Buddy in Bristol

The next thing that happened between my last post and today's date is that Emily came to visit! Highlights of the 'Emily in Bristol' experience include:

Drinking wine from Normandy made from a medieval recipe. It was delicious! It's much, much heavier than wine today--more like a port--and imbued with a lot of spices, especially cloves. It was very smooth and smelled amazing.

Going to see the Three Musketeers movie and finding a hippo statue along the way.

Going to a really pretty park and climbing up Cabot Tower.

Cabot Tower was built in 1897-1898 in memory of John Cabot, an explorer from Bristol who discovered North America in 1497. His expedition is thought to be the first European encounter with North America since the vikings left in the 1100s (Columbus landed in Central America).

The first European discovery of North America is credited to Leif Ericson (c. 970-c. 1020) who sailed to Newfoundland, Canada.

View of the park from the top of Cabot Tower.

Touring the S.S. Great Britain. The S.S. Great Britain, designed by Isambard Brunel, was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic. She sailed from 1845 to 1884, and was then docked and used as a quarantine ship and warehouse until 1937. Too expensive to keep or even dissemble, they scuttled her. They dug her up in 1970, and it's now an awesome museum. Emily even thought that, as far as museum quality goes, it put the U.S.S. Constitution to shame. Visitors could choose between one of three audio guides: first class, third class, or the "Sinbad the Cabin Kitty" one for kids. The rooms were arranged with all sorts of old dishes and clothing and knickknacks that made it look as if the people had just stepped out for a minute, though there were a few wax figures. They even had appropriate smells accompanying the different areas of the ship--ladies' promenade, kitchen, surgeon's room--a touch that was very interesting but not always pleasant.

One of the coolest aspects was the airtight seal around the ship's waterline. The materials used on the part of the ship that is supposed to go underwater gives preservationists a difficult time: on one hand, keeping it underwater will erode the iron; on the other hand, dry-docking it will cause the material to dry out and decay just as much. Their solution was to create an airtight seal around the ship right at the waterline. The seal is glass or plexiglass (something clear) with an inch or two of water in the middle of it (not touching the ship, just inside the plexiglass), making it look like it's sitting in water, but at the same time allowing you to look down and see the bottom of the ship from ground level, which was really cool. Visitors can then go underneath the ship into a humidity-controlled area and wander around the hull.

Big. Very big.

That's not an anchor. This is an anchor.

Ooh, look, the boat steering thing! (click on it)

All hands on deck! The white line behind Emily separates the first class part of the deck from the area designated for lower members of society.

Hey, look, a cow!

The first class dining room. People with third-class tickets sometimes didn't even get fed. The crew would just randomly decide that they didn't get lunch that day. This led to several riots, which eventually convinced the authorities to create laws standardizing third-class quality of life onboard passenger ships.

Walking in Someone Else's Medieval Shoes

I haven't posted in a month. On the bright side, the reason I haven't was because I was busy racking up adventures to post about!

The first fun thing I did since October 19th was go on a medieval walking tour of Bristol. Unfortunately, Bristol was hit very hard in the Blitz, and so a lot of the tour was, "So where we're standing now used to be a medieval building." There are a few things I can show you, though.

The first thing I learned while on this tour was that Bristol has its own color. Much like Lincoln has its own particular shade of 'Lincoln green,' in the Middle Ages Bristol became known for 'Bristol red.' It's best described as a dark barn red.

Lavold Silky Wool in Bristol Red; photo courtesy of www.dipity.com

The next interesting fact: My dorm building, now located in the center of town, in the 14th century would have been directly on the harbor (now a respectable 20 minute walk away). I would have stepped out my door, rounded the corner, and been face-to-face with some ships.

My, look at all that water!

In the 14th century, with a population of 800 people, Bristol was ranked as one of the three largest cities in England after London, alongside York and Norwich. Today it is the sixth largest in England, with 500,000 residents in the city proper.

Bristol became a prosperous city due to the salt trade. In fact, that whimsical building I posted photos of earlier is an almshouse built by the richest man in Bristol at the time. He amassed his fortune solely on the salt trade, and due to his oodles of money eventually rose to the position of town mayor.

The chapel next to Whoville is the Chapel of the Three Kings of Cologne, and though the almshouse was converted into private housing, the chapel remains an official English Heritage site.

This is the mayor's (John Foster's) residence, built at the end of the 15th century. He had it made in a duplex style as a way of showing everyone in town that he had twice the money as any of the other gentlemen in town, and could afford the equivalent of two houses.

That being said, the largest landowner in Bristol in the 14th century was not a lay aristocrat, but the Church. Over 20% of the city's land was owned by the Church, and over 10% of the population were in some capacity members of the clergy. The friary on Colston Street was one of the first English medieval places to get running water, running it down from a spring near what is now Cabot Tower (and back then was a random hill), and providing it as tap water (Yes, taps! Isn't it exciting?!) to the friary and the neighboring houses.

This is one of the old city gates.

At 9:00 pm, the curfew bell would sound, the iron gates of the city would be shut, and everyone had better be in their houses, or they would be deemed 'troublemakers.' Our guide didn't go into what the consequences of that label would have been.

The street leading up to this gate (not the cross-street on the sign) was originally called Knife Street, and was where all the knife smiths would sell their wares. The name got corrupted over the centuries, though, and is now called Christmas Street. I'm still unclear as to how that could have gotten corrupted that far.

You were expected to have a knife on you at all times. In fact, it was considered good manners to bring your own utensils to a feast. Swords, however, were only allowed to be worn by knights and higher-ranking persons when within the city walls, both as a means of class distinction and as a way of keeping down the violence.

Now Old King Cole may have been a merry old soul, but King Edward II was certainly not. He raised a fish tax as a means of padding his coffers, which didn't take well in a bustling port town like Bristol. The citizens started a riot, the first riot in Bristol's recorded history. They did a bang-up job of it, too: the riot lasted from 1312-1316, ended with Edward II withdrawing the tax. A few years later, Edward II got a bee in his bonnet that the Bristol seaside would be the perfect vacationing spot, and he promptly organized a royal retinue and paid the dear residents a visit, apparently having forgotten all about that nasty little fish tax business. Edward II's wife, Isabella, and his son, Edward III, tired of his tyrannical shenanigans, sent word ahead to the Bristolians and had him murdered upon arrival.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

14th century engraving of Isabella "the She-wolf" of France. I'm not making that nickname up.

On that note, I'll conclude the medieval tour. I will, however, leave you with a few statistics regarding 14th century medieval life in Bristol.

Daily Wages:

Common laborer: 2 pence

Carptenter: 4 pence

Mason: 6 pence

Cost of Dinner:

Chicken or rabbit: 4 pence

Duck: 2 pence

Average Height:

Women: 5'2"

Men: 5'7"

Typical Life:

Age 7: Start working

Age 12: Get engaged

Age 14: Get married

Age 16: Start living with your spouse (this seems a bit odd)

Age 20: By now you have 4-5 children, have finished your stint in the army, and if you're wealthy enough, can run for public office.

Age 40: Retire and start devoting yourself to religion--after all, you're an old fogey and probably won't live much longer.