civillian crafts
                         
                         
   

If you're interested in the arts and crafts of the early medieval period, a range of activities are open.

 

Fancy cooking for 15-odd people over an open fire with only a cauldron? or perhaps exploring the medicine of the vikings, maybe even dying fabric using authentic dyes.

 

A wide range of activities are available for pursuit, below is a sample of the activities.

  
       
                         
 

Drop Spinning

      
                         
                       
  A wooden drop spindle and some wool is all that it takes to learn to drop-spin wool into thread or ply several threads into a tougher thread.

This is a basic skill which everyone will have learned to turn wool fleece into thread, ready for weaving (see below).

    
                         
 

Weaving

          
                         
   

 

We have recently started experimenting with a ground-loom to convert woven threads produced from drop spinning into material.

From the material produced here garments such as tunics can be made.

 
                         
 

Dyeing

              
                         
 

 

Of course the threads produced from drop spinning need not be the same dull colour.

Simple plants (like onions) and some fixing compounds like iron, copper and mordants can be used to create a variety of colours – those shown on the left are the results of deBec experiments with different materials and water.

  
                         
 

Tablet Weaving

      
                         
          Tablet-weaving is a simple method of producing decoration by stringing wool between 2 points, through a series of wooden “cards” with 4 holes and passing a weft shuttle between the top and bottom rows of wool. Turning the cards presents different threads to the top and bottom and so creates different patterns.

The finished length of tablet weave can be used as tarty decoration for tunics.

  
     
           
                         
 

Woodwork (Bodging)

            
                         
   

 

Bodging is the ancient art of creating useful wooden items from green wood – the scene on the left shows us making some tent pegs with some spare firewood and a sharp bill-hook.

  
                         
 

Leatherwork (Shoe-making)

        
                         
    Authentic shoes can be made in 2 styles:

– Turnshoes in which soft leather soles are sewn onto soft leather uppers and then turned inside-out (hence the name).

– Hard-soled shoes (see below) which use a curved awl to produce tunnels through the hard sole through which the sole-upper stitches travel.

  
                         
 

Cooking

        
                         
We have a large deBec military encampment at shows with cooking for up to 20 using 2 fireboxes and several cauldrons. We have a large authentic recipe list which tastes surprisingly good and caters cheaply for us at shows – usually £3-5 per person per day for 3 meals and drink, which is usually cheaper than buying a single burger!

Anyone who wants to cook is more than welcome – the beauty of cauldron cooking is that once the ingredients are chopped and prepared, it’s a simple matter of cooking it in a cauldron which will feed up to 20 people with both vegetarian and meat options.