Tag: Rus

Birchbark Manuscripts

Yes. It has been a long time. It has been a busy summer and when I have had writing time, I have devoted it to my third novel The Bone Goddess, or on research.

My research has taken me down many pathways. One of the recent pathways has been learning about writing as it pertains to the culture of the Rus in the time period about which I am writing.

In The Bone Goddess, Rastislav is a former volkhv – a Slavic pagan priest or magician – and a recent convert to Christianity. He wishes to learn to train to be a monk in Novgorod. Even this more minor aspect of the story led me down an interesting rabbit-hole of research.

Rastislav hesitated. “I have seen the ruthless retaliation of Dobrynya and I fear for those at home. That he may turn his attention next to them.”

Now it was Nicetas’ turn to sigh. “Rastislav, even though you are convinced that your people are being persecuted for their faith, you must remember that the men and women you saw hanged on that wall, were hanged for inciting rebellion, and for murder in their role in the deaths of Dobrynya’s family. As long as the people you speak of have done nothing to incite rebellion and violence against their rulers, I do not see why you should fear for them. If you must go to see to their welfare, then go. But I should hate to see you interrupt your studies now when you have been doing so well. If you can finally learn to let go of your heathenish leanings, we might make a proper monastic of you yet.”

Rastislav sat on the rain-slick log next to Father Nicetas. Ignoring how the damp soaked through his clothes, he clasped his hands together and looked at them in silence. “You are right, Father. I should not be so hasty.”

“Very well then. I do believe there is still some copying to do from the Gospel of Saint John. I have some freshly prepared ink. But I think you would do better to ply your chicken scratches on birchbark as yet.  Bring a little water from the spring and I shall make an infusion of mugwort. It does well for mental clarity and focus, which I think you need much of, Rastislav.”

To a young neophyte like Rastislav, birchbark would have been a readily available resource for practicing writing on or copying down the gospels and Psalter in order to commit them to memory.

Simon Franklin writes in his Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus c. 950-1300 “Birch bark was primarily (though not exclusively) a medium associated with economic activities in the urban community.”

A case in point is the following example from the middle of the 14th century.

Here, Yakov has settled with Gyurgiy and with Khartitonvby courtless deed Gyurgiy has gotten [at court] concerning trampled [by horses] wheat and Khariton concerning his loss. Gyurgiy got one rouble [money], three grivnas [money], and basket [measure] of wheat for all that, and Khariton got ten cubits of cloth and one grivna. And Gyurgiy and Khariton have no more concern to Yakov, nor Yakov to Gyurgiy and Khariton. And arrangers and perceivers to that are Davyd, son of Luka, and Stepan Taishin.

Some are poignant and touching with at least one being a letter from one lover to another. Still another one, pictured below could be the scrawl of any child today.

Birch bark was easily procured and cheap. Franklin further elaborated the common preparation of birchbark for writing: “To prepare birchbark for writing, the coarse layers were stripped away to leave a smooth, flexible strip which then perhaps was soaked or boiled for additional elasticity. Letter were scored on the inner – and softer – surface with a sharp-pointed stylus of metal, wood or bone.”

Parchment, by contrast, was far more expensive and laborious to produce. The parchment for a modest sized book would be prepared from as many as half a dozen calf skins.

As many things as you can think of to scribble on a notepad today, were scribbled on the Novgorodian birchbarks. Sermons, prayers, jokes, school lessons, and household advice. Wills, receipts, deeds etcetera were also written on birchbark. Thousands of these documents have been unearthed, not just at Novgorod, but throughout Russia and the Ukraine.

These documents have survived largely due to the nature of the clay soil they were found in that prevented oxygen from reaching them. Thanks to this and the tireless efforts of archaeologists, we have a peek into the past through the eyes of the men and women of Novgorod.

