Gilded Pennoncel

My most recent flag project was a silk pennoncel, with three gold sandglasses on a blue field. Modern fabric paint was the lowest layer of the sandglasses,  with gold leaf burnished atop that with gum arabic.

Flags, coat armor and caparisons were often painted in the Middle Ages, and Cennino Cennini had much useful advice on painting cloth. Both silk and linen was used for surviving flags, and the Earl of Wawick owned standards of worsted. Cennini also described how to paint velvet, and woolen cloth for jousts or tournaments.  Cennini generally sized the cloth where it would be painted, which is essential to protect the cloth if oil based paint or mordant for gilding is used.

I sewed the silk to a peripheral piece of cloth, shaped so it could be stretched over a modern canvas stretcher just like a canvas for easel painting.

Modern acrylic fabric paint can be applied to cloth directly, but has a gloss that is somewhat different from oil paint over size or tempera.

Note that medieval flag makers seem to have been more flexible in arranging charges than their modern emulators, as long as the number was correct. The crowns on Arthur’s pennoncel in the Nine Worthies Tapestry are arranged similarly to here, but those on his shield are two and one.

Using resist and dyes to paint silk seems to have been unknown in Europe before the 19th century.

Medieval Hunting Seasons

Hart (red deer stag)
June 24 (Midsummer Day)-September 14 (Holy Rood Day) Forest Laws, BSA
May 3-September 14 Modus
Best around July 22 (Feast of the Magdalene) Modus, Phoebus

Hind (red deer doe)
September 14 (Holy Rood Day)-February 2 (Candlemas) Forest Laws
September 14 (Holy Rood Day)-Lent Phoebus

Fallow deer buck
June 24 (Midsummer Day)-September 14 (Holy Rood Day) Modus, Forest Laws

Fallow deer doe
September 14 (Holy Rood Day)-February 2 (Candlemas) Forest Laws

Roebuck (roe deer buck)
Easter-September 29 (Michaelmas) BSA
All year Phoebus, MG

Roe (roe deer doe)
September 29 (Michaelmas)-February 2 (Candlemas) BSA

Hare
September 29 (Michaelmas)-June 24 (Midsummer Day) Forest Laws, BSA
All year: Twiti, Phoebus

Boar
September 8 (Nativity of Our Lady)-February 2 (Candlemas) BSA

Fox
September 8 (Nativity of Our Lady)-March 25 (Annunciation) BSA
Christmas-March 25 (Lady Day) Forest Laws

Wolf
September 8 (Nativity of Our Lady)-March 25 (Annunciation) BSA
Christmas-March 25 (Lady Day) Forest Laws

Otter
February 22-June 24 (Midsummer Day) MG

Martin, badger and rabbit
All Year MG

Outside of the royal forests these were customary rather than statutory. There seem to have been two primary motives. A closed season let does fawn undisturbed, and the Boke of St. Albans had a similar closed season for hares. Other seasons seem to have defined optimal hunting, such as when harts were fat and well nourished.


BSA: Berners, Juliana, and William Blades. 1899. The Boke of Saint Albans. London: E. Stock.

Forest Laws: Manwood, John, and William Nelson. 1717. Manwood's treatise of the forest laws: shewing not only the laws now in force, but the original of forests, what they are, and how they differ from chases, parks, and warrens with all such things as are incident to either. In the Savoy [London]: Printed by E. Nutt for B. Lintott.

MG: Edward, William A. Baillie-Grohman, Florence Nickalls Baillie-Grohman, and Gaston. 1909. The master of game: the oldest English book on hunting. New York: Duffield.

Modus: Henri, and Elzéar Blaze. 1839. Le Livre du roy Modus et de la royne Racio: Conforme aux manuscrits de la bibliothèque royale, ornée de gravures faites d'après les vignettes de ces manuscrits fidèlement reproduites.

Twiti: Dryden, Alice, Henry Edward Leigh Dryden, and William Twiti. 1908. The art of hunting, or, Three hunting mss. Northampton: W. Mark.

Almond, Richard. 2011. Medieval Hunting. New York: The History Press

Cummins, John. 2001. The hound and the hawk: the art of medieval hunting. London: Phoenix.

The 2015 Hugos

“The important thing is that we increased participation” said the arsonist as the last volunteer fire company pulled away from the extinguished fire.

