Things that don't belong in Pre-Columbian Europe...

Pup · Jan 24, 2014

One thing worth considering is that maize used to be (up into the 19th century at least) called "Indian corn" in the US. The name was used for all kinds of corn, not just the colored stuff people use for Halloween decorations.

The name was a way of saying "the stuff that's the common grain of the Indians," similar to the usage of "corn" to mean wheat or oats where those were the dominant grains. Sometimes it was shortened to "Indian" rather than "corn," as in "rye and Indian bread" meaning bread made of rye flour and cornmeal combined.

Apparently we just dropped the "Indian" part and, like the rest of the English-speaking world, now use "corn" for the grain that grows best in our area.

Lauram6123 · Jan 25, 2014

I'm amazed that I didn't know about the corn v maize distinction. And now I understand what barleycorn means.

gothicangel · Jan 25, 2014

I think what's good about this thread, is demonstrating the well-read can make mistakes about historical accuracy. I've seen Amazon reviewers complain about medieval women having 'shaped-eyebrows.' Well, actually they did have tweezers back then, the Romans even plucked their armpits. *Ouch*

Alessandra Kelley · Jan 25, 2014

Roxxsmom said:
.Blows my mind that pockets are a relatively recent invention, at least in Europe. They're incredibly useful, and oh, so simple to make. Must be annoying to not have the simple and universal gesture of arrogance or nonchalance (sticking one's hands in one's pockets) at your disposal as a historic fiction writer.

Oh, they existed, they just weren't sewn into clothes. They were separate objects, not really thought of as garments.

"Pocket" means "little pouch" (like in "pouchette"). Pockets are the descendants of all those little bags and purses people had hanging off their belts in the medieval illuminations.

They were used like purses, semi-permanently filled with little necessaries, and it made sense to have them not attached to specific garments. Men didn't wear trousers or anything with enough looseness in the right places anyway, and pockets make little sense in capes.

Men's coats started having pockets in the seventeenth century, when fashions changed in such a way that belt pouches were less practical. Women tended to wear their separate pockets under their skirts, accessible by small slits in the skirts.

By the eighteenth century women wore massive pockets in pairs under their skirts, like a purse on each hip, accessible by slits left in the side seams of the skirts. They were more safe and discreet than external pockets or bags. I have carried an entire picnic lunch for three, including bottled lemonade, in a pair of eighteenth century pockets under a skirt.

Women's pockets vanished under Napoleon when the fashion changed to filmy, lightweight, clingy tight skirts, which is when women started carrying handbags everywhere.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 25, 2014

mirandashell said:
In Britain, what is called corn in America (maize) is called sweetcorn. I assume to differentiate it from corn (individual bits of ear)

I live in the corn belt, and I've worked on farms a good part of my life. Here, when we say "sweetcorn", we mean corn that is used to feed people. If you boil an ear of corn, and eat it off the cob, or buy a can of corn from the supermarket, that's sweetcorn.

If the corn is intended for livestock, it's called "field corn" and it's a different strain. To anyone who actually works on farms, the two shucked ears of corn look nothing alike.

I'm guessing that people who only buy corn at supermarkets, or at produce stands, have probably never seen a shucked ear of field corn.

Roxxsmom · Jan 25, 2014

DianeL said:
The story that white wedding dresses began with Victoria (and that only rich people could wear white - bleached muslin was not luxury textile, and indeed quite popular before her ascension) is a myth. However, her popularizing the trend and its connection to "purity", as defined by hymen-intact virginity, owes a very heavy debt indeed to our ideas about "Victorian morality" at the very least in retrospect.

Oh, I'm sure you're right. She had to have gotten the idea from somewhere.

And there were definitely white clothes before the Victorian era. But it's my understanding that until the advent of sewing machines and such, the production of clothing was pretty labor intensive, so the notion of having a special dress you wore just once was only for the rich, as was the idea of different outfits for every day of the week (and washing your clothes after you wore them just once). I'm thinking that things like petticoats, pinafores (for little girls), tunics, vests and aprons were more popular in the old days because they were less expensive and easier to wash that the clothes they were worn over or under.

I don't worry about anachronisms (like pockets) so much in my second world fantasy novel, since there's no logical reason why they couldn't have had them in another reality. But when I mention clothes (which isn't that often), I try to get across that my ordinary, average characters have one really nice "festival day" garment/outfit and a couple of more ordinary ones, and that's pretty much it.

Helix · Jan 25, 2014

I'm going to have to write this up on a whiteboard to work out the various interpretations of 'corn'.

All I can tell you is that Atherton (in Far North Queensland) has an annual Maize Festival that lasts for twenty days and culminates in ~~a terrifying chase through corn fields~~ crowning of the Maize Queen.

gothicangel · Jan 26, 2014

I know feel very smug that my characters talk only about wheat and grain (don't know whether its because I've been a chef, or just English, but I've never called grain corn.)

Nikweikel · Jan 29, 2014

Alessandra Kelley said:
Oh, they existed, they just weren't sewn into clothes. They were separate objects, not really
Men's coats started having pockets in the seventeenth century, when fashions changed in such a way that belt pouches were less practical. Women tended to wear their separate pockets under their skirts, accessible by small slits in the skirts.

By the eighteenth century women wore massive pockets in pairs under their skirts, like a purse on each hip, accessible by slits left in the side seams of the skirts. They were more safe and discreet than external pockets or bags. I have carried an entire picnic lunch for three, including bottled lemonade, in a pair of eighteenth century pockets under a skirt.

