The Hands on Approach to Historical Mysteries

There are hazards to writing a period piece. There’s a lot of research involved, from the cut of a shoe to the taste of the food. So when I set out to pen my medieval mystery series and later my Tudor series, there were many tidbits of information I sought to keep it real.

For instance, my protagonist Crispin Guest is a disgraced knight turned detective on the mean streets of fourteenth century London. He’s a dark and brooding fellow and besides doing his personal penance by bringing bad guys to justice, he often finds his solace in the bottom of a wine goblet. Sometimes he partakes of beer and I wanted to know what that medieval beer tasted like. From what I read, it was a little rawer, a little more herby than what we are used to today, so I elicited the help of my award-winning-home-brewer husband.

Medieval/Tudor beer brewing (all brewing, really) involves first sprouting the grain on malting floors, buildings with plenty of ventilation, because the dry grain must first be soaked in water then spread out in a thin layer to allow it to sprout. And then the sprouting must be stopped so that the sugars that were allowed to build in them remain (as they sprout, the grain “thinks” it’s going to be planted and it needs the sugar for energy). But brewers need those sugars, that malt, to brew their beer.

Since we started with the whole grain too we had to allow the grain to sprout, making the house smell like we had started a mildew farm. Our home was not a kiln house so we had to spread the grain out on a sheet on the floor of the guest room. Not ideal, but you have to work with what you’ve got. Then we dried it (stopped the spouting) by throwing it into a pillowcase and tossing it into ye olde clothes dryer. The beer we came up with was less than tantalizing, even after we flavored it with herbs and flowers. But the experiment caused a snowballing of personal investigation. What was the food like? How did it feel to wear medieval clothing? How did it feel to use medieval weapons?

I did a lot of medieval cooking, even had a feast for friends while we were camping. Ideal conditions, cooking over a fire. And by the way, if you think almond milk is a new trendy invention, you’d be wrong. It was medieval and made by grinding almonds into meal and then soaking it in water. It was used for a dipping sauce, for your parsnip fritters.

Giant Mince Pie

And me, who doesn’t like to sew (my motto is, if I can’t glue, I don’t do it), but I did get some patterns and tried my hand at medieval garb. Yes, you move differently when you wear long skirts all the time. It informs what you CAN do and how you hold yourself. (And so do corsets for Victorian garments, but that’s another story!)

Yes, that is me on the horse. But you will note, that the horse never moves. He’s a giant sofa of a horse.

I even asked a friend to let me borrow some armor to get the feel of that. It’s more difficult when the armor isn’t made to you. Like a tailored suit, it makes a difference in the feel of it. But it was certainly a great lesson in the hands on approach. Was it easy to move in? Not for me, because as I said, it wasn’t made for my body type, but had it been made for me, yes, it would have been easier to move in. Although if you want to sneak up on someone, don’t wear armor. It clanks. It is not stealth wear.

I am fascinated by medieval weaponry. Consequently, I have become the proud owner of three broadswords and a few daggers, as well as two helms, a battleaxe, and a flail (one of those nasty war weapons with a spiked ball on a chain attached to a stick. Sweet!) These are all reproductions, I am quick to add. Not only would the real thing be prohibitively expensive, but many of these items did not survive to today except for some very rusted remnants.

As soon as I was in possession of the sword some years ago now, I naturally wanted to try it out. It was October and there were plenty of pumpkins around. I set up a few on posts in my backyard.

Now a broadsword is one of those weapons that speaks to me of the Middle Ages. This was the weapon that played a role in deciding national borders. Shaped like a cross, it was the weapon of choice to impose Christianity into regions of the Middle East. It was the ultimate if not Freudian of masculine symbols.

A broadsword is sharpened on both edges of its blade (unlike a kitchen knife that has one sharpened side). It is used one-handed, for the most part, the other hand being occupied with a long dagger called a main-gauche or a small shield known as a buckler. When you swung your blade you made the swash while you knocked your opponent with the buckler, hence swash-buckling. A broadsword is not elegant like a rapier or quick like a foil. It isn’t used in the same way. It is primarily a chopping weapon. It’s a sort of whack, whack, rest. Whack, whack, rest. Not what you see in the movies. It is 44 inches long and weighs about three pounds. Very handy as weapons go.

And so, when I came to attack my pumpkins, I swung at them. Even though the sword is not sharpened, an easy swing handily scalped them but good. So satisfying.

But a pumpkin, for all its head-like appearance, is not a head, so I needed bone to get the true feel of warfare. And then it occurred to me that I would also like to try out my daggers to see how it would feel to stab someone (these are mysteries, after all, with murders). Strangely, I could get no volunteers for this.

So I went to Costco.

Now it’s not easy picking out your victim, although it’s a little easier when you look for him in the meat department. I got myself the biggest slab of beef I could find.

When I brought it home, my victim’s body was already prone, lying there innocently on the butcher block. How to attack it properly? There was no help for it. I needed the fellow to be upright. I glanced toward my backyard window and spied my son’s wooden swing set (you can tell this was long ago since he is now 35).

First, I must explain that my son wasn’t home. No one was home but me and my meat victim. I only hoped that the neighbors weren’t peering out of their windows into my yard when I decided to get all CSI out there. Although, if they had witnessed the pumpkin beheading, they were already used to closing their shutters and waiting for it all to be over.

First thing I did was nail it up there and attack it with the dagger. My daggers are sharp and the blades went in cleanly. Of course, Sir Loin of Beef was not struggling, but that was okay. I could extrapolate the rest. Next I wanted to feel the blade against the bone. I lunged. Very hard. Lots of spine chilling scraping there. Yes, very tough if you had a small blade like this and managed to catch a rib.

After stabbing it a few more times at a few more angles, it was time for the sword!

I cocked back the sword one-handed and gave it a good whack. Right through the bone on the first go and into the wooden post. Wow. That was fun. Another! Yup. This guy was dead. Really dead. Really most sincerely dead.

It was a good day.

But now I was left with this slab of hacked up meat, hanging limply from one little nail and swinging in the breeze. How was I going to get rid of the body?

Simple. We ate him.