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At the Veuve Clicquot Award I learnt that Madame Clicquot was widowed very young and inherited rich wine cellars which it was DANGEROUS to enter, owing to the shards of exploding champagne bottles, so that the wine vaults could only be visited…

At the Veuve Clicquot Award I learnt that Madame Clicquot was widowed very young and inherited rich wine cellars which it was DANGEROUS to enter, owing to the shards of exploding champagne bottles, so that the wine vaults could only be visited in special protective suits, against the explosions. Sounds

Archaeology · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Mores · Humour

Leather shoes of Henry VIII's era in Holbein's portrait and in museum collections

In Holbein's portrait, Henry VIII is wearing some seriously cool white leather loafers. This type of footwear was popular in Renaissance England, and such slippers became widespread in court circles precisely in the early sixteenth century, though they had to compete with another fashionable model, the heeled shoe.

NB! · Aristocracy · Cinema · Monarchies · Mores · People · Humour

And yes, the ancestor of Kit Harington, who played Jon Snow in "Game of Thrones", a poet and courtier of the sixteenth century, Sir John Harington, invented the first flushing lavatory for the aged Queen Elizabeth I

Books · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

Sir John Harington's joke, which he played on James VI

Sir John Harington's joke, which he played on James VI. At least, so it is recorded in the book by the admirable Christina Larner, a historian and one of the first to take up the subject of witchcraft. The court poet, incidentally an ancestor of our beloved Kit

Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · People

Catherine de' Medici left 400,000 écus to her servants, from doctors to maids of honour

Catherine de' Medici, hated by many and regarded as a spiteful, heartless schemer and a royal mischief-maker, spent her last minutes drawing up her will. It is even said that the will took so long that her son had to finish dictating his mother's last wishes

Archive · Books · Monarchies · Mores · People

To put it mildly, the people and the court received the news of Catherine de' Medici's death with mixed feelings

To put it mildly, the people and the court received the news of Catherine de' Medici's death with mixed feelings. Here are a few interesting remarks about the poor old lady. “There were those who said all sorts of things about her death, and even about poison.

Faith · Monarchies · Mores · People

Catherine de’ Medici, the predictions of Nostradamus and the circumstances of her death

In the Year When in France One Eye Shall Rule, Great Turmoil Shall Come upon the Court, the Grandee of Blois Shall Slay His Friend, and Misfortune and Doubt Shall Beset the King. By the end of the sixteenth century, the obsession with the predictions of Nostradamus had reached such

Art · Monarchies · Mores · People

The marriage of Maria Josephine of Savoy to the Count of Provence, the future Louis XVIII

Firstly, this is not the most popular portrait of Marie-Joséphine of Savoy, and the woman depicted in it is scarcely recognisable in her other portraits, where she appears as a pomaded slip of a thing in wigs and jewels. Secondly, what do we actually know of this Queen of

Art · Mores · Humour

Egg with soldiers in Europe and in Gottfried von Wedig's still life of 1630

Jot down the recipe: the egg is left to stand briefly at room temperature, boiled in boiling water for 6 minutes and not a second longer, over a low heat at a gentle simmer, and served with salt and toast cut into thin strips. The dish is called egg and

Archaeology · Cinema · Mores · Rome

As for the leather jerkin in which Maximus the gladiator performs on the arena floor, this is yet another unpardonable stretch on the part of the film's makers: gladiators had no armour to speak of, for the most part they fought quite naked, and only in t

As for the leather jerkin in which Maximus the gladiator performs on the arena floor, this is yet another unpardonable stretch on the part of the film's makers: gladiators had no armour to speak of, for the most part they fought quite naked, and only in the rarest

Cinema · Mores · Ethnography

The gift of a braid in “Carnival Row” and the love symbolism of hair across cultures

The scene of a braid given as a gesture of love is played out in the fantasy series Carnival Row, when the fairy Vignette, played by Cara Delevingne, gives her braid to her beloved Inspector Philo, played by Orlando Bloom. The link between hair and the symbolism of love, however,

Books · London · Science · Mores · Society

From the middle of the eighteenth century, men were increasingly called upon to assist at childbirth in England: physicians with surgical training and specialised instruments were far more effective than midwives versed in folk medicine

From the middle of the eighteenth century, men were increasingly called upon to assist at childbirth in England: physicians with surgical training and specialised instruments were far more effective than midwives versed in folk medicine. But the fashion provoked a public controversy, fuelled all the more by the fact that