Some observations on the vote:

The Hard Rabid Puppy Vote
By this I mean the number of people who will reliably vote as Vox Day wishes. At the nomination stage it ranged from 196-100, but of course VD has boasted that he has recruited more since. During the final vote we can look at categories that VD promoted on his final ballot that were not part of the Sad Puppy slate for a maximum value: this ranged from 585 for Best Editor Short Form to 450 for Best Fan Writer on the first pass. And it only provides a maximum, not a minimum. We know that 525 people put Turncoat as their first choice, but we don’t know how many were minions and how many were Sad Puppies or swing voters that happened to vote for their own reasons. This has important consequences for how badly he can game next year’s nominations.

The Hard Sad Puppy Vote
This is harder to judge, since few of the nominees that were only on the Sad Puppy slate survived to the short list, and some of them picked up a VD endorsement after the nominations closed. At the nomination stage, nominations for the first four categories that were just on one slate were fairly similar: 172 votes average for the Sads and 165 for the Rabids. For those endorsed by both slates, they ranged from 323 votes for the novels to 220 for the short stories, averaging about 281. This is only about 83% of the sum of the two when voting for different nominees, so there is some overlap in the two pools of nominators: you can’t just add them together to get total influence.

The Hard Anti-Slate Vote
How many people voted anything on a slate below No Award regardless of merit? The Dramatic Presentations offer some guidance. The puppy nominated Guardians of the Galaxy only got 1038 No Awards, and some of them were probably a reaction to the movie itself rather than its presence on a slate.  Even a popular, Hugo-winning movie can be judged unworthy by some voters.  The previous year, the winning Gravity got 315 No Award votes: the equivalent of about 700 proportionate to the far larger 2015 total vote. In 2013, the winning avengers got 96 voters placing no award higher, proportionate to 341 in 2015. This implies a net pure and hard anti-slate vote of about 500.

In Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, the top Puppy nominee, a Game of Thrones episode, won third place against 1414 No Award votes. This compares to the second place unslated Doctor Who episode that won second place against 520 No Awards. This suggests that the net No Award penalty purely for being on a slate in that category, regardless of quality, was probably something under 900 votes. So 500-900 is reasonable estimate of the hard anti-slate vote.

The editor categories had a lot of No Awards as first choice, but much of that was probably peculiar to those categories. Judging the editors is really hard, especially long form, unless you’re one of their authors, or someone that knows their authors.

I think that some deliberately put everything on a slate below No Award in the Editor categories, but no more than in the dramatic presentations. What hurt the non-Vox editors was this:

VD made it very feasible for the ordinary fan to judge his own work at Castalia, by forcing so much of his product onto the ballot. And a lot of people voted No Award just so he could be below it. And then they abstained on some or all of the rest of the slate from lack of information, which meant that those editors weren’t above No Award either.  Or people that would have abstained from the entire category in a normal year felt that they had to vote because of VD.

I know that some people No Awarded the entire Editor Long Form category because they thought they couldn’t judge it properly, not because of the slates. 140 voters voted No Award first in the category in 2014 when there was no slate sweep, proportionate to over 440 in 2015’s larger vote.

It didn’t help Weisskopf that she had very diffuse responsibility at Baen, a house with a reputation for light editing. Or that she had called a fair chunk of the genre “fuggheads.” But I think all the editors suffered because of challenges peculiar to the editor categories.

What Scalzi said.

Slate nominations are a poisoned chalice. The only ones strong enough to survive them don’t need them. The sensible Puppy strategy next year is to come back with an actual recommendation list, with  no less than ten suggestions per category, and once again become useful members fandom.

Tent Toggles

At top is one of the toggles on my pavilion. They started as commercial 1.5” toggles, with a central groove for the tie that attaches them to the canvas added on a lathe by the tentmaker, Robert MacPherson. They both attach the walls to the roof and close the door openings, a solution that is both authentic and quicker and easier than fabric ties.

The next to photos are toggles from a surviving 17th century tent from the armory at Graz.

Mallomar SF

Mallomar SF has a superficial shell of crunchy hard science, but when you bite into it’s full of fluffy, gooey magical science and bad science.

Take Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which I loved when I was twelve. Heinlein lovingly calculates the kinetic energy of the lunar bombardment, while completely omitting the amount of energy lost as the projectiles go through the atmosphere. Or the glaringly obvious heat signature of the second catapult’s radiator.

Or the economic absurdity of growing wheat in lunar caves with fossil ice for export to Earth. That’s pretty silly even before the ice starts running out.

