Ye Village Crier
Greetings and salutations to you, faithful reader! You’ve made it to my official newsletter for Renaissance Faire Village!
Halloween at the Village
Halloween was observed much differently during the real Renaissance in Europe than it is at Renaissance Faire Village. There was far less partying and far more torture and other unpleasantness, which we won’t go into here. Suffice it to say, not many self-respecting Renaissance villagers ever celebrated Halloween (samhain, as it was known then) without hiding their revels.
But for today’s modern Renaissance revelers, Ren clothes are a great way to dress for Halloween. Ladies may enjoy the long, flowing dresses and skirts matched with peasant blouses. Men may want to be knaves or varlets (even knights if you don’t mind the clanking). Men and women can dress as monks, jesters, or sorcerers.
The Renaissance was known for each tradesman and every noble dressing according to certain dictates. Fortunately for you, good folk, there are no such strictures. You can dress however you like. But truly, Renaissance fashions are an excellent choice for Halloween wear. You can even decide if you want to be a live peasant or a dead monk.
Here are a few Renaissance fashion terms to get you started:
snood: a type of hood or hairnet worn by women (now a video game)
chemise: a smock or shift worn next to the skin to protect your expensive clothing from oils and sweat (they didn’t do laundry much back then)
doublet: a man’s snug-fitting, buttoned jacket (also a type of refractive lens—go figure!)
corset: an undergarment used to mold and shape the female torso (many times made of whale bone, ouch!)
jerkin: a man’s short, close-fitting, sleeveless jacket, usually made of leather and worn over the doublet (check it out on almost any picture of Sir Walter Raleigh)
A Little History
The term renaissance means rebirth. It describes the life-altering changes that took place in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
One of these changes was the Black Plague, which occurred between 1350 and 1450. The disease killed more than half of the population in Europe in really awful ways. No one, rich or poor, saint or sinner, was spared. People turned away from the church that had no answer to the disease. They left their families and abandoned their lives. Even governments fell during this time as wars and economic depression took their toll on humanity. It wasn’t a pretty picture. But it ushered in a time of bounty and radical free thought that the world had never seen before.
THE PRINTING PRESS
One of the greatest inventions of the Renaissance was the printing press, as I’m sure you’ll agree since you’re reading printed matter at this very moment! Up until this time, books were only in the hands of the rich and the church. The printing press changed all that by putting printed material into the hands of the masses. There was more information than people knew what to do with (kind of like the Internet now), and suddenly, even peasants wanted to learn to read.
Johannes Gutenberg was responsible for all of it. He invented the printing press in 1445. It didn’t take long before everyone wanted more. Almanacs, travel books, romances, and poetry were all being published and sold throughout Europe. It was the beginning of literacy for everyone, not just the few who could afford it.
FOOD
Exploration changed the way people ate during the Renaissance. Europeans enjoyed precious spices like pepper, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon that weren’t known to their forbearers. So they made cinnamon couscous like this recipe! Enjoy!
CINNAMON COUSCOUS
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ cup melted butter
1 cup almond milk
2 cups couscous, cooked according to package directions
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped pitted dates
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1 cup chopped blanched almonds
¼ cup pine nuts
Stir sugar and cinnamon into butter. Add almond milk. Pour over couscous. Stir in fruit and nuts. Cool and eat!
Check out these Ren Faire sites:
http://www.mzrf.net/
http://comp.uark.edu/~dupton/NWA_Festival/
http://www.calcityrenfair.org/
Huzzah! See you at the Faire!
—Jessie
Ghastly Glass Page 28