I'm reading a novel that was written in 1620's Spain, and there are pantaloon-pockets like what you describe. I assume they were a recent invention, since the main character is in awe and determined to find a tailor after witnessing characters pulling out chops, rabbits, pigeons, tarts, apples, dried fruit, etc... to contribute to a banquet. Only he wants his made of waterproof leather so he can use his for to-go containers.

The less well to do characters carry things in their sleeves, which I imagine had drawstrings.

Nikweikel · Feb 19, 2014

Here's another one: plague masks. You know those bird-beaked masks that doctors wore when visiting plague patients? They weren't invented until the 17th century.

Not that I've seen a lot of them in books, but I discovered this on the course of my research.

Tocotin · Mar 4, 2014

williemeikle said:
Hummingbirds? I can safely say I've never seen them turn up in Historical Europe in a novel.

I just started reading a novel about Renaissance Italy by a well-known author. In one of the first scenes, during a famous wedding which took place in 1489, the bride's brother describes her fluttering eyelashes as "drunken hummingbirds". Ho-hum.

ULTRAGOTHA · Mar 4, 2014

mirandashell said:
Yeah, I think so. It's the one dress that a women would plan for and spend a lot of money on. Considering she wouldn't wear it again.

That's not the sense I get at all. Before Victorian times, and during also, a woman would wear her best dress, or a special pretty dress, to her wedding. But almost always with the intention of wearing it again as a best dress afterwards. In large parts of the United States well after the Civil War women would re-wear their wedding dresses for special events for years sometimes.

Perhaps at the very top of Society a woman would only wear her wedding dress that once, or only for that season. But they'd often not wear their best dresses very often. (I think Napoleon introduced or popularized the idea of only wearing a dress once to help the French cloth industry.) Even a step or so down further in society a woman would wear her best dress for more than a year.

HistoryLvr said:
This one always astounds me. I recently read a quite popular book set in the "Dark Ages" in Britain, I believe around 600 AD, where the author tries to show the passage of time and seasons by saying how the rows of corn had turned golden. She mentioned corn a few more times too, which completely baffled me because there was an unbelievable amount of research put into this novel.

Perhaps it has to do with corn being a general word for grain, but the way it was used, I doubt it.

Not having read the book I can't be sure, but from what you've said above it sounds to me like the author meant cereal corn and not maize. Rows of wheat and other cereal grains turn golden before they're harvested.

Potatoes in early medieval stew happens far more often that it should.

Roxxsmom · Mar 9, 2014

ULTRAGOTHA said:
Potatoes in early medieval stew happens far more often that it should.

And Turkey.

Another thing that didn't show up until around 1700 (so very post-Columbian) were ship's wheels. Before that, sailing vessels were steered with whip staffs. (or would they be called whip staves)? I'm pretty sure I've read books where galleons and such had wheels for steering.

benbenberi · Mar 9, 2014

At least turkeys were one of the first New World imports to really take off in Europe -- they were very popular & widely available in Europe by 1520. Unlike tomatoes, potatoes and maize, which took a *lot* longer to make a dent in the European diet.

As the English rhyme says, "Turkeys, heresy, hops and beer/Came to England all in a year."

Siri Kirpal · Mar 9, 2014

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

To add to the bit about wedding dresses: There's a folksong from Northern England or Scotland a friend used to sing that includes the line about a bride-to-be, "Her petticoat to be dyed green,/And she will look just like a queen."

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Nikweikel · Mar 12, 2014

In renaissance Florence, wedding dresses were a one time thing. The reason was that doweries were capped at a fairly modest amount. Like 1,000 or 2,000 florins.

It seems the wedding attire was exempt so families got around this by covering the bride with jewels costly fabrics and sewing pearls and gems all over her wedding garments.

I read accounts of upper-middleclass grooms taking inventory after the wedding and it reads like a small jewelry store.

Manuel Royal · Mar 18, 2014

Nikweikel said:
Here's another one: plague masks. You know those bird-beaked masks that doctors wore when visiting plague patients? They weren't invented until the 17th century.

Not that I've seen a lot of them in books, but I discovered this on the course of my research.

Didn't Bosch depict those in the 15th century? Perhaps the figures I'm thinking of were simply grotesque caricatures.

Xelebes · Mar 18, 2014

benbenberi said:
At least turkeys were one of the first New World imports to really take off in Europe -- they were very popular & widely available in Europe by 1520. Unlike tomatoes, potatoes and maize, which took a *lot* longer to make a dent in the European diet.

As the English rhyme says, "Turkeys, heresy, hops and beer/Came to England all in a year."

Unless, with the case of the potato, you set your story in Latvia. In which case, it would (should) be understood as a joke.

Nikweikel · Mar 19, 2014

You mean this little fellow?

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Things that don't belong in Pre-Columbian Europe...

Pup

.

Lauram6123

gothicangel

Toughen up.

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

Jamesaritchie

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

Helix

socially distancing

gothicangel

Toughen up.

Nikweikel

Nikweikel

Tocotin

deceives

ULTRAGOTHA

Merovingian Superhero

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

benbenberi

practical experience, FTW

Siri Kirpal

Swan in Process

Nikweikel

Manuel Royal

Xelebes

Delerium ex Ennui

Nikweikel