Given the presumption of competitive fusion power, that would would be hopelessly more expensive than, for example, growing wheat underneath Antartica.

Tables: Ludus Anglicorum, Imperial and Provincial

A clearer image of the illustration is reproduced here.

The English Game
There are many games of tables with dice, the first being the long game, which is the English Game. It is common here, and is played as follows: he who sits on .am. side has 15 men on .&. point, and he who sits on the .n&. side has 15 men on .a. point. They play with three dice or with two, the third throw being always counted as a 6. He who sits on .am. side moves all his men placed on .&. through the pages .&t., .sn., .mg. and into the page .fa. and then bears them off.

He who sits on .n&. side moves all his men placed on .a. through the pages .af., .gm., .ns. and into the page .t&. and then bears them off. And he who first bears off all his men wins.

And note that he who sits on .am. side can secure any point from .mg. and .fa., except the .a. point, that is occupied by two or more opposing men, and when there is only one, he can take it. If an opposing man is undoubled, he can take it by moving with one or two dice, then the captured man has to return in .t&., and reenter with a 6 in .t., or with a 5 in .u., or with a 4 in .x., or with a 3 in .y, or with a 2 in .z., or with a 1 in .&., if these points are not occupied by his own men nor doubled by his opponent ones. And his opponent cannot play until he has reentered the captured man.

And note that in this play it is good to secure the .g. and .f. points. With three dice, the third one being always a 6 ; securing the .g. point prevents the opponent from crossing the bar with a 6. Also note that you can bring all the men you want on doubled points; from these doubled points, you can also hit the undoubled, and make them return in the table where they were placed at the beginning of the game.

Thus he who sits on .n&. side can secure any point in .ns. and .t&. except the .&. point that is occupied by two or more opposing men and when there will be only one, he can hit it. And, if an opposing man is undoubled, then he can hit it by moving with one or two dice. And then this captured man returns in .fa., and reenter with a 6 in .f., with a 5 in .e., with a 4 in .d., with a 3 in .c., with a 2 in .b., with a 1 in .a., if these points are not occupied by his own men nor doubled by the opponent ones. And the opponent cannot play until he has reentered the captured man.

Also note that in this play it is good to secure the .s. and .t. points, for the same reason mentioned above. And as soon as he who sits on .n&. side brings all his men in .t&., he bears them off as follows: if some men are on .t., they are born off with a 6 or an equivalent combination i.e 4-2, 3-3, 5-1, the points on .u. are born off with a 5 or its equivalent 4-1, 3-2, or with a 6 if there is no men on .t.; the points on .x. are born off with a 4 or its equivalent i.e 3-1, 2-2 or with a 6 or a 5 if there is no man in .t. nor in .u.; and if these men are in .y., they are born off with a 3 or its equivalent 2-1 or with a 6, 5 or 4 if there is no men in .t. nor in .u. nor in .x.; and if some men are in .z., there are born off with a 2 or with 1-1 or with 6, 5, 4, 3 if there is no man in .t. nor in .u. nor in .x. nor in .y.; and if some men are in .&., they are born off with a 1 or with 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 if there is no man in .u. nor in .x. nor in .y. nor in .z. Thus he who sits on .am. side bears his men in .fa., and he who bears his men off first wins.

He who sits on .n&. side has a great mastery of the game if he manages to secure .n. .o. .p. .q. .r. points, the .s. point being open, and if he forces his opponent to bring up eight men to .a., and to have one man on .t., another on .u., another on .x., another on .y., another on .z., another on .&. and also a seventh man not reentered yet ; and this victory is called lympoldyng.

Moreover if his opponent fills the whole .t&. page and also the .s. point, this victory is not called limpolding but lurching. He who sits on .n&. side must be careful to secure .n. .o. .p. .q. .r. points, the .s. point being opened, to allow the opponent to go into .mg. By moving one or even two of his own, he secures the .s. point and his opponent cannot cross all his men, which must be brought into .mg. and placed in .a. Then the .t. .v. .x. .y. .z. points are occupied by his opponent. The .s. point being opened, as his opponent can go into .mg., his opponent brings up to eight men in .a. Closing the .s. point forces his opponent to fill with his men the points .t. .u. .x. .y. .z, and two opposing men stay in .&. By releasing the .s. point, you take the opposing man in .t. and he takes you back with a 6, which always is the third assumed throw. You come back to .fa., .ns., until his opponent is forced to evacuate his second man from the .&. point, thus there is only one man in .&. and the remaining points .t. .u. .x. .y. .z. are occupied by one man, and then you take his seventh undoubled man and the opponent is limpolded.

