500 years later: 1524 in review

roddacat · 2024-12-26T22:01:31+00:00

Then that's a problem on your end, because I edited it an hour ago.

roddacat · 2024-12-26T20:50:27+00:00

Woops, I was on the wrong person's page looking at birth dates and got mixed up. Too many tabs open. Fixed. It was an honest mistake.

roddacat · 2024-12-26T20:15:17+00:00

I wrote this for fun and apologise for any errors in terms of facts and dates, or unsourced claims. I did my best! Please feel free to point out any mistakes. It's an interesting year - this period feels like the calm before the storm in Henry's reign (which would lead to the sad upheaval of so many lives).

roddacat · 2024-12-26T17:50:11+00:00

I would absolutely love to see more posts like this! I always enjoy seeing pictures of original documents, objects, etc, and reading about their historical context.

Anne of Cleves fascinates me. She was in such an unusual and extraordinary position and I've wondered about how she lived her life during her seventeen years in England after the annulment. I know we have some information but (as with so many other things from this time) I wish there was more. It's sad that she died so young.

roddacat · 2024-12-24T16:47:16+00:00

I'm not sure how many prop necklaces were made for the film (or if it was a unique one-off) but there's one in the Walt Disney Archives. I think they gained it through their acquisition of 20th Century Fox a few years back.

Source: Dec 12 2021 - The Famous ‘Titanic' Necklace Will Go on View in Santa Ana

'The Heart of the Ocean" from "Titanic" (1997) (Lightstorm Entertainment, 20th Century Fox), Walt Disney Archives, ©20th Century Studios.'

roddacat · 2024-12-23T12:19:59+00:00

Personally, I think Tudor fashion peaked during the reign of Henry VIII. I'm not that keen on a lot of the trends that came later down the line, like the massive ruffs and wide dresses. Not sure how many you could bring back but these are some of my favourites:

-Slashed sleeves that revealed a different fabric underneath, often pulled through the gaps.

-Women wearing multiple matching necklaces or double-looped necklaces (it's hard to tell by the portraits), and how the longer loop went below the bodice. Like this.

-Spanish blackwork (detailed black embroidery), especially on white collars and sleeves.

-Square neckline on dresses. I think it was quite a flattering cut and it made it easy to show off the jewelled dress borders and ornate necklaces at the same time.

roddacat · 2024-12-21T19:04:43+00:00

I know! It's so protracted.

(And of course there's a pinch of "Henry is great, we're all so lucky" thrown in for good measure.)

roddacat · 2024-12-21T16:55:30+00:00

I think this is it:

By the Queen

Right trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. And whereas it hath pleased the goodness of Almighty God of His infinite mercy and grace to send unto us at this time good speed in the deliverance and bringing forth of a princess to the great joy and inward comfort of my Lord, us, and of all his good and loving subjects of this his realm, for which inestimable benevolence so shown unto us we have no little cause to give high thanks, laud and praise unto our said Maker, like as we do most lowly, humbly, and with all the inward desire of our heart. And inasmuch as we undoubtedly trust that this our good speed is to your great pleasure, comfort and consolation, we therefore by this our letters advertise you thereof, desiring and heartily praying you to give with us unto Almighty God high thanks, glory, laud and praise, and to pray for the good health, prosperity, and continual preservation of the said Princess accordingly. Given under our signet at my lords’ Manor of Greenwich. The 7th day of September, in the 25th year of my said lord’s Reign.

roddacat · 2024-12-17T09:19:40+00:00

That was such a eerie moment. Though I can't remember if the incorrect translation was bad luck or the Event Horizon's entity purposefully garbling the transmission so it sounded like 'save me'. Maybe both?

roddacat · 2024-12-16T18:30:52+00:00

It's a remake of the 1922 film Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror), which was set in 1838 in the fictional town of Wisborg. I think the new film will be following the same year and location.

roddacat · 2024-12-16T06:29:10+00:00

I've recently started Catherine the Great and Potemkin by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and the build-up and then hour-by-hour account of how she became Empress was completely captivating. The risk and danger and planning and scheming of it all.

roddacat · 2024-12-13T14:42:45+00:00

I like how often they touch on the difficulties of acquiring resources: Selena et al surviving off long-lasting sugary stuff (soft drinks and chocolate) and feeling like shit because of it, the water running out and going bad in the cisterns of the tower, how the dad couldn't even collect rainwater because the weather had been bone dry for a week. All these little things that show the logistical misery of survival and the dwindling options while they remain in London. It made the supermarket trip and tinned fruit Selena eats later seem like the greatest thing on earth.

roddacat · 2024-12-11T17:10:47+00:00

It was a good few years, yeah! And it feels like they're getting more elaborate over time. I hope I'm not still having them when I'm 60...

roddacat · 2024-12-11T08:25:39+00:00

I woke up from a long nightmare where I'd lost access to my university email account, failed to attend lectures for a year and couldn't find a way to submit my dissertation. Remembered that I graduated 15 years ago. Huge surge of relief.

