Medieval Living

I happen to love R&B (rhythm and blues) – Sade being one of my favorite artists. But Medieval R&B you say? Well, actually R&B referres to a musical group performing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, call Renaissance and Baroque. Not only does this group perform a variety of Renaissance and Baroque period music, but they also conduct educational outreach programs to local schools in the Pittsburgh area. They also have a very nice little glossary of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music terms . While I’ve heard of lutes and psaltries and the hurdy-gurdy, some new ones for me included the sackbut, chittarone, and the kithara. The latter, quoting from the R&B site, was “The most important plucked string instrument of Greco-Roman antiquity, larger and heavier than the lyre, which it resembles. The player held the instrument vertically resting upon the left side of the body. The classic kithara had seven strings and was used as a solo instrument and as accompaniment to song.” Lots of other good information there too for those interested in Medieval and Renaissance instruments.

This is one of the sites I really have enjoyed, and I wanted to put it back on here. Company of Artisans is a group out of the United Kingdom who make Medieval Tiles, among other things. They do demonstrations at school, fayres, and other events. The style of tiles they make are Encaustic Tiles, like so many of the ones you will see in castles, cathedrals and manor homes. It was quite the industry between the 13th and 16th centuries.

This is one project I might look at doing for my world history classes this next year – if anyone has any experience doing this sort of thing, please leave a comment so I can get in touch with you.

One of my newest contacts on here has a wonderful blog – dealling with a multitude of topics, Steven Till has put together a very nice series of discussions regarding Medieval History. The one that first caught my attention was a discussion of Hedingham Castle. I visited that site almost 20 years ago when I was stationed in England in the US Air Force as a military historian. All that is remaining is a rather austere keep. Steven’s blog gives a very nice history of the site and of those who lived there. I don’t see a reason to recite all of it here, so please, go visit Steven at StevenHill.com.

Rather then just stumble blindly around the internet, I think it would be interesting to find out what other people are interested in reading about. I’d be glad to dig around here and see what I can find that is intersting to me . . . but maybe that’s not so interesting to others. So . . . what do you think? I will do the research . . . tell me what you want to learn about.

Well – the old adage about backing up your files . . . mine are backed up, but I just can’t seem to resurrect them.

In the meantime, my comment screen is working again – that’s what started this whole mess. I had a wonderful visitor send me a nice email to let me know that my comments were working – so after a day of messing around, they are now fixed! But alas, my first dozen or so blogs are gone – maybe i can find them in the mystical recesses of my freakin computer and host server!!!

At any rate, I’m glad to have most things back to the way they are supposed to be. Still have to tweek a few things in the blog appearance, but I will get there soon enough.

Try it again – stop by for a visit and say ‘hello’ !!