Surving Spoonie

I repeated the experiment later, wearing the boots but otherwise my usual clothing and mimicking the expression I thought I’d had at that moment. People parted like I was Charlton Heston.

I now wear that style of boots whenever possible. I recently had a man do a double-take as I walked by and ask me, politely, where I had served because I “looked like a soldier.” I’m not current or former military. I was wearing a flowy purple peasant top and looked as un-soldierlike as possible.

Wheel like you’re gonna win the Indy 500 and don’t care how.

Your crutches are short swords; walk like you can see them buried in the bodies of anyone who crosses (in front of) you.

Where are the fillets and barbettes? Crespines? Butterfly veils? Henins?!? Of course, wimples are only for grandmas.

Why do none of the poor farmgirl/boy fantasy protagonists wear hoods with liripipes?! You can drape/wrap a liripipe in so many visually interesting ways!

All the women are wearing corsets for some reason.

And the men, oh, the poor men... They get... a monocrhome tunic. And maybe some knee high riding boots. Whoopie...

Where is the heraldry? Brocade? The surcotte? The pointy toe'd shoes? Parti-colour?!?! Why is everyone always in brown, beige, and maybe red? They had green, and yellow, and blue, and... Puffy sleeves! (And give! more! men! bowlcuts! you cowards.)

The men don't know how to sew for some reason, and we never see anyone spinning. Did you know medieval western Europe had a thriving second hand clothing store sector (primarily women, and Jewish women in particular, owned businesses)?

And why does no one sing?!! Where are the women singing as they waulk the wool or churn the butter? Or then men and women singing in the field while they stack the hay? Why does no one recite prayers over the firepit so they know how long the pot's been boiling? Why do the horses not have jingling bells so people can hear them coming? Where are the people humming while they walk or ride by?! They didn't have radio, people! They were the radio! And what happened to the village dances?! Why doesn't anyone's father have an old flute he cracks out every evening in the winter, a sound for his children to remember him fondly by long after he had passed??

Musicians travelled between courts, villages, countries... Irish harpers played for German courts. Trobadours from Provence made their way to the Muslim courts of Spain.

And the food. Oh, lo! the food! Everyone eats dry mutton and biscuits. Maybe a roast in the lord's castle.

They had handpies! Full of mince and berries! They'd make them with boiling water so the crust would harden and could be taken on the road. They sweetened their foods with honey, fruits, and berries! Wealthy households might even have lemons! They used spices! Yes, even England used spices back then, before the Protestant Reformation! Wealthy households would even get spices like nutmeg from the silk road. And where are the blackbirds bursting out of pies at the king's wedding feast? The stuffed peacocks and swans? There was a whole debate over whether beaver counted as a fish because if it did then you could eat it on fast days.

And they did not consider breasts sexual, nor ankles. That's the Victorians you are thinking of. Medieval women breastfed their children in public and hiked their skirts in the fields.

Why does everyone ride horses, and no one use a mule, ox, pony, donkey, or straight up cow to pull their cart?

And there were North Africans in London and Paris who came through Spain. Arabs would travel through Europe. There were not just Old English (Anglo-Saxons), Frankish, German, and Italian people! And these were not the monoliths people think they were. And the Celtic peoples were not fucking elves for gods sake. Spain (Al-Andalus) was a Muslim country. Sámi people existed in Northern Europe... not everyone in the far north was blond. On the other hand, enough with the g-psy stereotypes in medieval-inspired England. In any case, Romani people did not arrive in the British Isles until like the 1570s (iirc), nearly a hundred years after the medieval period ended.

Anthony Head (1954-2026) as Rupert Giles