Challe Hudson
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challehudson.bsky.social
Challe Hudson
@challehudson.bsky.social
500 followers 170 following 130 posts
Early modern independent historian exploring the evolution of fashion as depicted on church monuments, memorial brasses, and other representations of English women during the Wars of the Roses and early Tudor eras. 📷 my own unless otherwise indicated.
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challehudson.bsky.social
Today’s challenge: locate (and cite) the best, earliest possible definition of the thread - gimp, a silk floss core tightly wrapped with contrasting silk floss - that was couched to make this delightful little caterpillar on the circa 1600 Bacton Altar Cloth.
#TextileTuesday
A simple embroidered caterpillar or worm in shades of cream and golden yellow, on an off-white ribbed silk fabric with broken strips of silver. Tips of embroidered leaves, mostly cropped out, appear to the right and left of the animal.
September 30, 2025 at 11:41 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
Explored All Saints, Brixworth, Northamptonshire, and admired the effort put into carving the mail on this effigy. Probably represents Sir John de Verdun (1299 - 1376) first Baron Verdun, Lord of Brixworth. If only I could see it in its original brightly coloured paint. #MonumentsMonday
Inside an arched stone recess in a church wall, the nearly colourless carved stone effigy of a cross-legged knight lays on a plain stone slab. Both hands grasp the hilt of his sword. His legs have been broken off and battered and his face worn until almost featureless. His head, neck, arms, hands and lower legs are carved in a texture that represents linked metal mail while his torso and thighs are covered with the flowing facsimile of his fabric surcoat. Detail of the head of the carved stone effigy of a knight as viewed from above his left shoulder. His head and neck, except his face, is encased in the round linked pattern of a medieval mail coif. A flat band on his forehead encircles his head. His head rests on two battered pillows and the eroded face has lost all human features.
September 29, 2025 at 12:54 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Archaeological artifacts gain context when paired with historical depictions of them in use, and come alive when practitioners recreate and use them. Bone tablets for weaving narrow wares (Roman Britain) and an illuminated detail of a girl weaving with tablets (N Germany c1320-50). #TextileTuesday
A museum display of two Roman weaving tablets made of thin square pieces of bone with four holes, one near each corner. The larger tablet also has an inscribed cross dividing the square into quadrants. Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery Detail of an illuminated medieval image showing a young girl draped in a cloak working on a narrow woven band on a bow-shaped wooden frame tucked under her left arm. Her left hand manipulates a small stack of square weaving tablets on a gold warp while her right hand holds a weaving sword for beating the weft into the warp. From Sermologium, produced in northern Germany c 1320-50 showing scenes from the life of the Virgin. Bodleian Library MS. Douce 185 f. 35v, University of Oxford. https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/43f84a7d-2160-4cfc-9e68-c3981788a4f6/surfaces/b2dede3e-49fb-4c3f-91cd-84c000bb829d/
May 13, 2025 at 2:57 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Modern artists recreating historic textiles set themselves impossible goals, like trying to find washable inks to wipe away the patterns drawn on to guide embroidery. They didn’t do it - why should we?

