We’ll be going on holiday over December and the store will be closed from December 8th to January 2nd. Get your orders in by December 8th in order to have them by Christmas.
Paul, Loreena, Elden and Roxy
November Saint of the month – St Martin of Tours
This month’s Saint of the Month is St Martin of Tours. Born around 316AD and died in 397AD.
He is Celebrated on Nov 11th.
Martin is believed to have been a soldier in the Roman army. Our replica badge depicts the legend of the cutting of Martins cloak in two in order to share it with a near naked beggar. That night, Martin received a vision in which the beggar revealed himself to be Christ. Martin vowed to abandon his military career for the life of a monk – later becoming Bishop of Tours.
Martin was the first confessor saint – one who became a saint through an exemplary life rather than through martyrdom.
This replica badge is based on an original found in the Netherlands, currently in a private collection. Purchase your own replica badge for St Martin of Tours here.
Further information about St Martin of Tours can be found on his wikipedia page.
Extract from a 15th Century English Lapidarium
In the medieval period, previous and semi precious stones had specific meanings. Below are some meanings taken from a 15th century English lapidarium. Different places and times had different meanings for their stones.
Check out our 15th century replica Jewellery And Badges
Medieval Fairs Calendar Refreshed
Our calendar of Australian medieval fairs is up to date with all of the 2022 events still to come, and a start on the 2023 season. The events of recent years have seen a lot of changes to the lineup, with several old favourites going by the wayside but interesting new events popping up in their place. Please let us know if we’ve missed an upcoming fair near you!
New Online Shop is Live!
After a protracted migration and redevelopment, we’re thrilled to announce that our new online shop is – Open! Our updated shop is now mobile-responsive, with a compact layout when you browse from your smartphone or tablet, and live inventory data so if you can see a product on the shop, it’s in stock and ready to ship immediately.
For the moment, we have our top 3 most popular product categories available but over the next few months we will be bringing the rest of the catalogue online – including some exciting new additions.
The calendar of Australian medieval fairs is also back for the 2020 event season. We’ll keep adding events as we discover them
We’re excited to welcome you all to our newly refurbished corner of the internet and bid you good reading!
– Loreena, Roxy, Paul and Elden – the Mainly Medieval team.
Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table – A fourteenth century Egyptian Cookbook – Review
There’s an exciting new translation of a 14th century Egyption Cookbook. It’s the first time it’s been fully translated into English.? What’s even more fascinating is that the author takes the time to talk about things that aren’t mentioned a great deal in the usual European sources.?
It talks specifically about how to make bread (delicious bread, which uses milk instead of water) and about various egg recipes. (A few European sources mention eggs briefly, but mostly to say that everyone knows about eggs so there’s no need to talk about it). It specifically talks about the kind of wood that a cook should use “pick dry firewood, which does not create a great deal of smoke due to it’s wetness, such as olive or dry oak. Wood of oleander and trees with milky sap and the like must be avoided, as should firewood from the fig tree and any wood high in moisture”. And there’s an entire chapter on incenses.
Nawal Nasrallah is a fantastic translator. The book is extremely informative without being too dry. (Nasrallah uses the index and glossary to go super in depth about the translation and to talk specifically about why particular translations should be used which is also extremely instructional.)
Overall, this is an excellent collection to anyone’s medieval cookbook collection.
There’s a few pictures and figures from 14th century sources scattered throughout the book, to help illustrate various points. Including an ancient Egyption hand mixer, glass beakers, and bronze perforated incense burners.
There is also 22 modern adapations of some of the recipes in the appendix, complete with beautiful food photography. Dried apricot stew looks pretty good!
Publisher’s Blurb
The fourteenth-century Egyptian cookbook, Kanz al-faw?’id fi tanw? al-maw?id, is a treasure trove of 830 recipes of dishes, digestives, refreshing beverages, and more. Here, for the first time, it has been meticulously translated into English and supplemented with a comprehensive introduction, glossary, illustrations, and twenty-two modern adaptations of its recipes.
Lochac Cook’s Guild Symposium – Campfire Cooking and Ceramics (5/8/18)
On August 5th, Company of the Staple member Roxy talked about Campfire cooking and cooking with ceramics on a campfire. These are the notes from that talk. These notes were originally posted to Companyofthestaple.org.au
The above image is of a saucepan with oil, for deep frying cheese fritters. It is in a trivet, and being cooked with charcoal.
Continue reading Lochac Cook’s Guild Symposium – Campfire Cooking and Ceramics (5/8/18)
Mainly Medieval Online Store Down for Maintenance
Greetings gentle readers,
We have exciting news. The time has come to undertake a major upgrade of the Mainly Medieval website! To facilitate this, we will be switching off the online store section of the website and stock will only be available for sale at events such as St Ives Medieval Faire. The calendar and our blog and Facebook will continue as normal with fresh posts and interesting snippets, and we will keep you all updated on progress.
For those customers with orders currently in progress or with back orders, we will,?of course, continue to process these and keep you updated.
We are really looking forward to the changes that are occurring and we thank you in advance for your patience as we work towards the new Mainly Medieval incarnation.
The Major Surgery of Guy de Chauliac – Review
If you’re into medieval surgery books, then the major surgery of Guy de Chaulic has got to go onto your reading list.
Guy de Chaulic was a 14th century surgeon and he wrote this book (which has been translated to English) after the Black Death had swept through Europe.
The wording is quite flowery at times, and the book is definitely a product of it’s time, but it’s an amazing resource for anyone whose into the medical history of the medieval period.
Buy The Book Now at The Book Depository, Free Delivery World Wide
The Culinary Receipes of Medieval England – Review
Constance B. Hieatt is one of the foremost experts of medieval English cooking. Her Pleyn Delit is one of my favorite books for cooks who want to start cooking in a more medieval style.
Continue reading The Culinary Receipes of Medieval England – Review