Fox

I agree that the hat in the picture there looks like a Peter the Great. Regardless of the material I think that shows that the shape isn't too obviously anachronistic, even if the Russian original is mislabelled or whatever. I'm surprised that the PtG is more expensive than the thrum cap, when I last spoke to Ms Buckland she told me the thrum cap was her most expensive hat... Hawkyns, if memory serves there is a reference to thrum hats in Johnson's Anstis chapter. It is used as a wig substitute for the judge in the "trials". I'm pretty sure there's another mention too, but I can't think where off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to read it all just to find it.

First off, if you're looking for good authentic hats then Kirstie Buckland's are fantastic. Monmouth: basic, fine for almost every period. Quite possibly the "cap" which is mentioned in so many period documents. Thrum: IMHO the best hat ever devised for seamen. they're warmer than your average knitted cap, waterproof (to a point), stay on in the wind, and they look fabulous! Dead authentic for pirates, they're mentioned in Johnson's General History. Peter the Great: fantastic for Tudor. Not sure why she calls em "Peter the Great" hats, but she presumably has a reason - and that would make them spot on for period. You might also look at the Hakluyt cap on her page, it's a fairly generic seaman hat.

I'm constantly told here that we can't possibly know what happened in the past, so yes, I think I'll carry on believing that the end of the American Revolution (or the "Colonial Scuffle" as we call it over here) was brought about on English terms. It is after all a long and well known tradition... My screen name, "Foxe" has a very simple origin. It's my off-screen name too. My father had it, and I believe his father too. I only met HIS father a few times when I was very young so I can't be expected to remember his name but it may have been Foxe (or Fox, different branches of the family use different spellings). Prior to that I wasn't alive so I can't say for certain. Over here it means a sly or clever person, or more recently an attractive you lady. I'm fairly sure I'm not one of those...

Royaliste, I believe we left of our own accord and walked out in a dignified manner. I mean, who'd want to stay in a country full of heathens who throw tea in the sea? Royaliste? Funny name for a republican

This is all very educational for me . This side of the pond there isn't that vast chasm there seems to be between the authentic and inauthentic on your side. Partly because (and I mean this in the nicest possible way) the inauthentic over here seem to be a lot less inauthentic than those described on this thread. A big part is perhaps the sites. Over here we have a larger number of genuine sites than in most other countries - for example, in Portsmouth where I live we have HMS Victory(Nelson's flagship); HMS Warrior (the world's first ironclad); the remains of the Mary Rose (Henry VIII's flagship); Southsea castle (1545); Fort Cumberland (1780s); Forts Nelson, Purbrook, Widley, Southwick, Brockhurst Hilsea Lines and Farlington Redoubt (1860s), Portchester Castle (Roman outer bailey, Saxon church, Norman inner bailey and keep) and many more. Over the Solent on the Isle of Wight there's at least half a dozen castles and historic buildings, the same in Southampton which is 15 miles away... the list goes on. My point is that at any of those sites it just wouldn't be fitting to have "fantasy" re-enactments, so even the most inauthentic of groups over here are forced more or less by the nature of the available sites to be more authentic than those described in the US. The end result, as I said, is that there isn't such a gulf between the two. The effect of that smaller divide over here is that most groups attend the larger events together (where numbers are more important than authenticity), and get along fine, each doing their own thing. At the events where authenticity is more of an issue the less authentic groups simply don't get an invite. This means that authentic groups get more events of course - I've turned down two events this week alone for our group, but I know other less authentic groups are struggling for events. I know which side of the authenticity fence I want to be on! 200 pubs? pah, amateurs! How did I get into this? I started out in English civil war re-enactment (now THERE'S a load of pretentious dimwits arguing about nothing if ever I came across any!). A bunch of us with nautical interest talked about doing ECW maritime living history within the society, but the idea was rapidly pooh-poohed by those in control, so instead of gaining a valuable naval arm they forced us to go independent. We started Elizabethan maritime events and rapidly spread to Restoration period as well. Associates in a newly formed pirate group asked us if we'd play navy of the late 17th century to give em someone to fight so the period got steadily later. Then we were asked to provide a naval arm of the Marlburian period groups. When I was curator the Golden Hind the local authorites asked if I would organise a pirate festival for the town, which became the South West Pirate Festival (and has since moved town), so I ended up involved with damn pirates. Personally I tend to stick to the Navy side of re-enacting (there is one group over here specialising in RN of the golden age - us - and one group specialising in marines, opposed to half a dozen pirate groups), though I do make occasional smuggling and privateering expeditions.

