Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make it? Part IVb: Cloth Money

Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part II: Scouring in the Shire

This post is also available in audio form, thanks to the efforts of our volunteer narrator. This is the second part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles (parti…

Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part III: Spin Me Right Round…

This post is also available in audio form, thanks to the efforts of our volunteer narrator. This is the third part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles, partic…

Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part I: High Fiber

This post is also available in audio form, thanks to the efforts of our volunteer narrator. This week we are starting the first of a four (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) part look at pre-modern textile prod…

Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It, Part IVa: Steel Yourself

This week, we continue our four(and a half)-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) look at pre-modern iron and steel production. Last week, we looked at how a blacksmith reshapes our iron from a spo…

Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It, Part IVb: Work Hardening, or Hardly Working?

This week, we close out our four(and a half)-part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) look at pre-modern iron and steel production, although I ought to note that there will be at least one addendum di…

Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining

This week we are starting a four-part look (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) at pre-modern iron and steel production. As with our series on farming, we are going to follow the train of iron producti…

Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part IV: Markets, Merchants and the Tax Man

Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! As the fourth and final part (I, II, III) of our look at the basic structure of food product…

Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part I: Farmers!

Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! This essay will hopefully be the first post in a series (II, III, IV, A) covering some of th…

Collections: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part II: Foraging

This is the second part of a three part (I, II, III) look at some of the practical concerns of managing pre-industrial logistics. In our last post we outlined the members of our ‘campaign com…