Mint Mead

This is documentation that I wrote for an entry in the 1994 Ice Dragon Pentathalon.

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Mint Mead

In searching for a quick mead recipe that did not contain the usual ginger, clove, mace, nutmeg and cinnamon, I found inspiration. I wanted to try something new. It was then that I came into possession of a large amount of fresh mint leaves. Searching through my resources I found the mint was used mead, but I could not find any mention of it being used alone. I could not see why it wouldn't be: there are period non-alcohol drinks made of honey and mint from both Europe and the Middle East. But was there a reason why it wouldn't be used alone in mead? I started with Digby's "Mr. Webbes Meath" recipe to start off with:

Then skim them clean off, and all the froth, or whatever rifeth of the water. Then dissolve in it warm, about one part of honey to six of water: Lave and beat it, till all of the Honey be perfectly dissolved; Then boil it, beginning gentle, till all the scum be risen, and scummed away. It must boil in all about two hours. Half an hour, before you end your boiling, put into it some Rosemary-tops, Thyme, Sweet-marjorame, one Sprig of Minth, in all about half a handful, and as much as all these; in all, about a handful of herbs, and two Ounces of sliced Ginger, and one Ounce of bruised Cinamon. He did use to put in a few Cloves and Mace; But the King did not care for them.

It was nice to see that I was not the only person to tire of cloves and mace in my mead. I did not follow the proportions of the recipe: "one part honey to six of water." While that ratio of honey to water would make mead, it would be drinkable right away. Towards the end of the recipe Digby wrote:

All which will be mellowed ... in the space of a year or two. For this is to be kept so long before it be drunk.

As my plan was for a quick mead, I changed the ratio to 1.4 parts of honey to one part of water. This I did not think too much out of the ordinary, as Digby, writing about the same recipe, said that the brewer himself used an almost one to one ratio of honey to water:

The first of Septemb. 1663. Mr. Webbe came to my House to make some for Me. He took fourty three Gallons of water, and fourty two pounds of Norfolk honey.

Ingredients:

4 Pounds, Clover Honey
3 Pounds, Wildflower Honey
1 Cup, Mint Leaves, chopped fine
5 Gallons, Water
2 Packets, Champagne Yeast

Procedure:

I mixed the honey with one gallon of water and simmered. While the must was simmering, and between skimming the scum off, I steeped the mint leaves in a soup stock ball and made a strong mint tea out of a half gallon of water. When the scum stopped forming on the must, I poured it and the mint tea into the fermenter along with the remaining water. When it cooled I added the yeast.

Primary Fermentation: 1 week
Secondary Fermentation: 1 week
Bottle Aged: 3 1/2 Months

Sources:

Digbie, Sir Kenelme. The Closet of the Eminently Learned Digbie Kt Opened: Whereby is Discovered Several ways for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, &c. together with Excellent Directions for Cookery: As also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c. First edition, London, 1669. Transcribed by Joyce Miller

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Observations from 2015:

I really should brew this mead, again. It was very tasty and got high marks, and nice comments, from the judges. I have discovered since 1994 that the mint works best with a sack or sweet mead. The flavor is nice with a dry mead, but the flavor is kind of ephemeral: on the tongue and forgotten in the next moment. With a sweeter mead, the mint flavor lingers longer. Thinking with 20 years of brewing experience, I wonder if I should make this with a bit of vinegar or wine added to the mead. The acid will crank up the taste buds and allow the drinker to taste more of the flavor of the honey.

See, honey, and the mead that is fermented from it, is pretty much neutral: slightly off from water's pH of 7. This is one of the reasons why mead consumption has dropped since the middle ages. Fermented honey on its own is flat. Wine is acidic and since acids crank up the taste buds, we are able to pick up more of the wine's flavor. The additional flavor, coupled with the aroma, allows the drinker to pick up very subtle tastes. Read the descriptions of wine and you will find descriptions of blackberries, oak, apples, lemons and other things that are not physically present in the wine. Read description of most commercial meads and all you will get is sweet or dry. Most period mead recipes call for other ingredients to offset honey's one dimensional flavor. Read Digby's recipe again: rosemary, thyme, cinnamon, ginger, cloves. These herbs and spices add layers of additional flavors to the mead to offset the blandness of plain honey. 

