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Ornate kasthane dated 1759, Sri Lanka

from Czerny's International Auction House

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i figured yall would appreciate this photo

original instagram post from vinnikolaus

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Armor Studies by Dariusz Kieliszek

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I want to live my hot girl summer like I’m stephen maturin in the galapagos- just a straw hat, a sexy embroidered robe, some lizards, and vibes

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Do you know who she is ? No?

Well it is her:

Our Girl - Bark Europa (known as Elbe 4 a Lightship during the early 1900s)

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The Fugger Armors, a matching Full Harness and Half-Harness with Rotella owned by Christoph Fugger, Augsburg, Germany, ca. 1560, housed at the Kunsthistorischesmuseum, Vienna.

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A closed Burgonet with a removeable visor made for Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, attributed to Desiderius Helmschmid,

Height: 12.4 in/31.5 cm

Width: 9.1 in/23 cm

Depth: 12.2 in/31 cm

Weight: 5.3 lbs/2.4 kg

Augsburg, Germany, ca. 1535-1540, housed at the Kunsthistorischesumuseum, Vienna.

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Let’s talk about the Titanic

Now, there’s many theories going around about the Titanic. I’ve been in love with the movie since I was a little kid and in honor of the 103rd anniversary of that day I’ve been watching a few documentaries on it. Here’s some facts I’ve compiled:

The Titanic finally sank on April 15, 1912 roughly around two in the morning

The collision that happened with the iceberg occurred just two and a half hours before that (Just before the 14th changed to the 15th)

The Titanic was designed to stay afloat with up to four watertight compartments filled, though it had 16

Six of these watertight compartments were breached by the gash/slits caused by the iceberg

Titanic was actually in compliance with maritime laws of that time and had what everyone thought to be more than enough life boats. (so it wasn’t just arrogance and aesthetic as the reason why they didn’t have enough boats)

The R.M.S carried twenty lifeboats, sixteen of which were deployed.

Some of these lifeboats ended up capsizing and being largely unusable, though some people did manage to climb aboard an upturned boat and get rescued later on.

Most of the lifeboats did not carry to their full capacity.

The lifeboats could have held upwards of a thousand people, but only 706 were actually saved.

Two or three dogs were rescued. (all reportedly small lapdogs so that might be why)

Reportedly, there was a lifeboat drill that was supposed to occur earlier that day. For unknown reasons Captain Smith canceled it. It’s hard to tell whether this would have made the crew more prepared and more knowledgeable at releasing the lifeboats or not, though I imagine it might have caused an even bigger panic since the knowledge of too few lifeboats might have spread more.

No one really expected the ship to hit an iceberg and get such a big gash–the boat in itself was the ultimate lifeboat, after all.

By the time the two lookouts saw the iceberg the Titanic only had 37 seconds to turn. Even if they hadn’t been going at full speed they would still have not been able to turn in time.

Apparently had the Titanic hit the iceberg head on it might have not sank that night (not a fact, but a theory)

Of the many passengers that went into the water, only a dozen or so managed to survive. It wasn’t drowning that killed them, but hypothermia

A few lifeboats did, in fact, row back to the scene of the sinking once the Titanic had disappeared and rescued a few of these people.

“After distributing his passengers among the four other boats which he had herded together, and after the cries of distress had died away, Fifth Officer Lowe, in boat No. 14, went to the scene of the wreck and rescued four living passengers from the water, one of whom afterwards died in the lifeboat, but was identified. Officer Lowe then set sail in boat No. 14, took in tow one collapsible boat, and proceeded to the rescue of passengers on another collapsible lifeboat.The men who had taken refuge on the overturned collapsible lifeboat were rescued, including Second Officer Lightoller and passengers Gracie and Thayer, and Wireless Operators Bride and Phillips, by lifeboats No. 4 and No. 12, before the arrival of the Carpathia. The fourth collapsible lifeboat was rowed to the side of the Carpathia, and contained 28 women and children, mostly third class passengers, 3 firemen, 1 steward, 4 Filipinos, President Ismay, and Mr. Carter, of Philadelphia, and was in charge of Quartermaster Rowe.“

Just over 700 people were rescued, though there was 2,000+ on the boat (including crew)

The band that was on the Titanic, consisting of eight members, continued to play on board as the ship sank in an attempt to keep everyone calm. They went down with the ship.