Detail of an early 17th century English jacket at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
An embroidered butterfly-like insect in yellows, greys, and browns flies between loops of elaborate, shiny gold metal stitching arranged in a coiling vine pattern. The threads making its lower body are missing, revealing the outline of the pattern that had been drawn onto the linen, and empty stitch holes. To its lower right, a borage flower embroidered in shades of blue and white grows from one of the looping golden vines, but its black flower centre is missing, again revealing ink lines. Bits of other embroidered leaves, flowers, and fruits are also visible in a wide range of colours. Embroidered jacket object number 23.170.1, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
April 24, 2025 at 11:08 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
This #SaintGeorge with the family of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York is a missed opportunity. Nothing wrong with the saint and dragon–that’s dramatic enough–but the utterly generic, stylised royal family in formulaic fashion saddens me; I want detailed portraits and contemporary clothing. 1/2
In a landscape with fantastic castles in the background, Saint George on horseback attacks the flying dragon before Princess Cleodolinde, who holds a lamb. In the foreground are two tents with an angel holding open the flaps. Before the tents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York kneel facing each other with their children, sons behind Henry and daughters behind Elizabeth. https://www.rct.uk/collection/401228/the-family-of-henry-vii-with-st-george-and-the-dragon
April 23, 2025 at 8:46 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
I travelled Shropshire last week absorbing springtime to the rhythm of this Robert Frost poem:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
The first new leaves and flowers burst forth from the twig of a maple tree, a bright yellow-green in the sunshine.
April 14, 2025 at 1:26 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Admired the carved beams of this gable helpfully dated 1570, now in the Shrewsbury Museum. The sinusoidal pattern with pairs of leaves above and below, here with grape clusters between the leaves, is also commonly found decorating carved effigies. Was this a carvers pattern or also used on textiles?
A triangle of wood from the gable of an Elizabethan house sits in a museum surrounded by signage. The wood is dark and on two sides carved with decorative leaves, vines and grapes, and the date 1570 below a merchants mark and the letters D and LL for David Lloyd who commissioned the building. Behind the wood are old photos of the building before it was dismantled.
April 9, 2025 at 6:42 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
The kids jousting with hobby horses and pinwheels are absolutely delightful. I love these little treasures preserved in churches, and also the magic of stumbling across them unexpectedly.
curatorkate.bsky.social Kate North @curatorkate.bsky.social · Mar 17
Some of the incredible, and intriguing, stained glass - of various dates - to be found in the side chapels of Kings College, Cambridge 🤩
More in thread below…
March 17, 2025 at 6:26 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
When I go to churches, seems like I take photos of everything. But today I needed a photo of someone wearing a medieval hood, and so this little bedesman from the side of the c.1502 tomb to Richard Croft and Ann Fox in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, just made it into the slide show of my next talk.
A late medieval alabaster carving of a seated man in the hood and gown of a bedesman, holding prayer beads in front of his torso in both hands. He is bearded, likely representing an older person, and his gown hangs in loose folds all the way to his ankles. His left hand has been broken off. The off-white stone is unpainted.
March 17, 2025 at 12:42 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
This delightful door from St Mary’s, Goudhurst, Kent, apparently needed to be rehung to swing the other direction, but not replaced, leaving an artistic shadow from the iron hinges. One of the very first parish churches I visited, February 2013, and still such a happy memory. #ADoorableThursday
An unpainted wooden door with ornate black iron hinges set in the cream-coloured stone of an arched doorway on the outside of a church. The iron hinges are huge, with branching scrolls, and each cover about a quarter of the height of the door. They have clearly been moved from one side of the door to the other, because lighter-coloured wood shows the exact shape of the hinges, but from the left side, while now the hinges are on the right. The overlap of the light wood “shadow hinges” and dark iron real hinges is artistic. The stone surrounding the door is aged and worn, coloured greens and yellows in places by moss and lichens.
March 13, 2025 at 9:54 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
Some daffodils for a seasonal #FlowersonFriday, taken three years ago in front of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, following a visit to that and the Queen’s House. Plus a lovely view taken there of the Isle of Dogs, viewed through the twin spires of the Old Royal Naval College.