While there are period recipes for spiced wines, the fast majority of wine produced was made with nothing more than grapes, water and yeast. The high acid content of the wine was enough to heighten the existing flavors so that the drinker could distinguish the subtle flavors of not only the grapes, but the nature of the land that the grapes grew upon. An expert can tell the difference between the grapes from one region and another. Try this experiment: Get a couple of bottles of wine from two different countries, it doesn't matter which ones just as long as they are both white or red wines. Pour a glass from each bottle and set aside. Then pour a second glass from each bottle and mix in some baking soda. Baking soda is a alkaline and will neutralize the acid in the wine. If you get some litmus paper from the Internet, you can balance out the wine's pH. Once you've balanced out the pH, sample each glass and try to tell them apart. Compared to the control samples, the altered wine might as well have been chemically created in a lab. All body and no flavor. Much like plain mead. 

So, herbs, spices, acids such as wine, vinegar or fruit juice and even other sugars such as barley malt can be used to give mead more dimensions in its flavor. 

Scroll Blank - VOID

Scroll Blank - VOID

Description:

Scroll blank of a VOID device in the middle of an initial ‘D’. Inspired by a late 15th Century, Dutch manuscript.  Gouache and ink on Arches 140 pound, hot-pressed, cotton paper. Produced larger than the original (9x13in vs. 5.4x7.4in)

Details of the original image:

Illuminated Manuscript, Duke Albrecht’s Table of Christian Faith (Winter Part), Confession to a pope, Walters Art Museum Ms. W.171, fol. 116v

Shelf mark: W.171

Manuscript: Duke Albrecht’s Table of Christian faith (winter part)

Text title: Tafel van den Kersten ghelove (winterstuc)

Author: As-written name: Dirc van Delf 

Abstract: This illuminated manuscript is a document of the first importance in the history of Dutch manuscript illumination and contains an important medieval Dutch devotional text. The Tafel van den Kersten ghelove is a compendium of Christian knowledge written by a learned Dominican, Dirc van Delf. The text is in two parts, one for winter, one for summer. This manuscript is of the winter part and is incomplete, omitting the prologue and chapters 13, 14, and 35-57. The arms of the Bavarian counts of Holland and the kneeling owner on fol. 1r indicate that this manuscript was the actual copy prepared for the dedicatee of the text, Albrecht of Bavaria, Count of Holland, from the original text of his chaplain, and is therefore to be dated to 1404 at the latest, when Albrecht died. The manuscript contains 165 folios and thirty-five historiated initials. 

Date: 1400-1404 CE

Origin: Utrecht, Netherlands

Form: Book

Genre: Theological
Language: The primary language in this manuscript is Dutch; Flemish.

Support material: Parchment. Fine to medium-weight parchment, well prepared; visible pricking marks 

Extent: Foliation: i+165+i. Modern pencil foliation in upper right corners of rectos (followed here); fifteenth-century foliation at center of top margins of rectos; gap in latter foliation revealing the loss of seven leaves between present folios 24 and 25, which contained chapters 13 and 14 by Daniels’ numeration (evidently preceding his chapter 12 in this manuscript) 

Dimensions: 13.7 cm wide by 18.8 cm high

Written surface: 8.5 cm wide by 11.5 cm high

LayoutColumns: 1

Ruled lines: 24

Lines ruled in brown ink

Contents: fols. 1r - 165v: 

Title: Tafel van den Kersten ghelove (winterstuc) 

Rubric: Van gode vander godheit en vander triniteyt. Primum capittelum.

Incipit: Die prophete micheas seyt wt den monde godes

Text note: References in this description of the text are to Daniels’ edition of 1939 (see bibliography); text lacks the prologue, as well as chapters 13 and 14, and is incomplete at the end, lacking chapters 35-57; order of chapters 23-24 inverted 

Hand note: Written in Gothic bookhand; instructions to the rubricator in tiny noting hand found in columns in the gutter (e.g. fols. 43r, 52v-53r, and 81r); possible second hand found on the last folio of text (fol. 165r) in a more angular version of the same script 

Decoration note: Miniatures by two painters: artist A (fols. 1r-110r) with soft and painterly style, depending very little on outlines and artist B (fols. 112v-156r) using stronger, brighter colors (artist A also illuminated an initial in the four-volume Bible for the Carthusians of Utrecht [Brussels, Bibl. Roy. Mss. 106, 107, 204, and 205]); historiated initials at the opening of each chapter (four for Daniels’ chapter 1) (10-15 lines); thirty-five further large historiated initials; smaller initials in gold or blue with violet or red marginal penwork; bar borders with trefoil foliage of red, blue, and gold springing from the initials into the entire left margin, the vine turning into the top and bottom margins; chapter captions in red; Latin words in text underlined in red; paragraph marks in red or blue; capital letters within the text picked out with red strokes; instructions for rubrics visible in the gutter of the binding in very small lettering; instructions to the illuminator in Dutch in another hand visible at lower margins on fols. 105r and 110r. [1]

Technique:

This project was an attempt to reproduce this beautiful manuscript, [2] only with the device for the Baronial award for the Venerable Order of the Ice Dragon instead of the confessional scene within the initial. I used gouache and ink on paper thather than vellum and period pigments as I am still a novice and have not mastered the basic materials. Working from a high resolution image of the manuscript, I removed the background colors and printed out the image. The design was transferred to the paper by tracing over a light box.

