Bella and Baba Day

Notes for the novel I didn't write #1

Set in England, near Salisbury
Inspired by Narcissus and Goldmund but with female characters.
Time period 1245-1310

Around 1150, harvests became more abundant as horse-drawn ploughs replaced oxen and could work more acreage. Windmills and watermills. Markets and fairs, fewer bandits. The poor ate dark bread, pottage (barley, peas, beans and a bit of pork fat) and mutton; the rich ate white bread, venison, larks, lamb, salmon, ducks, kid, beef, pork, geese, cake, and elaborate baked goods. In spring and summer there would be cabbage, lettuce, leeks, spinach, and parsley; also cherries, nuts, berries, roots; and in fall apples and pears. The dogs of the rich ate more bread than was given to the poor. 

People washed daily in basins and washed their hands before and after eating. Standards of personal cleanliness were higher in the 13th century than in the 16th-18th.  

Frumenty was sometimes served for supper in nunneries, along with cheese or cheese tarts. It was a porridge made of hulled wheat and eggs boiled with milk (50 eggs to a gallon of milk) and flavored with honey, spices, and dried fruits. 

Each adult, no matter how poor, carried an eating knife hung from the belt. A wealthy person’s knife would be finely made and sheathed in leather. A poor person might just have a wooden knife, more like a spatula.

Common people wore brown and shades of buff in rough, scratchy wool. Colored clothing and luxurious fabrics were reserved for the aristocracy. Baudekin was silk brocade with gold (from Persia); samite, Greek silk; sendal, taffeta for banners and tents. Damask came from Damascus and was heavy stuff with designs woven into the body of the material. Camlet was camel’s hair or very fine goat’s hair from Cyprus, used for aristocrats' winter robes. Everyone wore furs in winter. Kings wore ermine; other aristocrats wore fox, squirrel, rabbit; the working poor wore sheepskin or perhaps deerskin.