Like Pulling Teeth

Today I’d like to address a few commonly held myths that, whenever I come across them, never fail to annoy me. One of them is the myth that medieval peasants were all walking around with a mouthful of rotten teeth and stinking breath. Nothing could be further from the truth. Honestly, he probably had a better set than you do. The main reason for this was a lack of sugar. Your average peasant wasn’t attached with a diehard addiction to a bottle of carbonated sugar water such as the average modern in western civilization. In fact, aside from honey (a rare delicacy) or the occasional apple or wild berries, he may never have even tasted sugar. Sugar was so rare, it was used only in very sparing amounts by the wealthiest individuals.  In fact it was not widely distributed in Europe until the late medieval era and even then it was prohibitively expensive. You might live your entire life and never taste a gram of the stuff. The main problem with medieval teeth was the consumption of stone ground bread. The grit that found its way from stone querns used for grinding grain into bread, could be problematic and would eventually wear down even the best set of teeth over time. However, dental caries affected less that twenty percent of the population of medieval western Europe (and perhaps even less in earlier Europe, if skeletons of early Anglo Saxons in Britain have anything to say on the matter), compared to nearly ninety percent at the turn of the twentieth century and the estimate that dental caries affect over half of America’s teen population today. Also, halitosis was not considered something that must be born with patience. Mouthwashes did exist, containing such herbs as  sage, rosemary, pepper, mint, and parsley, many of which also have significant antibacterial properties, in addition to making the breath smell sweeter. Used enough over time, they may have also been very beneficial for oral health.  While they may not have used toothbrushes, it was common enough to clean the teeth with a piece of linen and some burnt rosemary

Now that we have cleared that up, the next myth to debunk would the question of medieval people being significantly shorter that they are today. This myth is supposed to have arisen due to the poor health and conditions in cities during the Industrial Revolution. Stephen Nicholas and Richard H, Steckel have this to say in Heights and Living Standards of English Workers During the Early Years of Industrialization 1775-1815:

“Falling height of urban- and rural- born males after 1780 and delayed growth spurt for 13- to 23-year olds, revealed declining living standards among English workers after the Industrial Revolution.”

According to Sebastian Payne, chief scientist for English Heritage, this myth may arise from the shorter doorways of the period that were designed to be heat efficient in winter. Also, children took longer to reach puberty then and continued growing for a longer span of time than they do today. Furthermore, researchers were astonished to discover relatively few skeletons who in life had suffered from polio or tuberculosis. In fact most of the people of this period would have been far hardier, not to mention more wiry and fit than those of modern western civilization today.

While I am about it, I should probably point out that a lack of bathing is another commonly held belief about the middle ages. Public baths, just as in the Roman era, were quite common. In fact, most brothels in London required their patrons to wash before doing the deed with their girls. Not everyone could afford to immerse themselves in a full bath, but even the very poor would wash themselves spit-bath style. Baths were so important to the Norse Rus’ under Prince Oleg in the early tenth century, access to the the city’s baths was one of their requirements for leaving Constantinople unscathed, as well a good supply of food and wine. In fact, the Rus’ were known to be fastidious, utilizing bathhouses and saunas (as they had in Scandinavia) and the Slavic banya, which is very similar and which I may be discussing soon in another article.

So there you have it. While medieval people may not have had standards up the the modern Scope-swishing, Febreze-spraying, germophobic modern, neither were they the beastly smelling, rotten-mouthed, not to mention short-statured people that popular culture has led us to believe.

 

 

Cleanliness and Hygiene Among the Norse

Ibrahim Al-Tartushi, a tenth-century Arab traveler and merchant visited the Norse town of Hedeby in 950AD. He wrote “there is also an artificial make-up for the eyes, when they use it beauty never fades, on the contrary it increases in men and women as well.” One might well question whether this liner might not have been used in the manner of a football player’s eye black to shield the eyes from the intense sun especially seeing that Hedeby was a coastal town and many of them spent time on the water. Ibrahim ibn Yacoub seems insistent on the idea that it was used for cosmetic purposes, leaving us with an image of tenth century Viking men à la Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. They are depicted using kohl in this way in History Channel’s Vikings.

Constantinople had a very cosmopolitan environment, with people of many nations passing through and living there. Among those more exotic to the native Byzantines were the Varangians, people of Scandinavian or Scandinavian-descended Russian heritage. They brought many trade goods, including amber, honey and furs. According to The Russian Primary Chronicle, the Rus invaded Constantinople in 907 and as part of the payoff agreement, the use of the public baths was agreed upon.

The Norse made extensive use of saunas. Among the Rus, their bathhouses were called banyas. An Old East Slavic illuminated manuscript, the Radzivill Chronicle mentions the banya in the in the story of Princess Olga’s revenge for the murder of her husband, Prince Igor, by the Drevlians in 945 AD. When an emissary from the Drevlians came to Olga with an offer of marriage, “… Olga commanded that a bath should be made ready for them and said, ‘Wash yourselves and come to me.’ The bath-house was heated and the unsuspecting Drevlians entered and began to wash themselves. [Olga’s] men closed the bath-house behind them and Olga gave orders to set it on fire from the doors, so that the Drevlians were all burned to death” Incidentally, Olga was the grandmother of the Prince Vladimir who was given Basil II’s sister Ann in marriage in exchange for six thousand Varangian troops and a promise of conversion to Christianity. While the Varangian inhabitants of Constantinople and indeed most of the common native people as well, were unlikely to make use of the extensive cosmetics that highborn women such as Theophana would use, cleanliness was nevertheless highly valued, weakening the popular image of the medieval Scandinavian as dirty and unwashed.

