, I contacted the people at the York Archaeological Trust to look at their pin beater collection. They made an appointment for Monday the 24th of October. That made for an interesting weekend. But I get ahead of myself.
Saturday the 22nd was the Medieval Dress and Textile Society's meeting at the British Museum. I was scheduled as the concluding speaker. The previous Tuesday, I was part of a round table for the Beowulf class of 118. So for that week, I had the round table to prepare for, the paper for MeDATS to write, my own classes to teach, travel to London, speak, then travel to York to look at the collection. No stress or anything. Of course I came down with an upper chest illness making it difficult to breathe, let alone talk to a room of over 100 people - twice. Being me, I pushed through the round table, struggled to write the paper, taught my classes, struggled to write the paper, went to London and tried to write the paper on the train, got to the hotel and tried to write the paper. Finally went to bed, still sick as a dog, about 1 am.
The conference was about re-enactment, reconstruction, and restoration. Papers covered costuming used at the Royal castles and what was meant by 'historically accurate' for their purposes, a Tudor house/museum and the struggles they had with learning to create authentic costumes for their workers, a gal from Germany who was warning against using re-enactors, another paper that doesn't come readily to mind, and me. I was last, right after the German PhD who was warning against Living History as research material, unless one was particularly careful. And we were already running 15 minutes late. So I ditched my half written paper (she had already given a section of it with giving definitions of the differences between re-enactment, Living History, and experimental archaeology anyway) and spoke off the cuff for about 15 minutes, still with no voice, then discussed with her and the audience our salient points. One of the questions from the audience was the topic of my thesis, and was I going to publish when I was finished?, which was gratifying.
I also pointed out that the Tudor house project would have saved months of research and various attempts at stitching and pattern making if they had contacted a Living History society that worked in their time frame. Surely someone in that community knew how to do what they were struggling so hard to learn. I was also frustrated with, but didn't mention, the waste of fabric from pattern placement and insistence on certain modern fitting cuttings that may not have been used at a time when fabric was still very expensive.
I was also approached by some people in Wales about loom set up, and would I be willing to speak over there, so that was nice too.
After we got back to the hotel room (Janilee was with me), we ate at the lobby restaurant, went up to the room, and I slept from 9:30 until 8 the following morning. We trolled the British Museum until it was time to go to the train for York.
In York, I got to see 25 or 30 single ended pin beaters from their medieval archaeological collection, as well as several wooden combs more than 500 years old, and wool comb bits that were older. It was amazing!
Here's what I discovered: These bone tools are handy, light, useful things. But they are not textile tools. The grip, which was visibly noticeable on the first one I saw, was easily felt on all the rest. There were even two that were left handed ones! But the grip is like that of a modern day pencil grip taught to kindergarteners. It's not a natural way to hold something unless you need it at a particular angle. The angle was very obvious as well, and it was worn flat on one side. If this tool were really used for textile work, there would be grooves worn in around several sides, and it would definitely not be flat. The one time I could find where context was mentioned (what it was found with rather than just what era it was dated to) the 'pin beater' was found with leather working stuff. I'm going to run it past some people at a lecture in December and see what they think.
Next weekend I'm going to a re-enactor's market to find some of these for research purposes, and then go to the Museum of London to see some of their pin beaters to see how they measure up.
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