Month: September 2018
The criers of wine were a uniquely French form of Medieval advertising. Troops of them walked the streets of Paris, each armed a large measure of wine, from which …
The Medieval stocks punished so many brewers, bakers, butchers, and cooks that one wit suggested they should locate their gilds underneath the local pillories. John Stow described how Medieval stocks …
In Victorian England, fashionable people would pay to attend mummy unrolling parties, and the more you paid the nearer you could see the performance. Europeans had been buying mummies …
For the strangest Medieval Saint, may I suggest St. Guinefort, known for being martyred, healing sick children and being a very good boy. The story goes something like this: …
In what might be the first medieval traffic speeding law, the city of London includes this rule in its 15th century law book, the Liber Albus: that no carter within …
Peter I of Russia shortcutted his infamous beard tax when he personally shaved his horrified courtiers. At a court reception not long after his European tour, he unexpectedly pulled out …
Medieval toilets, just as today, had more “polite” names, the most common being ‘privy chamber’, just ‘privy’ or ‘garderobe’. More evocative names included the ‘draught’, ‘gong’, ‘siege-house’, ‘neccessarium’, and …
If medieval executioner is too good a job for you, try Rackare. The job description for a Rackare is: deputy executioner, flayer, dog and cat killer. In Medieval Sweden, …
During “Secessions of the Plebians” the common people rebelled by simply abandoning the city and leave the aristocrats to themselves. The upper classes were left servantless; shops and workshops shut down; commercial …
Sealand was founded as a sovereign Principality in 1967, seven miles off the eastern shores of Britain. A former army fort, It’s just two concrete pillars holding up an iron …
