... its me again. I promise that Kyle has a blog post forthcoming and thus will end my monopolization of our blog. But I just wanted to do another fun, short post. If you follow a lot of blogs like me (mostly food blogs... actually all food blogs), then you may have seen these kinds of trendy posts done before. They are usually titled "Things I'm Loving" or "My Favourite Things this Month" and are composed of beauty products, food products, restaurants, etc. that the blogger obviously thought worth sharing. I've decided I want to do a series of posts within this genre, hopefully one for every month. However, I hope to branch out beyond "products" or things that I'm consuming (both in terms of food and material purchases) and include some random historical facts that I find entertaining, or particularly hilarious medieval court roll entries that I find, as well as music, art, and new places/spaces we discover in Leuven. So here we go!
I. Vruchten Siroop on Oatmeal
One Sunday morning Kyle and I went to the market to buy our week's worth of vegetables and fruit. We were also desperate to find some maple syrup to pour on the pancakes I was going to make upon our return home. When our quintessential Canadian dreams were crushed, we opted to try instead the "siroop" they sell everywhere here which is made purely out of pears, apples, and dates nearby in Liege. On pancakes it was 'meh' but on pumpkin oatmeal...!!!! Its really yummy.
II. Vers Geperst Sinaasappelsap - Fresh Pressed Orange Juice
The typical convenience/small scale grocery in Leuven are the Carrefour stores. All of them are equipped with a large, wonderful, orange-juicer that spins the oranges around on a wheel of good fortune, as I call it, at the press of a button. A glorious burst of juice pours forth into your carton (which comes in various sizes. I always get a litre) and you are good to go. It is supremely delicious!
III. Edmund Huberd
Who was amerced six pence in 1301, as recorded in the court rolls of Wootton manor, "quia canis suus devoravit unum hurtardum domini." "because his dog devoured a certain ram of the lord."
hehe...whoops!
IV. The Rutland Psalter
I've decided that every month I'm going to try and flip through the entirety of some of the most famous illuminated manuscripts digitized by the British Library and explore the marginalia. The Rutland Psalter dates from the late thirteenth-century and first belonged to the family of Edmund de Lacy, the first earl of Lincoln. It, like many expensive illuminated medieval manuscripts, is full of gorgeous images. Most of the marginalia is fantastical but there are some scenes that mirror daily life in the middle ages. Also, no two images are exactly the same though there are obvious reoccurring motifs. Anyways, I've picked a few of my favourite images, but you can flip through the whole manuscript yourself here: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_62925_fs001r
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| I am so jealous of this monkey. He has a tail that grows fruit! How convenient would that be?! I would want a banana-tree tail of course. |
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| Here is one of images from which we can glean details of medieval life - a poaching scene. We can tell by the little man's attire that he is a peasant and we already know by Edmund Huberd's example that peasants had dogs. We know that this is indeed a poaching scene because neither villeins nor freeholders were allowed to hunt. Hunting was an activity reserved for the nobility and wooded parks were heavily controlled by the lord's local officials and for the royal forests, the king's officials. There are many instances of poaching reported in manor court rolls and eyre rolls where offenders were heavily fined for taking rabbits from the lords warren or fallow deer from the forest. Why did people poach? The most obvious answer is that they were hungry, malnourished, ill-paid villagers who resorted to pilfering a few coneys or a small deer to feed their families. However, scholars argue that poaching could function as a form of social discontent and disorder as well as an ongoing catch-me-if-you-can game between peasants and forest officials. Since hunting and land-ownership were so tightly bound up in the identity of aristocratic culture, poaching and parkbreak (merely stepping beyond the boundaries of a royal park) may have been an indirect form of revolt against this established milieu. |
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There are a bunch of these dragons devouring the illuminated columns and they are so delightful. I love how this guy's tail is acting like a little conscience. I imagine him saying, "stop chewing on the column! The readers need that!"
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