Catherine, Called BirdySeptember

Catherine dreams of adventure and being outside….

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…but she spends most days spinning and sewing

…while her father plans her wedding!

She lives in a humble knight’s manor.

Catherine spends time in the solar, a woman’s workroom and her mother’s bedroom.

The peasants lived in wattle and daub huts.

Wattle and Daub

Fleas fed on nobles and peasants!

Catherine and her mother were responsible for addressing the medical concerns of the manor. They made their own medicines.

Women were responsible for making most of the fabric that people needed for clothing, cleaning, bedding, table linens, and the church!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5i8KRcccDw

Watch this video to see how a spinning wheel works. This is very simplified!

Embroidery is decorative needlework done in thread on fabric commonly used for altar cloths, fancy clothing, and decorative panels.

This is a sample of someone embroidering. See the needle poking through on the right? The drawing on the fabric is used as a guide.

A church banner

An embroidered gown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vC8pwqt_7M

Watch this video to see a seamstress embroider a tiny French knot.

Medieval Minstrels

Medieval Farrier

A fancy castle would have a privy like this.

Catherine’s is probably closer to this.

A medieval kitchen boy, shoving bread in and out of the hot oven!

Can you guess what

Perkins the goat

boy does?

A cowshed.

A man and woman plowing a field.

Vespers: evening prayer

Samite is a heavy silk fabric and ermine is a white fur.

“Michaelmas, or the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, is celebrated on the 29th of September every year. As it falls near the equinox, the day is associated with the beginning of autumn and the shortening of days; in England, it is one of the “quarter days”.

There are traditionally four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas (25th December)). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes.

They were the four dates on which servants were hired, rents due or leases begun. It used to be said that harvest had to be completed by Michaelmas, almost like the marking of the end of the productive season and the beginning of the new cycle of farming.” Traditionally people ate goose on Michaelmas.

From a website called Historic UK that can be found at: http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Michaelmas/

Soap making!

Checkers!

Can you guess what we call draughts today?

Quill and Ink