The branching shadow of a tree falls diagonally across a brightly lit field of daffodils in two shades of yellow. A bright blue sky full of puffy white clouds over a distant view of a city, taken from an elevated perspective. In the foreground, paved paths, green lawns, and park benches. In the middle ground, grand 17th century architecture made of fine white stone: a pair of domed towers on two symmetrical buildings with gables on the roofs and arcades of columns along the ground. In the background, a cluster of modern skyscrapers visually fills the space between the two 17th century buildings.
March 7, 2025 at 9:34 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
Tombs survive for such interesting reasons. Take John Dudley: after he died in 1580, this fine tomb was erected. His widow Elizabeth remarried Thomas Sutton, but when she died in 1602, she too was buried here, in Old St Mary’s, Stoke Newington. That’s not so unusual, asking to be buried 🧵
A large, ornate Elizabethan tomb, finely carved and fully 3-dimensional, primarily in natural creamy stone colour but with parts painted black, red, and around the heraldry, many coloured. The base of the tomb is a large chest with three panels for inscriptions and much decorative moulding. Above this is a shallower portion with inscriptions above and below three figures: a man in armour, kneeling at prayer and facing his wife and daughter, also kneeling. Above this is a fancy gable shape pediment on top of which is carved a large rondel with complex heraldry and an ornate crest.
March 3, 2025 at 4:10 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Is anything more whimsically delightful and anatomically questionable than a medieval elephant? Maybe one with a castle on its back, like this 15th century misericord in Manchester Cathedral. I love how the carver felt compelled to give it horse’s hooves and bat-wing ears. #WoodcarvingWednesday
A medieval wooden carving of an elephant wearing a saddle with a castle complete with central tower and walls on its back, standing between two stylised trees. The wood is a dark red-brown and the elephant's trunk is broken, lost. At the top of the image is the wooden edge of the small seat under which this decoration was carved.
February 26, 2025 at 11:21 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
The mid-15th century silver-gilt Foundress’ Cup from Christ’s College, Cambridge (bequeathed by Margaret Beaufort, though originally made for Eleanor Cobham and Humpfrey, Duke of Gloucester) and its ornate lid, refashioned by the King’s Mother to include the Tudor Rose on top. 1/4
A dark photo of a medieval golden goblet covered with raised ornamentation: grape vines and flowers on the bowl, a crown-like ornament around the foot. A dark photo of a cone-shaped golden medieval goblet cover. It has similar raised ornamentation to that on the cup: grape vines and flowers on the bowl, a crown-like ornament around the lower edge, and a Tudor rose on the finial on top.
February 21, 2025 at 11:51 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
When I visited Canterbury Cathedral for the first time in 2013, I stared at the ceiling and said “wow”. When I visited in 2019 (as part of a conference) they were restoring the roof and cleaning the ceiling, and I said “wow” much closer up. Still can’t believe I got to do this. #ChurchCrawling
An angled view from the floor of Canterbury Cathedral looking at the Gothic vaulting of the nave. Columns stretch upwards and fan out into decorative geometric designs arching high above the space. Although the photograph mostly captures the ornate stonework, coloured glass is visible in the clerestory windows and the large west window. Dots of colour, mostly red and gold, at the intersections of the arches are all that is perceptible of the decorative roof bosses and heraldry mounted on the ceiling. View of the clerestory of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral, taken from the west looking east at the height of the top of the columns before the ribs begin to fan out, showing the decorative Gothic architecture arching overhead. Two people stand on scaffolding near the ceiling. The space has been partitioned by erecting a temporary floor during restoration works, brightly lit by fluorescent lights. Detail of the ceiling of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral showing four stone ribs intersecting and at the meeting point the gold-painted face of a bearded man with a hat, wide eyes, and an open mouth. Cracks in the ribs near the head give evidence of previous repair or replacement.
February 2, 2025 at 11:52 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
When I admired this 17th century cushion in Westwood Manor, a National Trust property in Wiltshire, they tried to tell me it was a pincushion, which it most certainly is not - those are silver spangles held with a single stitch threaded through a tiny bit of silver purl.
#TextileTuesday
Detail of an embroidered seventeenth-century cushion covered with flowers and silver spangles showing some of the stems winding through a scattering of small round flat metal disks held on with a stitch through coils of wire. The ground fabric is white silk satin and it is stitched with a range of silk and silver threads in green, pink, red, blue and yellow hues. An embroidered seventeenth-century decorative cushion covered with flowers and silver spangles. The ground fabric is white silk satin and it is stitched with a range of silk and silver threads in green, pink, red, blue and yellow hues. The flowers include Tudor rose, borage, pansy, cornflower, carnation, and others.
January 21, 2025 at 1:15 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Was seeking the most ridiculous possible medieval hat picture to pair with a #CallForPapers for the Medieval Dress and Textile Society conference ‘Topping it off: dress and textiles above the shoulder’.