Instead of making an exact copy of the original image’s, I used them as a guide to help me select new colors that would stand out better and highlight the Barony’s award. I painted the ‘D’ green instead of blue to help the black of the device stand out better. The green, along with the black and the gold, also represent the arms of the Rhydderich Hael. I had thought that using blue, the delineation between the initial and background might be lost. To balance the green of the initial, I used red and blue in the leaves. Both the red and the blue were highlighted with white lines similar to the original image. The dragon was the only item to receive lighting and shading treatments.  I started with a light wash to all areas of the dragon, following up, after allowing enough time for the paint to dry, with darker shades. I applied the paint so that if the virtual light source came from the upper, left-hand corner of the page, the darkest shades would fall into the right most corners, producing shadows.

The background of the ‘D’, leaves and the border were painted with gold gouache and outlined with black ink: no highlighting or shading was used. Several layers of gold paint were used to make the objects stand out. The goal was to produce an image that would stand out and be visible when it was displayed in court.

Once the all of the paint had dried, I outlined all of the sections with black ink to make the image stand out.

[1] http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/html/W171/description.html
[2] Provided by The Walters Art Museum’s Flikr page.

References:

Flikr Photostream for Caleb Reynolds.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/calebreynolds/22837942620/in/dateposted/

Flickr Photostream for Walters Art Museum Ms. W.171. https://www.flickr.com/photos/medmss/5448308562

Walters Art Museum: Digitized Walters Manuscripts: Walters Ms. W.171, Duke Albrecht’s Table of Christian faith (winter part). http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/html/W171/description.html

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This scroll blank was made for the A&S competition at Investiture, which I won. Yea!

The nice thing about this manuscript is that I have done scrolls from almost a dozen pages. They are all similar inhabited initials, but the innards can be scooped out and replaced with other images. This one was an award badge. I've done ones with the Royal Arms of Their Highnesses for Prince and Princess's choice at Ice Dragon. I've added people to customize the scroll for a particular person and I've kept the original image. It's all good. The nice thing is this documentation: I've entered a variety of scrolls, from this manuscript, into A&S competitions all using this documentation. I just change the folio number and update my technique to match the image I chose to use. Easy-peazy. 

So, kids, keep your A&S documentation as it can be used over and over again. Thanks to my documentation, I have won two separate A&S: This one at Investiture and one at Lady Mary's a couple of years ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/calebreynolds/8471091955/in/album-72157647364520813/ 

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 4

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 4

This is from MS. Douce 211. It is Cain killing Able. In and of itself, it isn't a bad image. However, context, man. Context. Imagine this being given out at as a service award, with nothing in the text as to what kind of service merited the award. I'm laughing right now, thinking of actually using this image for a Keystone and using vague, mob-like terms for the service done for the Kingdom. "For taking care of problems and making them disappear."

A is for Axes

This is a documentation for a scroll that I made for the 2014 Rhydderich Hael A&S Championship. The scroll was also given to the winner of the thrown weapons championship. 

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Figure 1

Scroll - A is for Axes

Description:

Scroll of a historiated initial A depicting a centaur spearing a man opening psalm 77. Inspired by folio 101r of the 12th century Hunterian Psalter. [1] Also known as the York Psalter. Gouache and ink on Arches 140 pound, hot-pressed, cotton paper. 

Details of the original image:

Vellum, 11½ x 7½, ff. 202, originally ff. 204, beautifully written in one hand (except the last 33 folios, in XIV. Cent. hand), in single cols. of 21 lines (in Kalendar 35 lines), each 8½ x 4¼, ruled and margined with plummet, 13 full-page pictures, one full-page illumination, gilt, historiated or illuminated initials begin the first verse of each Psalm, small gilt initials (ornamented in Ps. xcvi.) begin the second and following verses, no signatures or catchwords, partial foliation, modern (in pencil), the Kalendar is written in black, red, blue and green, cropped, marginalia (first three folios only), fol. sec. Martis. Cents. XII. (and XIV.)

Binding: Millboards, covered crimson morocco, richly gilt-tooled inside margins, edges and sides (lines), panelled back, title (gilt): PSALTERIUM | UETUS | IN MEMBRANIS. Late Cent. XVII.

[For detailed collation see: John Young and P. Henderson Aitken, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of The Hunterian Museum in The University of Glasgow. (Glasgow, 1908), p. 170.]

Although much of the early life of the Psalter remains a mystery, its acquisition by Glasgow University is quite clear. It came as part of William Hunter’s magnificent library in 1807, along with the rest of his wonderful collections. Dr William Hunter (1718-83) was a famous anatomist and physician, and renowned collector of books, manuscripts, coins, medals, paintings, shells, minerals, and anatomical and natural history specimens. Under the terms of his will, his library and other collections remained in London for several years after his death - for the use of his nephew, Dr Matthew Baillie (1761-1823) - and arrived at the University in 1807.

Hunter’s collection of books contains some 10,000 printed books and 650 manuscripts; it forms one of the finest Eighteenth Century libraries to survive intact.  Hunter acquired this volume at the sale of the library of Louis-Jean Gaignat in Paris on 10 April 1769, along with several other books. His French agent, Jean B. Dessain, bought it at the auction on Hunter’s behalf for fifty livres and one sou; it was described in the sale catalogue as a ‘codex pervetustus’ (‘an antiquated book’). Now regarded as the greatest treasure in his library, Hunter was paying three times as much for early printed books at the time. [2]

Technique:

This was the first scroll in my alphabet challenge: twenty-six scrolls featuring inhabited initials; in alphabetical order. It was fitting to start the challenge off with something for the Rhydderich Hael. Thus, this scroll: A is for Axes.

This project was an attempt to reproduce this beautiful manuscript, only with the colors of the Barony of the Rhydderich Hael instead those on the original image. I used gouache and ink on paper rather than vellum and period pigments as I am still a novice and have not mastered the basic materials. Working from a high resolution image of the manuscript, [3] I removed the background colors and printed out the image. The design was transferred to the paper by tracing over a light box. {figure 2} This scroll was made for the 2014 Baronial Champion for thrown weapons. The image was picked as it contained both an axe and a spear. And I really liked the image.

Figure 2

Instead of making an exact copy of the original image, I used it as a guide to help me select new colors that would stand out better and highlight the Barony’s, and Kingdom’s, colors. The human figure is wearing green and black while the centaur is wearing red and white and wielding a shield of green and black. No symbolism was intended, the red and white provided a contrast to the green and black.

Figure 3

The scroll is Arches 100% cotton, 140# hot-press watercolor paper. This scroll is 9x12". I used gouache: Reeves for colors and Holbein for the gold. {figure 3} I went heavy on the gold to give it some texture. For the figures and background, I used a very watered down base coat all over, with three layers over each area; each layer thicker and thus, darker, than the previous one. Once the paint was dry, I added the white work. I have found that with the Reeves gouache, the added white really makes the paint pop, especially the dark paints. I applied the paint so that if the virtual light source came from the upper, left-hand corner of the page, the darkest shades would fall into the right most corners, producing shadows. {figure 4}

Figure 4

The background of the ‘A’, leaves and the border were painted with ultramarine blue gouache and highlighted with white dots: no highlighting or shading was used. Several layers of gold paint were used to make the objects stand out. The goal was to produce an image that would stand out and be visible when it was displayed in court.

Once the all of the paint had dried, I outlined all of the sections with black ink to make the image stand out, then added white ink to the highlights, to give the figures a sense of depth. {figure 5}

Figure 5

The calligraphy is also by my hand, poor as it is. Instead of trying to use the same hand as the original scribe, I used a secretary hand: essentially a neat [4] print using a calligraphy nib. The words were also by myself, picked for the occasion and not inspired by any period source.

Figure 6

[1] Glasgow, University Library, MS. Hunter 229

[2] From the University of Glasgow’s web site: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/detail_c.cfm?ID=34725

[3] Provided by the Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department’s web site: Book of the Month, May 2007, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/may2007.html

[4] Neat for me.

References:

Caballero, Rosario; Díaz Vera, Javier E. Textual Healing: Studies in Medieval English Medical, Scientific and Technical Texts. Peter Lang, 2010

Gibson, Margaret T.; Heslop, T. A.; Pfaff, Richard William. The Eadwine Psalter: Text, Image, and Monastic Culture in Twelfth-century Canterbury. Penn State Press, Jan 1, 1992

Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department’s web site: Book of the Month, May 2007, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/may2007.html

University of Glasgow’s web site: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/detail_c.cfm?ID=34725

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Observations from 2015:

I enjoyed making this scroll and it went to a good friend. High resolution images of my work can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/calebreynolds/13936238212/in/album-72157644141662762/ and https://www.flickr.com/photos/calebreynolds/14086773236/in/album-72157644141662762/.