ken Follett, The Evening And The Morning

[liberty]

He writes a good yarn, but I think I caught him in a historical fallacy. In the story, the family gets a bag of flour to help them get started on their new land. In tenth century England, cloth was expensive most people had one set of clothes for their entire lives. So it is hard for me to see floor in cloth sacks. Now he could have meant a leather bag which goes back almost the beginning of time. But as a writer, of historical fiction he has a duty to be clear and to be true to the period in which he is writing. If he meant a leather bag he should have said so. I feel that a wooden barrel would be more accurate, but I am not sure. I know that the ancient Romans had wooden barrels; however, making barrels requires skilled craftsmen and I am not sure that technology made it into the dark ages. What do you think leather, cloth, or wood?

https://ken-follett.com/books/the-eveni ... e-morning/

A Time of Conflict
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages, and England faces attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Life is hard, and those with power wield it harshly, bending justice according to their will – often in conflict with the king. With his grip on the country fragile and with no clear rule of law, chaos and bloodshed reign.
Three Lives Intertwined
Into this uncertain world three people come to the fore: a young boatbuilder, who dreams of a better future when a devastating Viking raid shatters the life that he and the woman he loves hoped for; a Norman noblewoman, who follows her beloved husband across the sea to a new land only to find her life there shockingly different; and a capable monk at Shiring Abbey, who dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a centre of learning admired throughout Europe.
The Dawn of A New Age
Now, with England at the dawn of the Middle Ages, these three people will each come into dangerous conflict with a ruthless bishop, who will do anything to increase his wealth and power, in an epic tale of ambition and rivalry, death and birth, and love and hate.

[MajGenl.Meade]

You are more full of shit than a cess pit

[Burning Petard]

In tenth century England, cloth was expensive most people had one set of clothes for their entire lives. So it is hard for me to see floor in cloth sacks"

Well, Mr. liberty, cloth was expensive in mid-20th century Missouri. That is why many of my shirts and my sister's dresses,were made from feed sacks. In your conjecture, I find it hard to figure out how they added length and girth of early childhood clothing to enable it to last a lifetime without extensive additions of more cloth.

But your fundamental assumption that historical novels must be historically accurate is a very flexible standard. Shakespear's "Histories" are all of anachronisms.

snailgate.

[ex-khobar Andy]

There was sackcloth in the Bible (Kings 20:31 -32):

31 And his servants said unto him, Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings: let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads, and go out to the king of Israel: peradventure he will save thy life.

32 So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said, Thy servant Benhadad saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? he is my brother.

I confess I had to look up the reference.

I'm not a great Ken Follett fan but his research is usually pretty good. Pillars of the Earth was an excellent description of the building of a medieval cathedral.

[Joe Guy]

.....cloth was expensive most people had one set of clothes for their entire lives.

Is that why adult Robin Hood's pants were so tight?

[liberty]

In tenth century England, cloth was expensive most people had one set of clothes for their entire lives. So it is hard for me to see floor in cloth sacks"



In your conjecture, I find it hard to figure out how they added length and girth of early childhood clothing to enable it to last a lifetime without extensive additions of more cloth.
snailgate.

I anticipated that and started to change it to read no more than one set of clothes at a time for an entire life, but decided against it. If some ass doesn’t want to understand, that would be his problem. And I was curious who the ass would be that would be deficient in analytical skill and now we know. I am sorry it was you; I kind of like you, but I had already decided in advance what I was going to do.

[liberty]

You are more full of shit than a cess pit

May I say my Christian brother; with all humility, you are the turd in my cesspool.

[liberty]

.....cloth was expensive most people had one set of clothes for their entire lives.

Is that why adult Robin Hood's pants were so tight?

Robin hood, if he lived, didn’t wear tights. Men of lower classes in the thirteenth century in the summer wore a knee-length tunic and not much else. In cold weather, they add stocking or leggings and a cloak.

[Bicycle Bill]

.....cloth was expensive most people had one set of clothes for their entire lives.

Is that why adult Robin Hood's pants were so tight?

Robin hood, if he lived, didn’t wear tights. Men of lower classes in the thirteenth century in the summer wore a knee-length tunic and not much else. In cold weather, they add stocking or leggings and a cloak.

But according to the legend, Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor (one could make the case that this is one of the earliest examples of English socialism), so if in raiding and pillaging the trains of the wealthy passing through or near Sherwood something like those smashing green tights took his fancy, I suppose they became his.

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm trying not to imagine those hordes of almost naked Vikings, sitting on splintery wooden benches and rowing the wintry seas to pillage the semi-naked Brits, all of whom were sharing one pair of trousers and two T-shirts.

They were always invading and shouting "Sack the place!" but they didn't have any sacks? Demented chaps.