Infinity is fun

Oh, I'm not the right kind of Blogger to explain all these sorts of things. I tend to ramble and it becomes a kind of essay and I have to insert screenshots of specific texts. Not to mention the hassle of producing links to a source.

But yes, there's a lot of nuance that a casual read wouldn't really get if, say, you only read Le Morte D'Arthur and nothing else. Or worse, read up on only Modern works, like Idylls of the King or Once and Future King. The last two are Modern Stories to the core, often neglect important medieval contexts when it comes to the treatment of the legend. It would take an entire posts detailing the nitpicks I have towards them.

So to keep things short, here's a bullet point summary, that lacks a bit nuance itself but gets to the point and keeps it brief:

These characters have been written about for centuries. They've had different contradictory portrayals - sometimes even in the same story - depending on the cultural trends and motives of the storytellers. Arthuriana is a massive tradition with huge influence and to euclidate it all would be virtually impossible.

For instance, Sir Lancelot, as a character, is fundamentally the "Fantasy Boyfriend" archetype - he exists to be an idealized love interest wish-fulfillment for a female audience to fawn over (through Guinevere). Everything he does as warrior is done in the name of Love and is glorified for it. The sad thing about Lancelot is that he became outdated, with the cultural trend that created him - Courtly Love = having puttered out a long time ago. And as a result, he tends to get misconstrued by later interpretations.

Likewise, Queen Guinevere as has had many characterizations over centuries, from villain to heroine and everything in-between. She's misunderstood in the sense that most people don't know or acknowledge that the narratives surrounding Guinevere has changed, evolved and, more importantly, has accrued different and confusing plot points and themes - stuff that for their time made sense but aged poorly in retrospect. And that a lot of writers work from a limited pool of references (sticking to only 1 or 2 classics with all the strengths and flaws of those few stories) and insert contemporary biases in their retellings.

Also, Guinevere is not necessarily a Redhead. She is Blonde in Knight of the Cart.

King Arthur is... a Dark Ages Warlord. He would not exactly the nice man that gets hyped as an ideal leader, like Alfred Tennyson and T.H. White would have you believe. He has, throughout the evolution of the legend, character traits that don't exactly jive to the modern image of the character and has ambitions that would be tyrannical in our minds (Like his Campaign to conquer Europe or his Sexual Escapades)

Sir Gawain is the go-to action hero of the Romances. He can be said to be both an everyman and a stock character archetype - Gawain can be shoved in any story and in any role (heroic or villainous) and it would still make sense. The guy is versatile.

Even this Bulleted List doesn't cover everything I wanted to say. There's just simply so much to parse through and I'm not very good at organizing my thoughts in the spur of the moment.

I'll finish this post by saying keep digging and look up articles on medieval culture and history to give a little bit of context. From time-to-time, I also post about IRL Medieval Culture facts (like Law Codes).

We often call clothes silk when they are satin, velvet where they are velveteen or we have no clue what we’re on about. So today let’s look at fabrics.

Laying down the law

Many renaissance/mediaeval societies governed over who could wear what. By adding these laws you had a layer of depth to your world.

Women and men could only be dressed n clothes benefiting their position

Female servants or their daughters could not wear veils costing more than twelve pence

Knightly families could not wear cloth of gold or sable fur or velvets

The wife or daughter of a labourer were not to wear clothes beyond a certain price or a girdle garnished with silver

Cloth of gold and purple silk only worn by the royal family. This goes for ermine.

The importation of silk and lace foreigners was prohibited when the kingdom produced those textiles.

Peasant Clothing (Beggars to Merchant classes)

Wool: This was the staple of much of the clothes owned by peasants. It was in supply and it wasn’t as costly as most fabrics when undyed. It was also warm.

Linen: Forget about softness. Peasant linen was made of coarser weaves and flax. It was heavier than noble linen.

Cotton: A lightweight fabric used in hotter climates. It was softer than the linen and airier.

Fustian: heavy cloth woven from cotton, for menswear.

Leather: Leather was used for boots and shoes rather than killer jackets.

Nobility & Royalty

Cloth of Gold: Cloth made from woven threads of gold (very expensive)

Cloth of silver: cloth made from woven silver strands (very expensive)

Samite: a rich silk fabric woven with gold and silver threads

Tulle: A netting sort of material

Brocade: rich silk fabric with raised patterns sewn on it.

