I’d like to say I was inspired by November’s designation as National Novel Writing Month, but I’ve been playing with the idea of writing a book for a while now. Last week, I finally sat down and began a historical fiction novel set in Tudor times, specifically 1501.
I considered myself quite the little Tudor buff, and thought I knew quite a bit about the times, but I keep running into little details which require strenous research-- and often, I can’t find what I need. I suppose I could do as other authors do: gloss over the details and bullshit my way through it, but even though this little novel will probably never see the light of day, it feels like cheating.
So, thus I submit to you a few questions which have popped up where answers don’t seem to be readily available:
What would they use for lice removal in 1501? I wanted to say kerosene, but, of course, that wasn’t available. Would lamp oil do the same job, or did they have anything else that would work. (Which would be available to a woman with a moderate knowledge of herbs and the like?)
Which order of nunnery would have most attracted the daughters of the nobility? Not one which was licentious, but one of comfort and wealth which would allow a measure of freedom to the sisters? I was thinking the Benedictines, but when I read the Order of St. Benedict, it didn’t seem as suitable as I thought.
Does anyone know of a good apothecary reference I could find listing different medicinal herbs, their properties, and how they were prepared, along with substances like ground mummy and “unicorn’s horn”?
If anyone knows of good reference pages I could find, or any books which contain useful tidbits for me, please pass them along.
I spent two hours today researching Tudor cooking for a three paragraph scene involving a dinner. My head hurts.
Have you considered recasting your novel into the 1920s or thereabouts? The research is MUCH easier, and humanity & its toils & troubles haven’t changed much over the intervening 400 years.
There’s a volume called “The History of Princess Elizabeth” (she who became Queen Elizabeth I of England), originally published about 1560, that was available in facsimile a number of years back. It had a wealth of information about the everyday life, at least of the upper class, by virtue of when it was written.
Regarding the monasteries, don’t forget that Henry VIII closed them all in about 1530. Unless you’re dealing with earliest Tudor times, they’re out of the picture.
Stuff from Wars of the Roses times, while 20-100 years out of date for your period, is a tetch more available than much of Tudor times. On the other hand, think about checking out details in the biographies of famous Elizabethans, which is the end of Tudor times. Between them, you might get some sort of balance on the time frame you’re looking at.
Not a whole lot of help, I’m sure, but better than nothing whatsoever.
I can’t answer any of the questions you posed, but I do know something about Tudor life very few people do: why women stood like that. In a lot of paintings of the time, women are shown with their hands clasped in front of their waist; I thought it was a fashionable affectation, or a way of showing off the sleeves.
Then I had to wear a Tudor dress all day in college, to model for costume-history classes. It had it all: the hip-roll, the wooden busk, the heavy bi-level sleeves. A few hours into the day, I passed a mirror and noticed I was unconsciously doing the Tudor stance! Turns out the sleeves bend your elbows, and the only comfortable thing to do is lean back slightly and rest your wrists on the hip-roll, balanced back against the wooden busk. But there’s no way you’d know that w/o spending “a day in their shoes!”
It would require reading another novel, but The Autobiography of Henry VII: With Notes By His Fool, Will Somers, by Margaret George (available at fine online book stores near you), is a good read. It’s been years since I picked it up, but as I recall, it has the type of minutiae you might find useful. I have no idea whether those details are correct, however. But investigating them might lead to sources you could use yourself.
The Benedictines had a reputation for laxity by the 16th century, and there were Benedictine convents that restricted their membership to noblewomen. But, at that point, for your purposes, the order wouldn’t be the important factor. Generally, the larger monastaries and convents were better run and stricter, If you want your convent to have lax discipline, then make it a smaller one, regardless of order.
I’ve read that, and it’s always been one of my favorite fictionalized biographies (even though George makes some serious errors.)
Polycarp, the beginning of my book is set in 1501, so I’m okay on the timeline. I did a lot of math to make sure all of my characters would fit into the true historical timeline and be the right age when they got there.
Wish I could, but I don’t think they were hanging witches in 1920, and that’s a big part of my story.
Well, witchcraft was first made a crime under English law in 1542. That law was repealed in 1547. Another law against witchcraft was passed in 1563. That law was replaced by a harsher one in 1603 (increasing the number of offenses that could be punished by death), and that law was repealed in 1736. Witchcraft was against canon law by the Catholic Church (which would become moot in England with Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy), but capital punishment wasn’t part of canon law.
With the caveats that those convicted of heresy under canon law could be handed over to the secular authorities to be burnt at the stake and that suspected witches could sometimes be prosecuted in the secular courts for other offences.
Lissa, don’t make the mistake of assuming that English ideas about or practices towards witchcraft remained static across the sixteenth century. The legal, religious and intellectual contexts for such beliefs were all in flux.
