Here we can see a vigorous line dance being led from one end, without couples (though genders seem to alternate until they run out of men). On the left are two other dancers executing what appears to be an under-the-arm turn.

Here is another instance of a woman turning under the arm of a man.

This is a very clear depiction of a play being performed, with a curtained off backstage area.

Maerten van Cleve’s Parable of the Blind shows a good angle on a codpiece (martingale?).

This Lucas Gassel landscape has a nice layout of a tennis court:

It can be hard for a modern person to feel comfortable emulating the Medieval notion of Franchise, couched as it often is in terms of nobility and gentle birth. Our egalitarian conditioning shies away from this sort of thinking. But in the SCA we have titles, awards, offices, and Peerages, which are bestowed upon us in recognition of our nature and our deeds. I think that perhaps Franchise is the ability to accept and take ownership of the station to which one has been raised, gracefully and without false modesty. In this way it is the opposite of impostor syndrome, and thus lends the aforementioned “noble bearing” to one’s actions and demeanor. A sword must be gripped with conviction to strike a telling blow.

This interpretation of Franchise must, of course, be tempered by Humility, just as Prowess is tempered by Compassion, and Courage by Prudence. These are not opposing notions, but complementary to each other. Chivalry is not defined by one Virtue alone, but all of them together and in balance.

But as the flower seeks the sun
And shackled convicts long to run,
I curse the sins whose weight has made
My heart alone.

Yet in the gallery is one
Whose grace has made my locks undone
And for whose sake I’ve nightly prayed
To be destroyed and then remade
An honest man who need not shun
My heart, alone.

Written in response to the question “How does a lady inspire Chivalry?”

I pinned it onto the doublet and played with the position a little. I think it will end up about here:

The belt in that picture is just a couple scraps of purple linen tied around. I’d like to do something involving black silk scarves, but I haven’t decided where to get them from yet. The current plan is to tack the corners down on one side, and fasten the other side with hooks and eyes I made from copper wire:

Then I cut a nice big upper sleeve from the velvet. The plan was to have fullness at the shoulder and above the elbow, but not under the arm.

I sewed a strip of the yellow cotton to the bottom edge of the upper sleeve, turned it, gathered up cartridge pleats (except under the arm) and sewed up the seam. Then I attached the inner and outer sleeves at the shoulder, pleating in the fullness with 8 knife pleats.

The cartridge pleats were then tacked down by hand around the elbow. I think the end result could use more fullness in the middle, but I’m not sure that extra layers in the upper sleeve would help that much. There’s certainly plenty of shape given by the cartridge pleating, so hopefully that will be enough.

The velvet was basted to the interlining, then sewn together at the sides and shoulders. The lining was sewn up the same way and then machine sewn along the bottom edge, turned, and hand topstitched. Then the center front and neck opening were basted together and a wide black linen facing was attached by machine and finished by hand. Finally, the arm holes were turned under and hand finished.

The edges of the doublet are decorated with a stiff red velveteen ribbon that I got for next to nothing from a floral shop that was going out of business. It’s crinkly and has a tendency to shred at the ends, so I have some worries about its long term viability. In the worst case scenario, I’ll have to replace all the trim, but that’s not the end of the world.The center front is open at the top, and closes lower down with five sets of hooks and eyes. There’s some gapping there, but it will all be covered later so it’s not a big deal.

The skirt presented a bit of a problem at first. The corners curled under terribly, and it just didn’t look very good. By the time I realized the problem, I was way too far down the road to go back and rethink the construction. Instead, I ended up cutting small strips of flexible plastic cutting board and stuck them under the trim at the corners to serve as stays:

That seems to have more or less solved the problem. You can also see the shirt I made for this doublet (sans cuffs). It’s based essentially on Jen Thompson’s tried and true chemise technique. Next, sleeves!

First, as usual, I needed to find some reference images. I’ve been wanting to make the doublet in this 1516 Romanino portrait for ages:

Unfortunately, there’s some important information missing. How does it close, exactly? Is there a skirt? Does it come in black? Let’s look at some others. Here’s another Romanino portrait:

Okay, now we have black with gold trim, plus a pretty awesome hat. So far, so good. Still nothing below the waist, though. We also have the funny mid-chest bib thing over the open center front closure. Interesting, but still hard to work out the mechanics of it.