There is a method of playing without dice where throws are chosen at will. But he who has the advantage of starting wins if he plays well, he first choses 6-6-5 to make two men cross outside the table where they are; at first move, he always can secure a point and take an opposing man that must come back and his opponent will lose the second die.

There is a third method of playing where one choses two dice and his opponent gives him 6 for the third throw, or, if he throws his dice, his opponent gives him a third throw.

Imperial
There is another game of tables called Imperial, and is played as follows. He who sits on the .n&. side has his men in three piles, i.e five on .p., the other third on .s. and the other third on .t. And he who sits on the .am. side has in the same way his men on .k. .g. .f. And he who sits on the .n&. side brings all his men on .&. then he wins. And his opponent wins if he brings them on .a. And this game is played with three dice.

Provincial
There is another game of tables called Provincial similar to Imperial except the starting position where all the men of one side are on .g. and .f.

BL Royal 13 A XVIII, ff 158r-160r. Transcribed in Fiske, Willard, and Horatio S. White. 1905. Chess in Iceland and in Icelandic literature, with historical notes on other table-games. Florence: Florentine Typographical Society. Transcription reproduced here. Translation copyright Will McLean 2015.

Seveneves

In Neal Stephenson’s 2015 novel, the Human Race does its best to deal with an oncoming planetary catastrophe, a 5,000 year bombardment of Earth. Most of the page count is spent on a desperate effort to preserve a fraction of humanity off the Earth’s surface in space. We are repeatedly forced to follow the Gimli Philosophy of Risk Management: "Certainty of death, small chance of success... What are we waiting for?” Because when those are the options, the answer is obvious. You play the cards you are dealt as well as you can, and if you lose you go down fighting.

Stephenson does a pretty good job of sticking to known science, with, he admits, a few places where he wrote himself into a corner. It follows that settling space with today’s technology is shown as the kind of desperate enterprise that is only attempted because an unknown Agent destroys the fricking Moon. And the settlers barely survive by the skin of their teeth, passing through the narrowest of genetic bottlenecks after terrible casualties.

Early on, the alert reader will notice Stephenson introducing Checkov’s Survival Plans B and C. 5,000 years later he takes them down off the wall. Because, even for this planetary catastrophe settling space isn’t the only option, or necessarily the best one.

It isn’t explicitly stated, but is logical to assume that there were other iterations of Plan B, and Sonar Taxlaw’s people are just the one that we meet before the end of the book.

Also, Sonar Taxlaw is the best character name since Leelo Dallas Multipass.

Heinlein’s Double Star Could Not Win a Hugo Today

Because the science is rubbish, and we know it. This is a real problem for contemporary hard SF: the universe is not nearly as hospitable to space travel as we once thought, and it’s a lot harder to write about robust human settlement beyond Earth without cheating on the science than we thought in the 1950s.

OATH TO BE TAKEN BY THE FREEMEN OF THE MERCERS’ COMPANY: early 15th Century.

In the Company's records this oath occurs immediately after a curious calendar, written in 15th century hand, and before a list of "Brethren received and incorporated in the time of Rici Attynchin and John Cutlere wardens" in 3 Henry VI., (1424-5).

FIDELITAS.
I shall trewe man be to God o'r Lady Seynt Marie Seynt Mychell th'archangell patrone of the Gylde and to the Fraternite of the Mercers Yremongers and Goldsmythes & Cappers w'in the Towne and Fraunches of Shrowesbury I shall also Trewe man be to the king our liege lorde and to his heyres kyngys and his lawes and mynystars of the same Truly obs've and obey And ov' this I shall be obedyent to my wardens and their sumpneys obey and kepe I shall be trewe and ffeythfull to the Combrethern of the Gylde aforeseyd and ther co'ncell kepe All lawdable and lefull actes and composic'ons made or to be made w*in the Seide Gylde truly obeye p'forme and kepe aft' my reason and power I shall be contributare bere yelde and paye all man' ordynare charges cestes and contribucons aftur my power as any other master occupyer or combrother of the seid Gylde shall happen to doe and bere: Soe helpe me God and halidame and by the Boke.

Hibbert, Francis Aidan. 1891. The influence and development of English gilds: as illustrated by the history of the craft gilds of Shrewsbury. Cambridge: University Press.