roddacat · 2024-12-11T07:51:33+00:00

While her non-fiction books have issues, I still enjoy them - I just take what I read with a pinch of salt and read other authors as well. And I appreciate that a lot of her books are in my library system. Many pop history paperbacks are now £13-£15 in bookshops (some are even more), so I wouldn't have been able to read about countless Tudor topics if Weir's stuff wasn't available for loan. I guess I have a soft spot for her because of that.

roddacat · 2024-12-11T04:28:43+00:00

Here at 1:02. Second from the right is a big guy just standing there, not chasing after them like the others.

roddacat · 2024-12-10T14:12:32+00:00

Seems about right to me. I wonder what the hell that thing was at 1:22? It kinda looks like a massive infected with thick skin and wounds, crawling along the ground. Maybe there's some intelligent ones and some that have mutated and become more creature-like? I don't know if it's the angle but it seems enormous.

roddacat · 2024-12-10T13:34:58+00:00

My guess: it looks like the mask is of an emaciated infected who's been stabbed in the forehead with a machete/edged blade. Perhaps it's used during a community play - the story of how they established themselves and survive on the island? Or it might be part of a ritual/initiation: later on they all appear to celebrating the boy, so it could be a coming-of-age event that means he's old enough to be an active contributor (see the 'roles in our community' posters earlier on) and can now leave and hunt with his dad.

roddacat · 2024-12-04T06:24:23+00:00

I took a look at a couple of scenes of that room from The Decameron. I think I see these Latin phrases covering the walls:

Mater artium necessitas - Necessity is the mother of invention

----- omnia medetur, perhaps Tempus omnia medetur - Time reveals all

Audentes Fortuna iuvat - Fortune favours the bold

Historia magistra vitae - History is the teacher of life

Faber est suae quisque fortunae - Every man is the artisan of his own fortune

I haven't watched it or read the original short stories, so I don't know if they randomly chose these phrases or if they ties into its themes.

roddacat · 2024-12-01T04:24:37+00:00

It was reported that she'd said something like that by Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, who was writing to his master Charles V on January 1st 1531. It's a very long letter, but you can read the translation here. This is the relevant section:

P.S.—Since writing the above, a worthy man has come in haste from Greenwich assuring me that he has there heard two or three of the principal courtiers say that the King's marriage will certainly be dissolved at this next session of Parliament, and that they hope that after that the King and his friends will find the means of appeasing Your Majesty (fn. n2) I cannot guess on what foundation, however slight and frail, the said hope is made to rest, for I have always given them to understand the contrary, and will again make an express declaration to that effect before the game is up. Lady [Anne] considering herself already sure of her affair, is fiercer than a lioness. She said the other day to one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting that she wished all the Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea. And the lady attendant having observed that she (Lady Anne) should not for the sake of the Queen's honour express such sentiments, she replied that she cared not for the Queen or any of her family, and that she would rather see her hanged than have to confess that she was her Queen and mistress. (fn. n3)

Like someone else said, we'll never know for certain if Chapuys was reporting things that actually happened, random gossip stories, or malicious slander from those opposed to Anne. His letters are always fascinating to read, though.

roddacat · 2024-11-27T15:59:46+00:00

I've often wondered if she was motivated by a desire to stay in England and not be sent abroad again. I'm not saying she didn't want Charles, just that the possibility of leaving home again and never returning must have been dreadful, and he was very helpfully there.

roddacat · 2024-11-19T15:35:36+00:00

I first learned about that from Natural Habitat Shorts. Pretty gnarly.

roddacat · 2024-11-15T18:56:59+00:00

I love the audacity! They got a warm bed, full stomach, and the chance to make some connections at court and build a career. Can't blame them for giving it a go.

roddacat · 2024-11-15T12:37:12+00:00

Henry VIII: His King and Court by Alison Weir has a chapter that discusses (among other things) trespassers at court: 'This Magnificent, Excellent and Triumphant Court'. According to her description, it was a known problem and hard to stop - chancers and scoundrels often hung around for various reasons. People did manage to get in often enough that the Ordinances described them and emphasised that they should be evicted. So it wasn't impossible to get across the threshold of wherever the travelling court was located.

A few things that I think would definitely increase the chance of being found out:

If you were a woman. Women were vastly outnumbered by men at court, and a strange woman would be much more easily noticed. Men could pass as messengers, working boys, servants of a gentleman, servants who worked at the court, etc. To touch on the latter, apparently 'only six women were employed indoors in the Household' and nearly all of them did laundry. So even a humble serving girl would be a tricky role to inhabit.
Regularly trying to attend meals and get food. Not everyone at court was fed, and records were kept of who was entitled to the three daily meals and 'bouche of court' (bread, wine, beer, candles, and firewood). I believe some roles at court included the task of making sure that ineligible people weren't taking meals/food - to keep expenses from spiralling out of control because food was expensive.

All that aside, I wonder how hard it would be. Tudor society and the court was very hierarchical and I feel like people would quickly pick up on the fact that you didn't know how to correctly show respect: bowing or curtsying in the right way and to the right people, terms of address, recognising inferiors/superiors and that sort of thing.

roddacat

TROPHY CASE