Frequently Asked Questions

• Why didn't you reply to the email I sent you?

• The most common reason is that you didn't type your email address properly, so when I tried to reply, it bounced.  Also, sometimes it can take up to a month for me to reply, if my "real life" gets crazy.
  

• Can you send me some other material?

• No.  Everything I have available is on the website.  Your best resource for other information is your local library.  Ask a librarian to help you; you'd be amazed what is in a library, or available via Inter Library Loan.  It's easy.

• Can I link to your site?  Can I duplicate your articles on my site?

• Linking to sites is something that you don't have to ask about; it's assumed that it's ok by most people with websites.  Copying the content though, is something different.  I do not give permission for my content to be copied to other sites. Just to be sure you know, all my stuff is copyright by me unless I say otherwise.
  

• Can I run one of your articles in my local SCA (or other) newsletter?

• Probably.  Drop me a note first, though.  The key things are to include my copyright notice, and to include a link to my webpage, so that folks can get updates, or look at the pictures in a larger format or in color.
  

• I have to do a report on medieval bakers (or other tradesperson) but I can't find what they wore.

• As near as I can tell, most of the medieval professions were more likely to dress according to their wealth/poverty, than according to their profession.  So a well off baker would dress one way, and a poor one, a different way.  Of course, if their profession needed separate functional clothing on top of that, such as an apron, they'd wear that, too.  Your best bet would be to find a book about that trade during the middle ages.

• I have to do a report on the clothes.  What books should I look at?

• See if your Inter Library Loan person can find some of the books listed on my Further Reading page.
  

• What were the special meanings of the clothes they wore in the middle ages?

• Do your socks have a special message?  Does your shirt signify something other than "I need to wear a shirt because otherwise I'd be chilly or indecent?"  Somehow many people have the idea that clothing in the middle ages was highly ritualized, but for most things, it just was clothing.  Now, if you were a priest, the various accessories might have specific meanings about what you believed, such as the ___ signifying __, but for your average person, it was just clothing.

• How could they wear such crazy things?

• Clothing fashions go through an organic process of development; in the middle ages as well as today.  These days, fashions change rapidly, and die away, and then get revivals, all within the space of a few decades.  In the middle ages, it took longer, that's all. 
  

• How can you say ___ (whatever position you think is wrong?)