Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · May 20

The full length video of our amazing extreme #reenactment experience organised by the incredible @bkhistorical.bsky.social.
I was so lucky to be part of this.

#medieval #15thc #livinghistory #history #historysky #wealdanddownland #museum

youtu.be/rP9vG6W5EPA

How we lived 9 days and nights as a 15th Century English Household | Weald & Downland Living Museum

YouTube video by HistoryClipz

youtu.be

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Reposted by Dr Katharine Edgar

Kentwell Hall @kentwellhall.bsky.social · May 14

Love the magical way the light falls in our Red Dining Room.
#windowsonwednesday #diamondpanes #photography #shadows

A high window of diamond panes between 4 levels of stone mullions. Shadows of the diamond panes fall onto the pink walls above an arched doorway.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · May 13

Ugh.

Go to @jorvikviking.bsky.social instead, they have real people who know loads. Or one of the re-enactments - @kentwellhall.bsky.social had Vikings last weekend - where you will get a much richer multisensory experience and there will be people doing real things.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

AI Viking character unveiled in Orkney museum - BBC News

It is part of a permanent exhibition to celebrate the role of the Vikings in the area's history.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Dr Katharine Edgar

Kentwell Hall @kentwellhall.bsky.social · May 10

So nice to hear we have had an impact.

‘The 37-year-old first got a taste for the trade aged nine, when he met a thatcher at a Tudor re-enactment at Kentwell Hall in Long Melford - a thatcher who is his colleague today.’

#thatching #historicbuildings #heritagecrafts

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

'Safeguard thatching or Suffolk areas risk losing character'

It is estimated there are about 25,000 buildings with thatched roofs that are listed.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Dr Katharine Edgar

will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · Apr 9

jeez read the room charlie brooker we don’t need another season of black mirror right now
can’t you try doing like a ‘rose tinted mirror’

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Apr 6

Thanks Jenn!

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Reposted by Dr Katharine Edgar

Tamsin Lewis @passamezzo.bsky.social · Apr 5

Really looking forward to this #conference in July @antiquaries.bsky.social
Greensleeves: Text and #Textiles in #EarlyModern English Culture
www.sal.org.uk/event/greens...
#earlymodernsky #materialculture #earlymusic #greensleevesproject #historicaldress #tudor #tudorsky
@ninyamikhaila.bsky.social

Greensleeves: Text and Textiles in Early Modern English Culture - Society of Antiquaries of London

This interdisciplinary conference takes the iconic sixteenth century ballad Greensleeves as a focal point through which to explore the interconnections of texts, textiles and material culture in early...

www.sal.org.uk

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Reposted by Dr Katharine Edgar

Tony Riches @tonyriches.bsky.social · Apr 5

A Special Guest Post by Katharine Edgar: Kentwell Hall, Where Time Travel Dreams Come True: tonyriches.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-sp... @katharineedgar.bsky.social @kentwellhall.bsky.social #Tudors #Travel

A Special Guest Post by Katharine Edgar: Kentwell Hall, Where Time Travel Dreams Come True.

All photo credits Kentwell Hall and Mike Hill. Deep in a woodland in Suffolk, a sixteenth century glass kiln blazes. Around the kiln long-sk...

tonyriches.blogspot.com

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Reposted by Dr Katharine Edgar

Tamsin Lewis @passamezzo.bsky.social · Apr 4

Lenten Stuff - a seasonal #Tudor #ballad by William Elderton.
From MS Ashmole 48.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVg7...
#earlymusic #earlymodern #earlymodernsky #lent #fasting #nettles #leeks #fish #jackalent #herrings #tudors #16thCentury #popularsong #satire #foodhistory #historyoffood

William Elderton: Lenten Stuff - a Tudor ballad for Lent to the tune of the Cramp

YouTube video by Passamezzo

www.youtube.com

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Apr 4

I have never wished I still taught Collections Management before, but….

Royston Museum @roystonmuseum.bsky.social · Apr 4

A story for #WorldRatDay 🐀📚

I wrote to the Curator to send me a rat.
She sent me...

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Apr 3

I suppose the problem is they stopped dismembering corpses after the medieval period. If only they had continued.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Apr 3

I’ve always loved the headlines in my local paper but this one from a few years ago even beat ‘man drove tractor at love rival.’

www.gazetteherald.co.uk/news/1519931...

North Yorkshire villagers dismembered corpses to prevent zombies

MEDIEVAL villagers in Ryedale mutilated and burnt bodies to stop them rising from the dead, according to new research.

www.gazetteherald.co.uk

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Apr 2

This reminds me of when my daughter was at infants and had to choose a letter of the alphabet and draw an animal that began with it.
She drew a voose.
I asked her what a voose was.
‘It’s like a moose only it begins with V.’

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 31

The penny has only just dropped that ‘Weald’ meant forest, like Wald in German and of course wold.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 29

Indeed!

Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 29

Just as well we do.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 29

I just got in from a run and my 15 year old son said to me,
‘You know, if I saw you running I’d think how amazing it is that an old person can run.’

🤨

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 29

I am totally up for cheese for Mother’s Day but if you’re a cheese head it’s hardly going to be mozzarella 😮

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

Yes, two loops instead of one so a greater volume of thread running along the edge.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

Now it’s just a question of seeing if I can get the right effect with stitches the right length and amplitude. Turns out it’s really simple to do once you know how. 🫤
I will probably experiment with stitching on a plait at some point too.

White linen with a black edging that starts off terrible and improves.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

There are a couple of early shirts in Janet Arnold with a twist or plait sewn along the edge which is a possibility but doesn’t look quite the same. I have tried blanket stitch and it takes forever and doesn’t look right. So now I am trying a more complex stitch which will be quicker.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

#16thc blackworked linens often show a thick black edging like in this #Holbein sketch of Thomas Vaux. So it’s a question of how they did the edging: couched cord? Blanket stitch very close together? Or another stitch altogether?

Holbein drawing of a man with a big beard and a blackwork embroidered collar with a little black edged frill

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

Ok I think I have nailed it and I think it’s going to do the job I want (brief thread follows)

Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

I’m going to try to learn Elizabethan double twisted chain stitch now, please pray for me.

#blackwork #embroidery #historicembroidery #costume #needlework #crafts

Pages from a book of historic embroidery stitches showing a complicated confusing loopy stitch. A needle threaded with black silk is poised by some linen, ready to begin.

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

Thank you!

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Dr Katharine Edgar @katharineedgar.bsky.social · Mar 28

Yes, it’s from Elizabethan Stitches. Tent stitch is perfectly good, I don’t know why anyone would feel the need to torture themselves with other stitches, lol.

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