You might like to check out the Early Music Shop who have an incredible range of historical instruments with a very high level of authenticity. Also Hobgoblin Music (USA) might be worth a look, they deal in general folk instruments so some of their stuff isn't as authentic as the EMS, but most of it's cheaper! FWIW the instruments being played on top of the capstan in POTC are a fiddle and a concertina.

I see, I go to sleep for a few hours and you all have a long chat without me! First off, this really made me laugh! I am the author of that first quote. I am also the organiser of the South West Pirate Festival, which just happens to be the biggest fantasy pirate event in the whole of the UK! Hurricaine, please don't judge me when you know nothing about me. Josh, get your plane tickets over here, we're doing a cutting out party this year; 2 or 3 boatloads of Royal Navy and Marines trying to capture a pirate schooner... I agree entirely - I'm quite happy to have my photograph taken, but I think there lies an important point relating to this discussion. I strive to be as authentic as I possibly can, but every event I do has to have a certain element of modernity to it, we do after all lilve in the modern world. I therefore don't try to make the public authentic too. Have you tried it? I mean REALLY tried it? I ask because I never have a problem keeping the public enthralled by doing it authentically, and I can assure you that the authentic re-enactors over here keep the public interested for considerably longer than the "fantasy" over here. I have people regularly spending 40 minutes to an hour talking to me about the (authentic) contents of my sea-chest. When they've finished they go on and talk to the next person in my group. The public are becoming far more educated on history than they were 5 years ago and they CAN tell the difference between people doing it right, and people doing it wrong. A final reiteration of an earlier post. My gear has cost me considerably less than I know some people have spent on their fantasy gear. It's as authentic as it can be and I am still instantly recognised as a pirate (even though I rarely portray one). If the circumstances warrant it I can stind there in my authentic gear and say "aaarrggghhh" and all that stuff, but the guy next to me in his non-authentic gear can't come and do proper living history with me. So, why go fantasy? Hurricaine. However long you've been here your personal comments add nothing whatsoever to the discussion. Grow up. Johnson v. Defoe Personally I think the idea that Defoe wrote the General History is laughable, ridiculous (see here for why). However Since some people cling on to the idea so fervently I will confine my comments to: Whoever wrote the General History most of it has been show to be reasonably accurate by subsequent research. Steer clear of the Misson, Tew, Lewis and Cornelius chapters in the second volume if you're striving for historical integrity. The Misson and Tew chapters are almost certainly fabrications, and were almost certainly written by someone else. The Lewis and Cornelius chapters are also believed to be essentially fiction in their content, but it's a harder case to prove. If nothing else though, it's a bloomin good read.

