A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This is the second half of the fourth part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles, particularly wool and linen, in the pre-modern world. Last time, we looked at commercial textile workers and the finishing processes for textiles (fulling, dyeing, etc) which generally took place in a … Continue reading Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make it? Part IVb: Cloth Money
This is the first half of the fourth part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles, particularly wool and linen, in the pre-modern world. Last time, we spun our wool and flax fibers into thread and then wove that thread into fabric. And in doing so, we … Continue reading Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part IVa: Dyed in the Wool
This is the third part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles, particularly wool and linen, in the pre-modern world. Last time, we processed our raw fibers, removing extraneous material and getting them ready to be turned into thread. Today we're going to continue with that next … Continue reading Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part III: Spin Me Right Round…
This is the second part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles (particularly in wool and linen) in the pre-modern world. Last time, we took a look at the production of our two fibers, flax bast from the flax plant and raw wool sheared from sheep. This … Continue reading Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part II: Scouring in the Shire
This week we are starting the first of a four (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) part look at pre-modern textile production. As with our series on farming and iron, we are going to follow the sequence of production from the growing of fibers all the way to the finished object, with a focus not merely … Continue reading Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part I: High Fiber
This is the second part of a four part (I, III, IV) look at the Dothraki, the fictional horse-borne nomads of the A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones series. We're looking at, in particular, the degree to which George R.R. Martin's claim that the Dothraki are "an amalgam of a number … Continue reading Collections: That Dothraki Horde, Part II: Subsistence on the Hoof
This week, we close out our four(and a half)-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) look at pre-modern iron and steel production, although I ought to note that there will be at least one addendum discussing pre-modern cast iron and crucible steel (Wootz) production. Last week, we looked at the processes used to create steel … Continue reading Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It, Part IVb: Work Hardening, or Hardly Working?
This week we continue our four-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) look at pre-modern iron and steel production. Last week we prospected our iron ore and extracted it from the ground and did some initial mechanical processing (washing, sorting, crushing). This week, we're going to make our way from just rocks to an actual … Continue reading Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part II, Trees for Blooms
As an addendum on to our four-part look at the general structures of the farming of cereal grains (I, II, III, IV) this post is going to briefly discuss some of the key ways that the structures of rice farming differ from the structures of wheat and barley farming. We'll start with some of the … Continue reading Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Addendum: Rice!
As the fourth and final part (I, II, III) of our look at the basic structure of food production in the pre-modern world (particularly farming grain to make bread), this week we're going to look at how at least some of the delicious food we made in the last post might make its way into … Continue reading Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part IV: Markets, Merchants and the Tax Man