Author: Scolastica Capellaria

Amalie von Hohensee – Master of Defense Glove

I made this Master of Defense glove for my husband, Gerhardt von Hohensee, for his elevation to the Order of Defense at Birka in 2025. The glove features goldwork embroidery and gold bobbin lace. While the leather glove itself was purchased, the embroidery and bobbin lace were completely handmade. The embroidery took me about 6 weeks, and the bobbin lace was 3 month’s-worth of work.

The design was inspired by several extant 16th and early 17th century gloves. The gold-colored embroidery threads I used in this project are real metal, but not real gold. The lace was made with imitation gold passing thread, and topped with spangles. While the materials are not real gold, the final product is suitably blingy, and remains one of my favorite historically-inspired pieces.  

Full documentation link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16bLp8td9BqAYGPuamWp8SvbzGXgEVRFN/view?usp=sharing

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Ana de Roma — A Silk Jiaoxie

 This is a Tang dynasty rū (or blouse)  dyed using the Jiaoxie method of resist dying. Resist dying comes in a variety of forms across Asia, with four methods predominantly being used. Resists can be created either using stitching, wax or starch compounds, clamped boards, or in this case, binding. Binding became popular as a method of dying around the 7th century and can either use threads or the fabric itself to create patterns and decorations.  Ultimately, this is just another method of fabric ornamentation to be used and applied like any other. 

 In this example, I used thick cotton thread to create large white circles on silk and dyed it with acid dyes. There were approximately 800  individual circles over three yards of fabric.

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Grainne inghean Ui Neill — Ahrash

This was a feast I was asked to do in Nov.  2025.   I was looking through my cook books,  and settled on ahrash. Ahrash is a meatball dish that is made from ‘pounded meat’ *which was any meat but swine*, salt, black pepper, coriander seed, cumin, vinegar, with minced onions and garlic.  I formed them into meatballs and baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.   

Andalusia was ruled as an independent emirate,  the ruling class was Muslim, and their recipes reflected that it was Halal cooking. 

This cookbook was written by Ibn Razin al-Tujībī, a thirteenth century Andalusi scholar.  This cuisine  has roots in Persian and Al-Maghreb *Moracco*, and also borrowed from the local Jewish and Catholic communities. I have found many Muslim cookbooks that were written even before this one, and luckily not lost during the Catholic monarch’s conquest. 

Bibliography:


“Treasures from Al-Andalus and Northern Africa” translated by Daniel L. Newton.


“Best of delectable foods and dishes from Al-Andalus and Al-Maghrib. A cookbook by Thirteenth Century Andalusi scholar Ibn Razīn Al-Tujībī (1227-1293)” Nawal Nasrallah


https://www.britannica.com/place/Al-Andalus


https://www.legadoandalusi.es/history-of-al-andalus/?lang=en

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Alienor Hathaway – Baking inspired by Angelina de Leon and Maria Alvarez

  • Name: Lady Alienor Hathaway, OM
  • Project: Baking inspired by Angelina de León and Maria Alvarez
  • Location: Shire of Panther Vale
  • East Kingdom Wiki Link: https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Alienor_Hathaway
  • Website/Blog Link: https://belleamie83.blogspot.com/
  • Category: Cooking and Baking

Both recipes were from a cookbook “A Drizzle of Honey” The recipes were
researched from Inquisition records and document the dietary customs of Jews
and their descendants, forced-converts to Christianity. Crypto Jews would often
be generations away from someone  who had practiced their faith legally so
recipes may not be strict for that various cultural traditions of Jewish communities
for the time. Many forced converts celebrated the holidays in secret based
around the Julian calendar holidays.
Angelina de León’s Matza (Matza with Spices)
Matzah is usually a food reserved for Passover, in the Spring. Eastern European
Jews have a strict tradition about baking times because any kind of matzah isn’t
supposed to rise. So from mix to oven is only allowed at eighteen minutes. 
I explored ancient matzah for research. Most of that would have been griddled
over a fire.
“Angelina, the wife of Christóual de León of Almazán (Soria), “made the dough of
flour and eggs, and formed some round, flat cakes with pepper and honey and
oil. She cooked them in an oven, and she did this around Holy Week.” Original
source was an inquisition tribunal that documented accused Judaizers. The
cookbook has a fantastic section on cooking medieval in a modern kitchen.
I used white pepper and found that the resulting matzah with egg, honey and
pepper had a rich flavor.
María Alvarez’s Rollillos (Rolled biscuits)
Unleavened bread dough was rolled into cakes; it was similar to the dough from
the matza. Result for this was a flatbread consistency with a similar flavor I would
probably experiment with a thinner “biscuit” in the future.

Additional Information: 

Gitlitz, David M., and Linda Kay Davidson. 1999. A Drizzle of Honey : The Lives and
Recipes of Spain’s Secret Jews. 1st ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
https://archive.org/details/drizzleofhoneyli0000gitl/page/n7/mode/1u

Sacharin, Emily. “Ethiopian Soft Matzah, Just Like They Ate at the First Passover –
Poppy and Prune,” March 21,
2018. https://www.poppyandprune.com/2018/03/21/ethiopian-soft-matzah-just-like-
they-ate-at-the-first-passover/

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Eseld an Goarnic — Decoding Cranach’s Muses

As my wedding anniversary approaches (May 25th!), it feels only appropriate to show off my wedding dress, which I designed, patterned, drafted, and hand-sewed in the course of a month. This gown, being both German and rather ladylike, was quite a departure from my usual working-class Tudor niche. (Then again, a wedding day should not be like any other day.) I was inspired by the unusual style worn in the 1530s paintings of Lucas Cranach the Elder and set about deriving its construction from first principles.
Cranach-style gowns are a proverbial white whale for many a SCAdian garber. There are many possible ways they could have been put together, and no clear consensus among either modern or period tailors. Their most distinctive characteristic is the open-front bodice, which appears to be laced directly over the hemd (or shift) without the intermediary of a kirtle or any other
supportive garment, as shown in the attached of Cranach’s subjects.
Some modern interpreters have chosen this method, forgoing a kirtle and relying solely on the brustfleck (colorful band directly above the lacing) for bust support. In this design, the brustfleck is imagined as wrapping around the chest rather like the strophion, an ancient Greek proto-brassiere. This interpretation of the design is fully plausible, at least theoretically; I cast no aspersions on it. My background in 18th-century costuming, however, inspired me to try another way. Click through to my documentation to read about my process!

Link to Further Documentation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KWnLnURtg5FaBn28nE5bew-n3mY-kbmBrqjvQuPIPvk/edit?usp=sharing

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