The Abbot of St. Albans write with no little chagrin of the Danes who settled in England that “thanks to their habit of combing their hair every day, of bathing every Saturday and regularly changing their clothes, were able to undermine the virtue of married women and even seduce the daughters of nobles to be their mistresses.” Apparently even Anglo-Saxon women were crazy about a sharp dressed (Danish) man.

In The Serpentine Key, Freydis washes her hair in water scented with lavender flowers and this is a scent that Sven always associates with her:

Freydis placed the basket she had been carrying on the table. It was filled with meadow rue. There was almost little enough room for them both in the small space and she pushed past him, her hair smelling of lavender. If he had not known better, he might have thought he had never left Rodnya. A feeling like longing overcame him, drowning his senses in memories, threatening to make him forget why he was here.

Then as now, cleanliness was appreciated and enjoyed and we see that those who came before us, were perhaps not as smelly as we may have supposed.

Northmen: The Viking Saga AD 794-1241 by John Haywood

Face Paint: The Story of Makeup by Lisa Elridge

Greek Fire – Legendary Incendiary Part One

In The Serpentine Key, the secret to Greek Fire is stolen through the subterfuge of a member of the imperial family itself and used as a bargaining chip in the intrigues surrounding the rebellion against Basil II in the 980s.
Greek Fire was an incendiary weapon, most famously used by the Byzantine Empire from at least the seventh century C.E., eventually being lost to obscurity, some say by the end of the thirteenth century. Greek Fire is most famous for being able to burn on water and reputedly not being able to be extinguished with water. Some even said that water fueled its flames. The only things that could extinguish it were supposedly vinegar and stale urine, both of which were used to infuse cow hides which were then placed over fortress walls and ships to protect them from igniting. This was useful knowledge for those against whom Greek fire was used, including the Rus, Bulgarians, Turks and others. In 814, the Bulgarians captured several barrels of the stuff and 36 siphons, but because of the complex nature of operating the devices, they went unused. In 941, the liquid was used against the Rus with deadly efficacy. Liudprand of Cremona remembered this event when he wrote: “The Rus, seeing the flames, jumped overboard, preferring water to fire. Some sank, weighed down by the weight of their breastplates and helmets; others caught fire.” Those who escaped were captured and executed. The Rus never again attempted to besiege Constantinople, preferring in later years to guard the city in the capacity of the Varangian Guard.

It is telling that this weapon was not called Greek Fire in its own time. Indeed, the Byzantines who thought of themselves as nothing by Roman, would have been insulted by the appellation of Greek, even though it was the language most in the Empire spoke. Instead it was called Roman fire, Kallinikos fire, sea fire, liquid fire and even wild fire, and it is this latter name that George R.R. Martin in his Song of Ice and Fire series chose for the green fire used by the characters in his fantasy.
Greek fire is credited to a Syrian known as Kallinikos or Callinicus. Supposedly, his descendants, a family by the name of Lampros, were responsible for guarding the secret. This story in itself is controversial. The name Lampros means “Brilliant” Was this a cover for the people who were in charge of keeping it secret? It has been said the the secret was never written down, but was given into the care of three alchemists who each knew a portion of the formula, but not all of it, so that it could not be stolen. Were these alchemists of the Lampros family? Or were they members of a family at all, but actually more of a secret organization charged with the security of the Byzantine Empire?

Incendiary weapons were hardly new to the scene when Kallinikos came along. They are depicted as being used by the Assyrians and are mentioned numerous times in historical records. So what made Greek Fire so special? There were a lot of people who wanted to get their hands on it and the Byzantines would do a lot to keep it out of the hands of their enemies. It was said that on his deathbed, Romanos II, charged his son (Basil II’s father) to never deliver the secret to the enemies of the empire, declaring the weapon to be a gift from the angels and “not to prepare this fire but for Christians, and only in the imperial city”. In addition to the alchemists who compounded the secret formula, there was also the task of constructing the siphons through which the liquid was propelled at other ships. Furthermore, the men who operated the siphons needed to be trained to effectively operate them. The siphons would likely have been a device in which the liquid was heated in a sort of covered cauldron, whereupon it would have been forced through a siphon that was pumped, giving it the necessary pressure to effectively spray the heated liquid over a good distance with deadly effect. Those operating this system would likely have needed some sort of protective covering, perhaps leather garments soaked in vinegar or stale urine.