Here are two adaptations of the oath to the creation of a Companion of the Order of the Laurel within the Society for Creative Anachronism

I shall true man be to God, our Lady Saint Mary, Saint Michael the archangel patron of the Order and to the Fraternity of the Laurel. I shall also True man be to the king our liege lord and to his heirs kings and his laws and ministers of the same Truly observe and obey. I shall be true and faithful to the Companions of the Order aforesaid and their council keep, All laudable and lawful acts and compositions made or to be made within the Said Order truly obey perform and keep after my reason and power. I shall perform all manner of obligations of the Order after my power as any other master occupier or companion of the Order shall happen to do and bear: So help me God and halidom and by the Book.

Alternative:
 I shall true man be to God, our Lady Saint Mary, Saint Michael the archangel patron of the Order and to the Fraternity of the Laurel. I shall also True man be to the Crown of the East and to their heirs and their laws and ministers of the same Truly observe and obey. I shall be true and faithful to the Companions of the Order aforesaid and their council keep, All laudable and lawful acts and compositions made or to be made within the Said Order truly obey perform and keep after my reason and power. I shall perform all manner of obligations of the Order after my power as any other master occupier or companion of the Order shall happen to do and bear: So help me God and halidom and by the Book

The Cut of Henry VIII's Tents.

Inventories of Henry VIII's tents reveal some of the details of their construction. In the 1547 inventory descriptions of "round houses" or pavilions note the number of gores in the roof and bredes or breadths in the wall. For the round tents there are regularly twice as many gores in the roof as breadths in the walls. The same construction survives on a 17th c. pavilion preserved at Basel.

Using less than the full width of the fabric for the gores would bring the diagonal edge of the gores closer to the straight angle of the warp threads, and make the gores less likely to stretch. On the Basel pavilion the difference in width between  the wall segments and roof gores was disguised by false seams dividing the wall segments. Design drawings of Henry's pavilions, pieced from contrasting fabrics,  similarly disguised the difference in width between wall segments and roof gores, presumably by matching  a wall segment with a pair of roof gores in the same color.

Tresauntes, straight covered passageways to connect tents, were without gores, with two breadths of fabric in the walls for each breadth in the roof. This is consistent with each breadth of roof fabric covering both sides of the roof without requiring a seam at the ridge line. Tresaunte roofs could be two to 16 breadths long.

Hales and kitchens had straight sides and gores forming semicircular ends to the roof at each ends, with the number of roof breadths and gores enumerated for each tent.

Cross houses, dormyes, and galleries with a half round had straight sides and a semicircular roof of gores at one end, and connected to another tent at the other end. Again, the number of gores and and roof breadths was enumerated for each tent.

"The kinges bigger Lodginge of Canvas garnyshed with small braunches of blew bokeram" was  complex with a great hall, six round houses, five tresauntes, and four galleries all with walls 7.5 feet deep (presumably the slant height) as well as two timber houses.

The kings lesser lodgings of canvas garnished with great branch of blue buckram consisted of three halls, three round houses, 13 tresauntes and a porch, also all with walls 7.5 feet deep.

Some of the smaller tents:

From the king's lesser lodgings:

Three halls of 8 breadths apiece in the roof, 17 gores every end (possibly an error, a similar hall from the same lodgings lent to the Earl of Warwick the same year had 16 gores per end) 4 yards deep, 32 depths in the walls 2.5 yards deep.

Two round houses of 50 gores apiece 6 3/4 yards deep in the roof, 25 breadths in the walls of every of them, 2.5 yards deep. with roses of red saie in the top inside and outside.

Two tresauntes of two breadths apiece in the roof 2 1/4 yards deep, 4 breadths in the walls every of them of 2.5 yards deep.

Listed elsewhere: a kitchen of Vitry canvas 5 breadths in the roof 14 points in every end 3.5 yards deep 24 breadths in the walls two yards deep.

Based on the roof slopes shown in the design drawings, these dimensions are consistent with canvas breadths about a yard wide.

Other necessaries associated with the tents included 66 vanes of ironwork painted and gilded with the kings arms and badges, sacks of leather lined with canvas for the dry and safe keeping of the rich hangings, two fire hearths, 1,000 wood buttons for tents, 40 ridge plates, 80 plain plates and 15 joints for ridge trees with their bolts and rivets.


The Inventory of King Henry VIII: The Transcript (Vol. 1), ed. David Starkey (London, 1998)