Found it.

www.medats.org.uk/events/cfp-t...
#MedievalSky
#ManuscriptMonday
Illuminated image of Virtues, from left to right: 1) Faith, dressed as a nun, carrying a church on her head, holds an open book in one hand, a candle ("lumen fidei") in the other; 2) Hope, a young girl wearing a conical hat, carrying a ship on her head, holds a spade and three sickles in one hand, a beehive in the other, at her feet a cage enclosing a bird; 3) Charity, mounted on a fiery furnace, holds a heart in her hand, and is wearing a nest with the mystical pelican; 4) Temperance, wearing a clock, her mouth clamped by a bridle, wears glasses, and her feet rest in balance on the roof of a mill; 5) Justice, mounted on a bed, a scale at her waist, a sword balanced on the point; 6) Prudence holds a sieve and a mirror, she is protected by a shield decorated with the instruments of the Passion; 7) Strength, raised on a press, is topped with an anvil, she strangles a dragon which had insinuated itself into a tower.
January 13, 2025 at 4:55 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Detail of a 1471 window from Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York. The Holy Trinity blesses the Virgin, but her head is replaced with that of a donor figure. Her body faces us, hair falling over her shoulders, while her head looks to the right, hair hidden under cauls and a veil.

#StainedGlassSunday
Late medieval stained glass window depicting the Holy Trinity, crowned with radiant halos and wearing red cloaks, hands raised toward a seated figure in front of them, the Virgin Mary. She wears a red gown and white mantle with gold decorations, but the head is out of place, a duller grey colour and not original to the scene. The background is of highly ornamented Gothic architecture worked mostly in white with black outlines and gold accents.
January 12, 2025 at 11:38 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
I haven’t been inside St Edmund, Holme Pierrepont, though I would like to - there are alabaster effigies and a brass that I have not photographed - but one stormy evening I did catch this atmospheric shot from the gardens of the adjacent hall.

#SteepleSaturday
A cloudy evening sky over a medieval stone church with a tall steeple, the steeple in shadow but the wall and window tracery on the east end lit by floodlights. An old brick wall, similarly lit, divides the photograph in half. In the foreground, low box hedges are planted in the style of an early modern knotwork garden, accompanied by vines and bushes along the walls, herbs and flowers in the open spaces of the knotwork, and at the right edge of the photo a small sundial on a stone column.
January 11, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Challe Hudson
royalhistsoc.org
Join us on Friday 7 February for the first Society lecture of 2025: 'Dangerous Journeys: Framing Women’s Movement in the Medieval World', with Dr Natasha Hodgson (Nottingham Trent University) bit.ly/4gLj28g.

Booking is now open, for in-person & online attendance

#Skystorians #medieval
'Dangerous Journeys: Framing women’s movement in the medieval world'
The Royal Historical Society's Medieval Lecture 2025 will be given by Professor Natasha Hodgson (Nottingham Trent University).
bit.ly
January 10, 2025 at 3:28 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Contemplating #FlowersonFriday in Elizabethan textiles. When were they just pretty patterns, like the quatrefoil in this pillow border, and when did they represent known species? What did they mean to the people who commissioned these textiles and then these tombs? #ChurchMonuments (1/4)
Three dimensional carving in cream-coloured alabaster of a woman in Elizabethan costume, shown from the shoulders up with her head resting on a decoratively carved pillow. She wears a high-necked gown, a ruff set in figure eights, and a French hood that covers her ears. Her hair is arranged in a wavy heart shape around her face. Her nose has been broken off and her face, clothes, pillow and tomb are covered with scratched-in graffiti.
January 10, 2025 at 2:53 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Today’s quest: locate a violet - flower not colour - on a mid 16th to early 17th century English textile or an artistic rendering of fabric. So far: nothing. Plenty of wild pansy flowers, like this detail of the ‘Rainbow’ portrait of Queen Elizabeth I located in Hatfield House, but no violets.
Detail of a painting of a wild pansy flower worked with purple, white and yellow petals and green and gold stems, leaves, and flower bud against a white background. Around the edges, additional tendrils of gold details from other motifs and an angled area of golden orange colour (another layer of textile in the painting) at the lower right.
January 9, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by Challe Hudson
altyellonatpark.org
The censorship algorithm on Twitter reduced our audience by roughly 95%, and seriously, who does that to a wildlife biology & advocacy group ?
So we moved 😇 over here to BlueSky

If you could, please help us regain our following
Follow
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Repeat ;-)

Together we can change the world.
January 4, 2025 at 5:56 PM
challehudson.bsky.social
Contemplating the idea that the holidays are “over” and we should “return to normal work” with the same sceptical energy as this tiny eared owl.

Book of Flower Studies by the Master of Claude de France c. 1510-15, photo provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art
#ManuscriptMonday
A late medieval illumination of an eared owl painted in shades of brown on a cream background, standing on a light green succulent plant with hints of pink. It looks toward the viewer with human-like eyes and a steady gaze. A late medieval illumination of hens and chicks, a kind of succulent plant, in bloom. It is painted in shades of light green with hints of pink on a cream background. An unnaturally small eared owl worked in shades of brown stands on the plant, looking toward the viewer.
January 6, 2025 at 7:44 AM
challehudson.bsky.social
I love this so much, I even have a t-shirt with the three joined rabbits motif on it.
kfduggan.bsky.social Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · Jan 5
Rabbits running in circles from the 13th-century Grandisson Psalter.
Three white rabbits have been drawn in an illuminated letter. Another animal with teeth watches them from outside the letter. The rabbits appear to be running in a circle, each one chasing the tail of the rabbit in front of it. They have large ears. The illuminator made it appear as if each rabbit has two ears, yet drew only one for each. This was accomplished by the illuminator by overlapping the ears of all the rabbits such that you can't tell which ear belongs to which rabbit. If you were to keep just the ears (i.e. if you were to erase everything but the ears) you'd have a triangle of ears left. Behind the white rabbits the background is gold. Reference: Grandisson Psalter, c.1270-1280: British Library, Add MS 21926, f. 45r
January 5, 2025 at 11:26 PM