Cambresine: fine, lightweight linen

Cambric: thin white cotton or linen

Cypress: gauze made of cotton or silk

Damask: like brocade but the patterns are flat

Delaine : light wool/mixed wool and cotton

Lawn: sheer plain-woven cotton or linen

Sarsenet: fine and soft silk

Sateen: glossy cotton or wool

Satin: closely woven silk, shiny

Taffeta: Thickly woven silk

Velvet : piled fabric of silk, cotton or synthetic material

Velvetine: cotton with silk pile

Saxony: fine, delicate woollen fabric

Alençon Lace: intricate floral lace with three-dimensional corded detail sewn onto a fine tulle backing

Chantilly Lace: lightest of lace

Charmeuse: smooth, flowing, silk, cotton,

Chiffon: sheer and lightweight fabric

Crepe de Chine: thicker, lightly textured silk

Dupioni: crisp lusturous silk

Organza: sheer and lightweight fabric of very fine weave silk

Georgette: sheer fabric of silk

Guipure Lace: heavier lace

Designs

Embroidery: Patterns sewn on the fabric by thread

Appliqué: decorative fabric, often lace or floral motifs, sewn onto the main material

Embellishment: details such as beads, crystals, sequins, pearls

Trim: a line of material or fur that finishes off a hem or cuff.

Piping: a cord lining the fabric creating a ribbed look.

Colours

Here are the colours that you will catch your people wearing. Keep in mind that dyes had to be sourced and could be very expensive.

Peasant: brown, red or gray.

Nobility: Gold, silver, crimson or scarlet, deep indigo blue, violet colors and even deep black and pure white colors

Royalty: Purple

Furs

Mink: Soft and lightweight, silkly and glossy furs

Fox: Long, lustrous, colourful and easy to dye.

Ermine: White fur streaked with black (ONLY FOR ROYALTY)

Sable: long, luxurious, dense but light.

Wolf: thick, tough, warm but has a bad smell

First. All linen is made of flax. That’s what it IS. Processed fibers from the stalks of flax. Linen is also incredibly soft, even at really heavy weights, because processing it into the fibers removes most of the stiffness, and spinning it takes care of the rest.

Second. Brocade is made by weaving a base weft for securing the cloth, then a supplemental warp to actually make the pattern. It’s usually not embroidered, because it’s already got an expensive pattern to it.

Third. Damask is a type of brocade, yes, but it’s double-sided brocade, whereas traditional brocade only has the pattern on one side. Still no real textural differences because, see above, the patterns are woven in.

Fourth. White fabric is SUPER GODDAMN COMMON when you have a lot of white wool. Peasants wear a lot of undyed wool, and are not nearly as unwashed as you think. Undyed linen is a nice pale tan though, I’ll give you that.

Fifth. Ermine is, actually, a specific animal. It’s the winter coat of a stoat, a little weasel. Very cute critters.

It wasn’t just to keep people in their social place, but frequently to help local industry - wearing woollen clothes made here, not cotton clothes imported from there, drinking Scotch whisky not French brandy, and so on.

Hemp produced a fabric which was made in the same way as linen (retting etc. - look it up). I have a couple of hemp shirts by Patagonia; they’re coarser than the fine Irish damask linenware I inherited from my Mum, but are by no means crude peasant garments.

This is hemp.

So is this.

Linen can be made with a weave so tight that, once the fibres expand from their initial soaking, it will hold water (as proved with the fine Irish damask linenware mentioned above) while other weaves are so light they’re translucent.

Check out the way it’s represented in Ancient Egyptian art..

…or indeed a good-quality Irish linen handkerchief.

This is linen.

So is this.

That’s linen damask, like the tablecloths and pillowcases left me by Mum. Its 1950s laundry instructions are “boil wash, then hot iron while damp”. This was when “boil wash” meant just that, not merely the hottest setting on the machine. Linen is sturdy stuff, and so is hemp.

Once woven it was bleached in the sun and with enough good weather would end up white; this bleaching-green was near where I grew up, AFAIK still in use in the 1950s. There’s even more linen laid out off in the distance. @dduane says the strips could be mistaken for poly-tunnels.