“The testimony is definite that, except in isolated instances, there was no panic. In loading boats no distinction was made between first, second, and third class passengers, although the proportion of lost is larger among third class passengers than in either of the other classes. Women and children, without discrimination, were given preference.“

Most of the children who died belonged to third class

First class only had seven children, and of those only a little girl, Miss Helen Loraine Allison, perished.

Almost all of the women who worked on the Titanic were saved, though many crew men died

Women and children first was not really a rule, it was just seen as the proper thing to do and no one contested it

The Captain of the Titanic did, in fact, go down with his ship

It is seen as the only proper thing for a Captain to do. If he can not ensure every passenger’s safe leaving then he stays there until it can be ensured or nothing else can be done. Any Captain that leaves his ship with passengers and crew still aboard will be chewed alive and virtually destroyed, even today.

Many of the lives lost would have been saved if Captain Lord and the SS Californian had responded to Titanic’s distress signals.

It’s believed that the Californian was around twenty miles away at the most when Titanic hit the iceberg. 

Apparently the Californian’s wireless operator went off shift and that might account for some of why it didn’t go to save the Titanic.

Due to the Titanic sinking, maritime laws were changed to include more lifeboats. Enough for all the passengers.

Wireless operators were also required to have someone on duty 24 hours a day after the sinking.

Passengers and crew on the titanic:

List of crew on the Titanic and whether or not they were rescued (and their positions)

First class passengers sailed, lost, and saved numbers

Second class passengers sailed, lost, and saved numbers

Third class passengers sailed, lost, and saved numbers

Now, there’s just as many theories about why the Titanic actually sank. Did the builders cut corners to save money and time? Most likely not, since the ship actually set sail later than expected in order to finish building everything correctly. People called the R.M.S unsinkable for a reason, after all. Nothing was too expensive for the ship. 

Were the lookouts not doing their jobs properly? No one can actually attest to whether the lookouts were goofing around or not, of course, as there was only the two of them up there. However, they were the best of their time.

They didn’t have binoculars, could that have helped? There is a large debate over this. As it was night time with no moon but plenty of visibility via the stars they should have been able to see the iceberg from miles away even without binoculars. Reportedly, many argue back then that binoculars were only really used to clarify what something was, not to actually spot the something itself. Not to mention that many said there was a ‘soft horizon’, which made it impossible to really tell where the sea ended and the sky began.

One of the best explanations I’ve come across is in a documentary. Ship logs (from ships that were in the same general area in the surrounding days before and after the incident, including the SS Californian) that contain temperature readings and environmental comments report “refraction”, or mirages and optical illusions. Think of when it’s really hot and your driving along the road, occasionally you’ll see what looks like steam in the air and water on the road. It’s not true, and this effect can take place in cold temperatures only with some differences. 

The theory is that the horizon was raised much further above where it actually should have been due to the extremely cold temperature meeting with some heat. So basically the documentary thinks something like this happened:

Instead of this where the iceberg is visible with the backdrop of stars:

Because of the mirage the iceberg wasn’t spotted until it was too late to allow the Titanic to safely maneuver around it. Of course it can’t be proved whether or not an optical illusion caused by cold on hot really was the reason that the lookouts didn’t see the iceberg until too late. I like this theory because in the inquiries that followed the sinking both lookouts agreed that there had been a slight haze.

On to just a little bit about the movie:

The famous Titanic ‘door’ scene, ah how that bothers me…. Now, the Myth Busters actually did a skit on it, and they actually proved that yes, after some struggle, Jack could have climbed on with Rose. They take a few tries for this to actually happen and it almost capsizes during that. We see in the scene that they are submerged a few inches under the water until “Rose” (Jamie) takes off her life jacket and they both get back into the water to put it attach it to the bottom of the ‘door’ to add buoyancy and then get on once more. Until that point they are submerged too much to be safe from the cold water. While this worked for them, I doubt either Rose or Jack would have actually thought of it, and on top of that the water was, apparently, below freezing. Getting in and out and wetting themselves multiple times probably just would have led to them dying of hypothermia instead of the scene we actually get. (Plus James Cameron says Jack was dying one way or another)

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A beautifully etched and fluted Close Helmet which belonged to Baron Wilhelm von Rogendorf,

Height: 11.8 in/30 cm

Width: 9.5 in/24 cm

Depth: 13.8 in/35 cm

Weight: 8.3 lbs/3.75 kg

Augsburg, Germany, ca. 1520-1535, housed at the Kunsthistorischesmuseum, Vienna.

