Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Discott]

yes please 

[wierd]

period equipment lacked standards and measures, since the imperial measures were inconsistent between monarchs, and eras. The "Foot" was not standardized as 12 inches for a long time. Likewise, a span, a hand, etc.

I will ignore this oversight, and make loom models (may even include string) for both pre-norman, and post-norman styles. From those models, I will create prints. It might take awhile though.

Is there a preferred format you would like the prints in? PDF? CGM? TIFF? DXF?

also, preferred sheet size? I am a fan of size E sheet or larger, usually in the 36x72 variety.

[Discott]

If you could do it in PDF that would be great.  Thanks!

[wierd]

I've begun modeling the "pre norman" loom. Guestimations on sizes may be a little inaccurate. The artist didn't really size his humans well in relation to the looms, IMHO, given the period.

Eg, the looms look to be about 6 to 7ft tall, which would put the women around 5ft, 4 inches or so tall. That is fairly normal for a modern female human of european descent, however, persons living in that time period were more stunted from chronic malnutrition, especially among the peasant and serf classes, as those ladies clearly represent. They should be closer to 4ft, to 4ft, 6 inches for proper accuracy.

Size of loom extrapolated from a few suppositions:
Size of beams is 4in square on a side.
Size of headle beam and pals is 1inch dia.
Distance between headle holes is 5 inches, from centerpoints.
Width of loom approx 4ft.

I currently have about 2/3 modeled. I am considering how to interpret some of his illustration, specifically how the fabric is attached to the bolt beam at the top. (His illustration glosses over this set of details.) I am considering devising a clever bit of wire that wraps and loops through the bolt beam, and produces neat 'hooks' on which a section of rope with 2 knots on it may be easily "hung"/"snagged", over which the warp threads can then be strung. This would allow the finished fabric to be fairly painlessly be removed from the bolt beam when finished, without risking the fabric unraveling from that edge.

The drawing of wire was (as far as I know) a period achievable feat, so I am going to go with that as the interpretation. The alternative would require the services of an iron worker to produce lynches and hooks.  I feel the clever wire solution would be easier to build as a hobby project.

[Discott]

That sounds awesome. 

I agree with you on the heights as well.  I have hard data on average heights of men in Europe over the past 2,000 years based on skeletal remains but don't have anything for women.  Although, as you point out, I am sure that their average hight can be worked out from the average height for men.  In 1100 AD the average hight of a European man was about 1.7 meters whist the average height by 1200 AD had dropped to just above 1.68 meters.  This is a significant difference of an average height of between 1.76 and 1.8 meters for European men today.

[Solifuge]

I never got to thank you for sharing these... They're absolutely beautiful, high-quality, and well annotated. They now have a permanent home in my cherished horde of reference images and materials.

Love to sit on stuff like this, until inspiration strikes. Never know when you need references for 1300s metalworking or clothing styles or whatever for a project.

[Discott]

Thanks for that Solifuge.

Here are some of the other pictures on street life, tax collecting and counting/finance, and ports in the Middle Ages.

The National treasury: collecting and counting taxes and issuing government bonds (early financial system)



Single masted ship (left) and Port (right)



Street life in the later Middle Ages in a typical North European town



Punishment: the stocks

[wierd]

It's hard to imagine tax calculation being done in such a fashion. Simple long multiplication avoids the need for such theatrical performances in just about every possible consideration. A person with a sliderule and a good matrix paper system could run circles around these guys.

It doesnt seem out of place though. Arithmetic and basic literacy were both scarce commodities throughout much of the middle ages, after-all. Such theatrics were probably necessary for the benefit of academic deficits in the nobility, if nothing else.

Just kinda jarring to see this as an actual, working system.

[USEC_OFFICER]

To me the system seems more to fight corruption than anything else. After all, you do have a bunch of calculators/shreiffs who definitively know their math. Admittedly it's not the best system, but everything is being double-checked as it's being read out, and with all the people in attendence (including a bishop) it'd be hard to argue that the taxes weren't calculated properly.

Unless I'm completely misunderstanding things, of course. That is just as likely.

[Discott]

I agree, I suspect the complex nature in which they gathered and calculated taxes was done in this way to fight corruption (which was common place in those days) in a system with multiple redundancies and that maximised accountability.  Medieval governments were surprisingly sophisticated and their bureaucracies very well developed (the English for example loved keeping records on everything).  The maxim was as true back then as it is today: the only two constants in life are death and taxes.

The thing I find most interesting though is the system of issuing government bonds using tally sticks.  A very clever and yet simple system that is pretty much impossible to counterfeit.  This allowed governments to spend taxes even before they had been collected, quite ingenious.  You can really see the emergence of modern finance as far back as 900 years ago.

That reminds me, I must add the page on tally sticks as well to this lot some time.

[wierd]

It would require conspiracy, but not strictly impossible.  It could be made to have its nature used against it.

Here's a purely imaginary scenario for instance:

The local tax clerk (sherrif's) is known to be crooked, but is very good about hiding his embezzlement; skimming off the top before reporting the final collected sums in his logbook.

To get even with him for essentially taking his take out of the rest of everyone taxes, a couple enterprising people conspire against him concerning the bond he receives from the exchequer's clerk.

It takes time for all of the actors in the yearly tax event to arrive and disembark, not to mention time to perform the summation of taxes and expenses, which means some of them will have to stay at an inn, or other private residence for the evening before disembarking in the morning.  The enterprising criminals "collect" both halves of the tally, carve a few new marks in both sticks to alter the sum promised, (to be lower), then discretely return them before the owners notice them missing.

Assuming the Sherrif's clerk assumes the tally for credit, and then issues expenses on a future, when he goes to collect on the bond, he will find he has over-budgeted, and is now over-extended on his credit. When he goes to validate the tally, it will show genuine, making him look very badly indeed.

An evaluation of both clerk's logs will show that the tally has been altered, however, which will cause a stink with the nobility, but not before causing all manner of grief for the sheriff's clerk and his master. (It could take several weeks to several months to sort all this out, as the interested parties would have to reassemble to compare logs to catch the forgery; assuming they believe that a forgery has indeed occurred. This is enough time for some 'serious consequences' to turn up.)

of course, getting caught in the act.. well.... Lets just say that it wouldnt end well.