Because the linen was laid out in the open for several days at a time, it needed a watchman to keep animals away and prevent theft, and a place for him to stay, rather like this:

“Linens” (plural) meant under-garments. Besides next-the-skin underwear as we know it now - drawers, braies, shifts, chemises - shirts and blouses also qualified as “linens”. Washing simply made and hard-wearing “linens” was easier than doing it to heavier, more elaborate outerwear which needed disassembled - sleeves, braid, lace, buttons and all - before washing could begin.

Blue was a common colour - it came from woad and had been used for thousands of years.

“The Complete Book of Herbs” by Lesley Bremness is a useful book from our reference shelves, and has a chart of 50 dye-herbs, their basic colours, and how those colours could vary, depending on what mordant was used to fix the colour in the fabric and even on what fabric was being dyed.

Just two examples show these changes: woollen cloth dyed with heather tips and alum came out yellow, but young heather branches, alum and a pinch of iron filings produced green. Onion skins and alum gave orange wool, onion skins and copper filings in white vinegar gave brassy yellow wool and tan silk.

Here’s an example of three dye-plants each used with three different mordants.

Alum is the most common mordant in the chart, and explains why the Medici control of newly-discovered alum deposits in Italy made them so rich. Before then Europe’s alum had to be bought, reluctantly and with much grinding of teeth, from the Ottoman Turks.

Here are a couple of samplers showing colours from natural dyes:

All these colours were more muted than modern chemical dyes, but not that much more, though they faded faster. Wealthy people who could afford stronger dyes and frequent re-dying would have been more intensely colourful than pastel-hued lower orders, not forgetting the sumptuary laws - remember them? - meant to keep them from looking like their betters. A peasant or yeoman who could get away with bright colours might have other bright ideas too…

However, while History might not have been as vivid as marginalia and full-page Book of Hours illuminations suggests (inks and paints aren’t out in the daylight)…

…it certainly wasn’t as monochromatically muddy as Hollywood would have you believe.

That trend started AFAIK with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, and was happily embraced because “everyone knows” historical people were dirty - also stupid, superstitious, deceitful and cruel.

Sensory overload has been found to be associated with disorders such as:

Fibromyalgia (FM)

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Autistic spectrum disorders

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Synesthesia

Sensory overload occurs when one (or more) of the body’s senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment.

Basically it feels like everything is happening at once, and is happening too fast for you to keep up with.

Sensory overload can result from the over stimulation of any of the senses.

Hearing: Loud noise or sound from multiple sources, such as several people talking at once.

Sight: Bright lights, strobe lights, or environments with lots of movement such as crowds or frequent scene changes on TV.

Smell and Taste: Strong aromas or spicy foods.

Touch: Tactile sensations such as being touched by another person or the feel of cloth on skin.

Obviously, everyone reacts in differently to sensory overload.

Some behavioural examples are:

Irritability – “Shutting down” – Covers eyes around bright lights – Difficulty concentrating Angry outbursts – Refuses to interact and participate – Covers ears to close out sounds or voices – Jumping from task to task without completing Overexcitement – Low energy levels – Difficulty speaking – Compains about noises not effecting others High energy levels – Sleepiness/fatigue – poor eye contact – Overly sensitive to sounds/lights/touch Fidgeting and restlessness – Avoids touching/being touched – Muscle tension – Difficulty with social interactions

There are two different methods to prevent sensory overload: avoidance and setting limits:

Create a more quiet and orderly environment - keeping the noise to a minimum and reducing the sense of clutter.

Rest before big events.

Focus your attention and energy on one thing at a time.

Restrict time spent on various activities.

Select settings to avoid crowds and noise.

One may also limit interactions with specific people to help prevent sensory overload.

It is important in situations of sensory overload to calm oneself and return to a normal level.

Remove yourself from the situation.

Deep pressure against the skin combined with proprioceptive input that stimulates the receptors in the joints and ligaments often calms the nervous system.

Reducing sensory input such as eliminating distressing sounds and lowering the lights can help.

Calming, focusing music works for some.

Take an extended rest if a quick break doesn’t relieve the problem.

What if someone you know is experiencing sensory overload?

Recognize the onset of overload. If they appear to have lost abilities that they usually have, such as forgetting how to speak, this is often a sign of severe overload.