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“Etched German hunting saber, circa 1560′s-1570′s.”

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The sailing master's quarters on HMS Warrior (1860)

via reddit

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Vice Admiral Nelson's sleeping area aboard HMS Victory

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all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

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Hereford Cathedral Library. The library was formally established in 1611, but the cathedral’s manuscript collection dates back to the medieval era. It is still a working library, and is notable for its collection of chained books (a common practice in the early modern era), and is the only library of this type to survive with all of the chains, rods and locks still intact. The chained library contains 229 manuscripts, mostly medieval, and the earliest book in the collection, the Hereford Gospels, is from around 780.

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From THE ART OF MANLINESS.

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Call of nature

It overtakes everyone, whether he wants it or not, but the call of nature is merciless. But where to when you are on the high seas on a ship ? Who now means simply behind over the railing and already runs, it was not like that. Ok in the antiquity yes, but not from the 16th century on. Even if the records are rather bad and you can hardly find a wreck what is still preserved in so far that you could look there. Lets rather look at the 17th century and following centuries to draw conclusions from there. Because there you can prove that the simple sailors came to the bow and sat down on a box with a hole in the middle. The so-called seat of easement. Hence the term “heads”, because the person is at the head of the ship and if they just said “heads” everybody knew what was meant. A ship- of-the- line sometimes had only two benches with 2 holes each and the four seats were enough for more than 600 men.  Which is why even with larger ships it is necessary (to use it while standing) on smaller ships sometimes also the only possibility (then one sat directly on the bow) to use the grating.

The seat of easement in the bow of the Vasa

Out of courtesy to everyone, however, one always sat on the side facing away from the wind, i.e. on the lee side. I hope I don’t have to explain why now. 

But of course the bow was no place for the officers, you just imagine you are sitting there and then the captain comes… no way… They had their own installations.  Petty officers had a seat on both sides of the bowsprit, which doesn’t seem very comfortable now, but it allowed a small amount of private peering. Like here on the Victory, the midshipman was allowed to enter two small round houses from the inside. But this was only possible on a ship-of-the-line.

The Bow of HMS Victory, the picture is from a book edited by Kaye Dacus 

Senior officers, Captains and Admirals had their own heads in the sides of the star gallery, and placed there offset to avoid an accident. There was also the pissdale on the quarterdeck, which was a metal urinal located near the ladder to the quarterdeck. When the lieutenant on duty had to go, he said that he had to “visit the aunt”  and everybody knew what was going on. But if the thing was broken, it could be that he used the speaking trumpet of the master. So be careful if it smells strange, then you should check the piss dale.

This pissdale was found off Rame Head, from an unkown wreck

Who asks himself now, why all this happened on the deck and why not below deck. Let me tell you that there was a so-called tube until the 16th century and on slave ships until the 19th century. These were wooden containers that were used to hold everything and had to be dragged to the top, locked and tedious, to empty them. So you can imagine the stench that spread with it. Also slave ships kept this kind of equipment but for a long time because they were worried about the security when the slaves were running around free. Otherwise the officers and the sickbay used chamber pots.

An officer’s head, this was Captain Hardy’s on HMS Victory

Interestingly enough there was a flushing water system in the officers toilets of a ship- of- the-line from 1779 on. But they were quickly removed, because they were too expensive and only reinstalled when the first iron hulls appeared in the middle of the 19th century.

There was no toilet paper either, the officers used the newspaper or old notepaper. The Sailors used scrap fibrous material such as oakum. This also changed in the middle of the 19th century.

For further reading I recommend ,Those vulgar tubes, by Joe J. Simmons

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Naval Architect's drawing box, 19th century

The top trays for watercolour cakes, pens/pencils, lidded compartments with ceramic watercolour dishes, spare watercolour cakes; compartments under trays with numerous paper shapes for naval application - whaler boats, guns, anchors etc., the lower compartment with wooden shapes, each stamped for 'W.T. Norris', one inscribed HMS Edinburgh.