A Handmade Year

Here we are again at the end of another year. Last year it was my resolution to write a blog (ta-dah!) and this year it was my resolution to make as many presents by hand as I could conceivably manage. I’m of the old fashioned belief that it is indeed the thought which counts. (Even if those thoughts are often frustrated ones and in fact not at all related to a loved one). From embroidered handkerchiefs to knitted wrist-warmers I’ve finally come to the end of my journey and I wanted to share a few of the highlights. Now all that’s left to do is decide what my resolution shall be for next year.

Wedding Anniversary

Father's Day

Birthday

Christmas-Scarf

Christmas

Festive Treat

A kitchen scene, (Luttrell Psalter, British Library, Additional Ms. 42130, f. 207v).

Ask me my favourite thing about Christmas and I would probably reply: marzipan. I’m one of those terrible people who goes to some trouble to dig out the Christmas Cake so that at the end I’m left with the delicious dual marzipan-icing shell.

Despite its availability to the modern shopper all year around, marzipan remains a quintessential part of a traditional Christmas. This tradition can be traced back right through history, where ‘marchpane’ was a luxury food brought out during the medieval Christmas feast to impress guests. Not only were the ingredients to make marchpane expensive, but the process was time consuming and it was often elaborately decorated – perhaps even with gold leaf. Marchpane remained an important status dish well into the sixteenth century.

And so there you have it, marchpane/marzipan, another reason why the Middle Ages are so marvellous!

A Winter’s Tale

This image seems a particularly apt summary of the past week. I feel especial sympathy for the figure on the far right.

Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry, 1412-1416, (MS. 65, f. 2v).

Dinner Time

This highly decorated arch, from the Augustinian priory of Kirkham, marked the entrance to the refectory from the cloister. Ornamentation such as this can be used by historians to understand the hierarchy of space within the monastic precinct and the liturgical rituals marked out by architecture.

Captive...

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

He rapped his rhythmic reply against the mildew covered wall. The cold steel clasped his scarred wrists, connecting him profoundly to his environment.

It was at times like these when he felt that it was nature alone that was left to communicate with him. He had lost count of the rising and setting suns, but he guessed now that it had been several months since he saw his captor, since he had been dumped in this pit, since humanity had abandoned him.

He scratched at the lice which crawled amongst his sweat streaked clothing. His skin felt clammy and tight across his bones. He was a pathetic imitation of the man who had cut his wrists to ribbons in one of the many early frustrated attempts to escape. He could feel the straggly ends of his hair brushing his shoulders, damp from the morning rainfall. The length was some indication of how long ago those attempts had been.

He rested his head on his bent knees. His joints had ceased to complain about the natural constraints of the pit’s size, a sign that his body was meekly accepting the longevity of his situation. And where his body led his mind had begun to follow.

It pained him most of all that he was beginning to lose his faculties. The flimsy curtain between reality and imagined was being torn asunder in the darkness of the pit.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

The rhythm eased the delusions, slowed the congested gasps of his lungs, but drew him a heartbeat closer to madness each time. Faith in his release had sustained him for so long, but now all that was left was the final vestiges of rain dripping from the iron grill high above him, corroding his very soul.