Reduce the noise level. If they are in a noisy area, offer to guide them somewhere more quiet. Give time to process questions and respond, because overload tends to slow processing. If you can control the noise level, for example by turning off music, do so.

Do not touch or crowd them. Many people in SO are hypersensitive to touch - being touched or thinking they are about to be touched can worsen the overload. If they are seated or are a small child, get down to their level instead of looming above them.

Don’t talk more than necessary. Ask if you need to in order to help, but don’t try to say something reassuring or get them talking about something else. Speech is sensory input, and can worsen overload.

If they have a jacket, they may want to put it on and put the hood up. This helps to reduce stimulation, and many people find the weight of a jacket comforting. If their jacket is not within reach, ask them if they want you to bring it. A heavy blanket can also help in a similar way.

Don’t react to aggression. Don’t take it personally. It is rare for someone who is overloaded to cause serious harm, because they don’t want to hurt you, just get out of the situation. Aggression often occurs because you tried to touched/restrained/blocked their escape.

When they have calmed down, be aware that they will often be tired and more susceptible to overload for quite awhile afterwards. It can take hours or days to fully recover from an episode of sensory overload. If you can, try to reduce stress occurring later on as well.

If they start self-injuring, you should usually not try to stop them. Restraint is likely to make their overload worse. Only intervene if they are doing something that could cause serious injury, such as hard biting or banging their head. It’s a lot better to deal with self-injury indirectly by lowering overload.

To summarise - Remember the 5 R’s

Recognise The symptoms of overload

Remove Yourself from the situation

Reduce the stimulus causing the overload

Relax Your body and calm yourself down

Things you can do that allow your family/friends to stay doing what they want:

Wear a thick hoodie/sweater, big headphones, sunglasses, or something else to block a few senses

for some people, one overwhelming stimuli is better than many, so loud music on your headphones or playing a phone game can delay the shut down (may cause recovery time to be significantly longer)

If you don’t mind odd looks, or the place is busy enough, lying/sitting down in a corner can help. Brain likes the floor. It gets quieter. I sometimes lie on a booth in the restaurant. Only do this if family will not make nasty remarks

Ask people not to talk to you. If you can, tell them you’re overwhelmed. Otherwise, say you have a headache, or are feeling sick - whatever they’ll accept as a valid reason for giving you space

Take a short walk outside, if it’s safe. Outside is dark and quiet. Walking fast turns anxiety into movement

Take deep, slow breaths. I hold my breath in for anywhere from a count of 6 - 12, and try to breath out for the same amount or longer. Think about how your body is feeling while you do it. I find that after about 4 deep breaths, I either become aware that my heartbeat is too fast, or I feel it slowing down

Write your desires down on a phone. It can help your brain focus enough to know what it is thinking

Watch the things happening like an observer in a movie. It’s not dissociation, but you don’t need to be fully emotionally involved. Instead of trying to figure out how to respond, and what to listen to, watch the patterns of people moving. Look at what food people have. Study the light fixtures - restaurants have the most ridiculous lights.

Make origami from a napkin or borrow the kiddie crayons and draw art. Focus on something small that you can control and create. (I build structures with the cutlery and creamers)

Things you can do if there’s someone supportive:

Write your desires down on a phone. Then show it to them. That way, you don’t need to form words with your mouth! If it helps, have them write their answers, so you don’t need to interpret sounds!

Ask them to come take a short break with you, preferably outside or in a quiet corner. It can help to give them a simple instruction - ‘sit quietly with one hand on my knee’ - so they don’t feel useless and start trying to do helpful things

Either hold their hand, or look at their mouth, or whatever is grounding. Something so that you don’t feel so lost

Get them to answer questions and/or make decisions for you.

If it’s really bad, ASK TO GO HOME EARLY. Maybe one person can leave and bring you home. Explain that you feel close to crying, or shutting down, or whatever your main symptom looks like. Don’t try this if you think they’ll be annoyed and dismissive, but if they’re understanding they probably want to know BEFORE the very bad stuff happens

For people who want to help, one additional suggestion:

It can help to offer an option instead of ask an open-ended question. If you have a visual aid, it’s even better

ex: Hold out your phone towards them and ask, “Would you like to write it down instead of talking?”

a close up to just... light shining through those waves, makes me feel faint with exhilaration every time