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Monthly Archives: December 2014

Old Books

Here is another great link I came across, about how medieval book collections were cataloged and indexed so they could be found on the shelves. It’s fascinating with loads of great pictures, too. I love the picture of the books chained in the shelves. Get your geek on and click on over.

New Books

I have decided to have a Risky contest in which the winner will receive 1 book from each Risky  — supplied by me. I can try to accommodate international but the expense might end up being prohibitive. I may need to send an alternate prize to a winner outside the US because shipping is crazy expensive even with Book Depository.

To enter, read the rules carefully then leave a comment to this post by Midnight Eastern on December 7, 2014.

Rules

Void where prohibited. Must be 18 to enter. No purchase necessary. International OK, but see the above. Family or employees of the Riskies can’t enter. (Sorry minions, but you’ll get your coal shortly so what’s your problem?) Your comment must be submitted by 11:59:59 PM Eastern on December 7, 2014. Winner selected at random from among the qualified entrants. One entry per person, please. Winner will be notified by email. An alternate winner will be selected if the winner does not reply within 5 calendar days. For digital books, the winner must be able to accept a digital gift from a vendor that allows gifting of books.

To enter, leave a comment where you complete one of the following questions:

1. At a Regency Ball, Lord Hawkington is  ……..

2. You are Lord Hawkington and you have noticed Miss Smythe has …..

Go.

 

This  is the last regularly scheduled post from Megan Frampton and me.

fishWe have loved being part of Riskies and hope to be able to stop back from time to time to check in. But life intervenes and we both find ourselves very busy, so are stepping away for now.

We’d like to leave you with some reminders of of our Risky Regencies history and a few hints about where to find us.

For a look back over Megan’s time with Risky Regencies, I give you the Megan Blog Search.  And to see what my shorter term looked line, here I am.

We will not have disappeared from the Internet, however. You can still find Megan at meganframpton.com, on Facebook, and Twitter and, of course at Heroes and Heartbreakers. You can also find me at myrettarobens.com, on Facebook, and, less frequently, on Twitter. I am also always find-able at The Republic of Pemberley.

Being here with all the rest of the wonderful Risky ladies and with our excellent readers, commenters and guests has been a treat. We hope you have found some of it educational, or entertaining, or maybe both. And we hope to see you out and about in cyber space and other gatherings of the romance-minded.

I love old and unusual (pre-commercial-madness) holiday music. This season I spent some time prowling around Youtube and found some traditional renditions of favorites, and also some interesting reinterpretations.

The Coventry Carol deals with the Massacre of the Innocents, when Herod ordered the execution of male children under the age of two in Bethlehem, an often forgotten part of Christmas story. To me, it is a necessary counterbalance to some of the forced jollity of the season, a reminder that while many of us are celebrating, there are those who suffer who deserve our compassion.

This is King’s College Cambridge’s traditional rendition of the Coventry Carol.

Here’s a modern version composed by Kenneth Leighton, using the original words. Some commenters didn’t like the change but I find it captured the solemn subject beautifully. The young soloist is fantastic.

I’ve also loved “Gaudete”. Here’s a version by Anúna. Don’t you love their costumes?

And here’s a version described as a “post industrial groove anthem”, from the men’s choir of Milliken University.

What do you think of these pieces? Do you enjoy their modern reincarnations?

Happy Boxing Day!

Elena

 

I can’t believe Christmas is just two days away!!!  There is still so much to do around here, including working on my WIP, Murder at Whitehall (the 4th Kate Haywood Elizabethan mystery), which is set at the royal court at Christmas.  Today I’m repeating a post from 2009 about how the Elizabethans celebrated the season–they were major partiers!  I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday, and looking forward to seeing you all next year!!

 

 

ElizabethIOne thing I learned as I researched my November book The Winter Queen(available now at eHarlequin, yay!) is that the Elizabethans really, really knew how to party at the holidays! The Christmas season (Christmastide) ran 12 days, from December 24 (Christmas Eve) to January 6 (Twelfth Day), and each day was filled with feasting, gift-giving (it was a huge status thing at Court to see what gift the Queen gave you, and to seek favor by what you gave her), pageants, masquerades, dancing, a St. Stephen’s Day fox-hunt, and lots of general silliness. (One of the games was called Snapdragon, and involved a bow of raisins covered in brandy and set alight. The players had to snatch the raisins from the flames and eat them without being burned. I think the brandy was heavily imbibedbefore this games as well, and I can guarantee this won’t be something we’re trying at my house this year!)

Later in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, she mostly kept Christmas at Greenwich, or sometimes at Hampton Court or Nonsuch Palace, but in the year my story is set, 1564, she spent the holiday at Whitehall in London. Elizabeth had only been queen for 6 years and was 31 years old, so hers was a young Court full of high spirits. This was also the coldest winter in memory, so cold the Thames froze through and there was a Frost Fair complete with skating, food and merchandise booths on the ice, and sledding. It was fun to imagine this scene, and put my characters (Lady Rosamund Ramsey, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and Anton Gustavson, Swedish diplomat and excellent ice-skater) into the action!

Even though there were no Christmas trees or stockings hung by the fire, I was surprised to find we would recognize many of the traditional decorations of the time! Anything that was still green in December would be used–holly, ivy, yew, bay. The Yule log was lit on Christmas Eve using a bit of last year’s log saved for the purpose. It was brought in by the men of the household, decorated with wreaths and ribbons, and set ablaze so everyone could gather around and tell tales of Christmases past.

Food was also just as big a part of the holiday as it is now! Roast meats were favorites (pork, beef, chicken, fricaseed, cooked in broths, roasted, baked into pies), along with stewed vegetables and fine whit manchet bread with fresh butter and cheese. Elizabeth was a light eater, especially compared with her father, but she was a great lover of sweets. These could include candied flowers, hard candies in syrup (called suckets, eaten with special sucket spoons), Portugese figs, Spanish oranges, tarts, gingerbread, and figgy pudding. The feast often ended with a spectacular piece of sugar art called (incongrously) subtleties. In 1564, this was a recreation of Whitehall itself in candy, complete with a sugar Thames. (At least they could work off the feasting in skating and sledding…)

A couple fun reads on Christmas in this period are Maria Hubert’s Christmas in Shakespeare’s England and Hugh Douglas’s A Right Royal Christmas, as well as Alison Sim’s Food and Feast in Tudor England and Liza Picard’s Elizabeth’s London. At my website I have lots more info on the period, as well as some Renaissance Christmas recipes (let me know if you decide to try the roast peacock!)

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