The volunteers making the costumes for Hay Castle are getting to the stage where they're thinking about accessories. Most of the bulk of the costumes have been stitched together. I loved the name tags that are being sewn in - "Laundress", "Matilda de Breos 10 - 12" and so on.
I was making suggestions rather than actually sewing. One lady has made a wonderful dark blue cape with fur-lined hood (I'm sure it's fake fur), and had added buttons to fasten it. The lady who made the cape was so pleased with it that she's going to make one for herself!
Unfortunately, buttons were not used in the 13thC. I had a cloak, as a re-enactor, which was fastened with a hook and eye arrangement. One lady started searching on her phone, and the closest we could get to that seemed to be Norwegian cardigan fasteners!
That led to a discussion with a lady who knew a lot about horses - she pointed out that horses really don't like things flapping about on their backs, which the long sleeves of the cape would do, and a little detail of medieval style finally made sense to me.
In the Norman period, women tended to wear long veils to cover their hair, sometimes draped, and sometimes like a modern nun's wimple. In the 13thC, this was changing, especially in Wales, to a hairnet to keep the long hair contained, with a linen band under the chin to keep the hairnet on, and a stiff linen crown to hold everything in place. Gerald of Wales describes this style in his Description of Wales.
The lady who knew about horses pointed out that, when she was riding, girls were supposed to wear hairnets under their riding hats, so this new style would have been far better for women who were riding - and women rode a lot. Eleanor of Aquitaine, for instance, went on Crusade with her first husband, King Louis VII of France. In later years she travelled from Poitiers to Castile to select a suitable princess as a bride for the son of the King of France - the princesses were her son King John's nieces, and she crossed the Pyrenees at the age of 77.
Meanwhile, a young family had arrived - a little girl, little boy and their dad - to model some of the children's costumes. The little girl looked amazing in the little noblewoman's dress. The boy tried the knight's gambeson, which has come out really well - it's the padded jacket that goes under chainmail, and they also have a child's chainmail shirt. Emily, who has been running the workshops, was surprised at how heavy it is!
He also tried on the archer's outfit. The quiver to hold the arrows is still a work in progress - the first attempt was too narrow, and I recommended that it should have loops to slide it onto a belt rather than the Robin Hood style of hanging on the back, which is not as efficient if you're trying to shoot quickly at an advancing army!
There was also a rather wonderful felt hat, which one of the ladies had made out of black Welsh fleece. They were considering finishing it off with a decorative feather - but not a pheasant feather, because pheasants had not arrived in Britain at that time.
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