Okay, Franciabigio (1522) gives us some more here. Basic black (dark blue? let’s call it black), no trim, fancy hat, so I can dress it down a bit if I want. The half-bib thing again, still no skirt.

And here we have Bronzino (1527-28) for the win! It’s a touch later, but still with many of the same elements. Here we can see a skirt, pleated on somehow and open in the front. Again there’s the center front opening covered by a bib, except now we see that it’s held on at the corners with points, and it seems to be an entirely separate piece that goes down just below (and under) the belt. There’s a sash at the waist plus a (sword?) belt that hangs down across the skirt. The upper sleeves are a different color from the lower sleeves, but I think I can get away with the whole sleeve one color, based on the 1516 Romanino and the Franciabigio. I also think I’ll go with the more voluminous sleeves of the earlier portraits, as well as the enormous beret style hats. All of this in black velvet that I’ve been hoarding for several years now. Next, figuring out the pattern!

The handle is made from the same round stock as the lock bolt, bent to shape. I tried making fancy ends, but that didn’t really work out so I opted for a more minimalist look. The brackets are strips of steel formed by folding around a piece of round bar and then clamping in the vise.

I marked the slots on the lid, drilled a few holes and cleaned out the rest with a chip carving knife.

The handle hardware was blackened using the same process as the rest of the metal. The handle itself got two coats of oil.

The handle assembly ready to be installed.

A few taps with a rubber mallet did the trick nicely.

Here you can see the ends of the brackets on the bottom side of the lid.

I spread the ends of the brackets by levering them apart with an old chisel, then did most of the bending by hand. A couple of hammer taps finished the job.

The last thing to do was applying a coat of boiled linseed oil to the whole box, inside and out, wood and metal. I plan to do a couple more coats later, but I think this is pretty much the final appearance. This was, as usual, a very enjoyable project. It’s always nice to see a complex object that began as very simple raw materials.

The sides of the box were put together with wood glue and clamps. I thought about putting some extra nails in the corners that would be hidden by the straps, but it seemed like overkill. Also, I didn’t want to risk splitting the edges of any of the boards.

Here’s a shot of the front with the corner straps and bottom attached. Due to the aforementioned splitting worries (I don’t have any of this wood left to replace broken boards), I drilled pilot holes for each nail about halfway through the thickness of the wood. I also did most of the nailing with the boards supported by the horn of the anvil, or on the face when I could. All the hardware was blackened using the same method as the lock cover, but with only one coat of oil.

The bottom was attached with glue and thoroughly modern looking finishing nails. I wanted to make sure I could put this box down on a table without worrying about it scratching anything, so this seemed like the best option. The bottom board had the most cracks in it (and in fact broke in half at one point and needed to be glued back together), so I put it in the position where it would be the most supported.

A close up of the corner straps. I marked the front and back boards to make sure the straps were at the right height, but each had to be positioned individually since they were nowhere near identical.

One of the hinges. The quatrefoils aren’t quite evenly spaced, but they are consistent between the three straps. I experimented with a scalloped edge at the end of the straps, but it didn’t seem to be worth the effort, and might not have looked very balanced.

After getting the lock in place, it turned out that my original hasp wasn’t going to line up with the slot like it needed to. Fortunately, hasps with this sort of dog-leg are quite common. I cut a new one and kept on truckin’.

Laying out the first hinge strap. Here you can see the notches I had to cut in the box lid to accommodate the hardware. Not an ideal solution, but the best I could do.

Here are the hinges fully installed. This is one of my favorite pictures. The position of the hinges meant the straps on the back overlapped the ends of the corner straps. This is pretty common in period examples, and I’m glad I didn’t try to avoid it (to be perfectly honest, it didn’t even occur to me that this might happen until it did).

This was the first version of the staple for the hasp. The final one was just about the same shape, but made form a thin strip of sheet instead of a flattened coat hanger. The coat hanger ended up being too hard and brittle to make all the sharp bends I needed.

Here is the final version of the hasp. I had to tinker with the shape and position of the staple quite a bit to get it to engage the bolt properly, but it seems to have ended up working fine. The ends are simply bent back toward the center on the other side and crimped down.

All that’s left to do is fabricate and install the handle and give it a linseed oil finish. Here are some pics of the (nearly) complete casket: