Posted By Steven Payne To Facebook Group British Medieval History:

Posted by Steven Payne to Facebook group British Medieval History:

People in the Middle Ages valued sweet smelling breath and bodies, seeing them as desirable, so there is a great deal of evidence from the period of tooth pastes, powders and deodorants. Contrary to the typical Hollywood depiction of medieval peasants with blackened and rotting teeth, the average person had teeth which were in fairly good condition, mainly due to the rarity of sugar in the diet. Most medieval people could not afford sugar and those who could used it sparingly. Archaeological data shows that only 20% of teeth had signs of decay, as opposed to 90% in the early twentieth century. The main dental problem for medieval people was not decay but wear, due to a high content of grit in the main staple, bread. For deodorants, soap was available for the wealthy, but a variety of herbs and other preparations were also used. Soapwort is a plant native to Europe and Asia which, when soaked in water, produces an effective liquid soap. Mint, cloves and thyme were also extensively used by simply rubbing into the skin, and alum (hydrated potassium aluminium sulphate) was an effective deodorant. I am trying to keep to 14th century technology on my pilgrimage to Canterbury, which gives me various options when looking at hygiene. In the middle ages people generally cleaned their teeth by rubbing them and their gums with a rough linen cloth, or the chewed end of a stick. There are various recipes for pastes and powders that could be put on the cloth to help clean the teeth, but I have chosen simple salt to whiten them and to aid fresh breath. I will also be using the stick method, and will be taking along a supply of liquorice root sticks for that purpose. I also have a few blocks of alum, which when rubbed into wet skin has a deodorising effect. Alum, like beeswax, was used extensively in the middle ages for a variety of purposes, also being useful: * in the purification of drinking water as a flocculant * as a styptic to stop bleeding from minor cuts * as a pickling agent to help keep pickles crisp * as a flame retardant * as an ingredient in modelling clay * as an ingredient in cosmetics and skin whiteners * as an ingredient in some brands of toothpaste The photograph shows my wash kit including home made olive oil soap, salt for the teeth, a block of deodorising alum, cloves, a boxwood comb made for me by Peter Crossman of Crossman Crafts and some liquorice root sticks, all on a woollen ‘towel’. Note that the cloves are kept in a ventilated box….this is because insects hate the smell of cloves and so a perforated box will keep them out of my kit and food bag when I am sleeping rough. TIP: If you steep some cloves to obtain the oil and put the liquid around the doors and windows of your house, it keeps spiders and insects out.

One day I'll stop re-starting my blog whenever I forget a password.... BUT OBVIOUSLY NOT TODAY

Look I don't think people are fully getting why Alicent is so hung up on the bastard thing (too be fair the show isn't explaining it very well.)

Alicent is already terrified from her fathers warning that after Visery's dies Rhaenyra may feel the need to kill her step-siblings to secure her line.

Now add in the fact that Rhaenyra's kids are very obviously bastards that she is trying and failing to pass of as legitimately born and Jace as her heir. The prospect of an obvious bastard as a future king on top of a woman as the next ruling queen could further incline the Lords of Westeros to side with Team Green beyond Aegon being male.

This will no doubt cause Rhaenyra to feel extra threatened and more likely to feel the need to secure her throne and line through killing her step-siblings.

All this to say Viserys needs to get his head out of his ass and start seeing the long term situation brewing for his family.

Alicent is definitely not by any means a saint and definitely has done some messed up shit, but she is recieving far too much hate in comparison to the male characters (*cough* Daemon) who have acted faaar worse then her.

POV characters: AFFC

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[agot]

[acok]

[asos]

I spoke about this on twitter, so I will speak about it here as well. I've had issues with making Rhaena and Baela (and Laena) black because I felt that the show very much underutilized them as characters and essentially made the plot devices for Daemon and Rhaenyra without giving them agency outside of those two. In general, their presences are heavily reduced to make them building blocks for the whit characters.

So this issue with Nettles’s arc being given to Rhaena is even more unsettling because these two are both Black women, who deserve their own separate narratives. This thing where they make characters Black only to reduce their plot importance is already insulting enough, but ruining storylines for two Black women is just lazy and disrespectful.

Rhaena deserves her own narrative. She deserves to be the last Targ woman who was able to hatch a dragon egg before Daenerys, her connection to Daenerys is supposed to be prophetical, so let it be. Let her have her own character and her own arc. They are both the mother of dragons, so let's not suddenly forget that. And having a Black woman as the predecessor to that title is important.

Nettles deserves to exist. Don’t erase a Black woman’s whole existence just to lazily slap it on another one who has an established arc. It's important to showcase a non-targ able to actually ride a dragon and tame one and to also show her importance to the Dance. She is a player even if she doesn't have Valaryian blood in her. And she is Black! That is important too.

Black characters shouldn’t be interchangeable, and making a character Black shouldn’t come at the expense of completely ruining the plot or taking away their agency in a narrative sense.