If it were a case of 10% I'd be inclined to agree, but it isn't. Some of the fantasy people I've come across have not one single piece of authentic kit. I'm not talking about the difference between one group having hand sewn costume and another having machine sewn, I'm talking about people being 90-100% inaccurate. My whole point is this - we can get a lot closer to knowing what people were like than anyone here seems to accept. With regards to the great earring debate it seems to me there are two main camps: one camp says"a few people probably wore earrings, but there's really no evidence of it being a fashion so it would be wrong to associate pirates with earrings in any significant way", the other camp says "I don't give a damn about evidence, I'm just gonna assume pirates wore earrings because I'd like to believe they did, and anyway if they didn't why do we think they did then?" That's not historians disagreeing! I don't claim to be 100% authentic, and I don't think anyone should really. What I can say is that in re-enactment terms I know that nothing about my kit is inauthentic, every single piece of it can be shown to be authentic by a verified source. It wasn't at all hard to do that, and it cost me a lot less than what some people I know have spent on their "fantasy" kit. With pirates and seamen of the period we have reams of documentation, dozens of period pictures, surviving items kept in various museums, and immense amounts of archaeological evidence. It just seems that ignoring that evidence is a legitimate way to get away with wearing bad gear. The difference is of course that as there was no uniform there is no definitive answer, there were thousands of different designs of cutlass. What we can say though is that certain things are definitely inauthentic - percussion pistols, 19th century cavalry sabres, stuffed parrots, spandex jump suits... I don't have a problem with people playing Hollywood pirates, I really don't, but I would rather they didn't pretend that they are authentic, and I would really be much happier if they didn't try to tell me that I can't possibly know what is and isn't authentic when I've spent several years of my life dedicated to finding out just that. I don't know how many people here read NQG, but there was an article in it a couple of years back about the differences between ren-faire and living history, looking at the pros and cons of each approach. The end conclusion was that each has its place, and in the right place each can be the best thing, but that they must never be confused for one another. I wrote the article, and I hope that someone remembers it, because it expressed my views far more eloquently than I'm doing now.

*bangs head on desk* I think I have clearly shown from period sources that stripes and checks considerably pre-date the 19th century and ren-faires. If it's just a case of showing that stripes are older than Pirates of Penzance then there's a million sources! (OK, maybe not a million, but pretty close) Corsair, I wondered at first if they might be kilts but I have come to the conclusion that they are not, for the following reasons: a: the men portrayed are supposed to be seamen, and though there were plenty of Scottish seamen the majority of them were lowlanders who probably wouldn't have worn kilts. b: the philabeg or "little kilt", which they look like, did not come into prominence until considerably later. If they were meant to be portrayed in kilts in 1693 they would probably be wearing full plaids. c: they're English, not Scottish. So, all in all I think it's pretty safe to say they're not kilts - they're the wrong people from the wrong place in the wrong time to be wearing kilts. I thus believe them to be either petticoat breeches or aprons.

One of the arguments I keep seeing put forward in one form or another is "how can we possible tell from the few scraps of paper and handful of poorly executed drawings which survive to us from that time?" I think it's really important to say here that the evidence we have is considerably more than that! We have hundreds, even thousands of wills and suchlike surviving to us, listing in great detail exactly what these people owned, we have a fairly decent number of pictures of varying quality from crude woodcuts to fine watercolours, showing common people. The evidence IS there for those who can be bothered to look for it. The argument that fantasy pirates are more recognisable I also disagree with, based on personal experience. I always wear authentic gear whether I'm doing living history or entertainment, and whatever the circumstance I am always instantly recognisable as a pirate, even when I'm not playing one! Heck, I've been accused of being a pirate in my 1650s gear, which looks nothing like "Hollywood" pirate clothing.

Absence of evidence v. Evidence of absence The comments above on absences of evidence hold true, but only to a certain extent. An example I have used before is that since nowhere does Esquemeling mention his grandmother are we to assume he didn't have one? However, absence of evidence where it would be expected could and in my opinion should be considered as evidence of absence. For example, if we look at wills and other documents relating to the possession of common seamen (see the evidence is there!) and see that they include things like "all my thred and needles", "my tobacco", "two buttons", "one ring", "two scales", "one lock and key" etc., and find that they don't mention earrings anywhere then I consider that to be evidence of absence. I've gone through goodness knows how many of them and I've just not seen any suggestion of the widespread wearing of earrings. Also, it's very easy to say that if earrings were common would anyone have bothered recording them? The answer is yes. We know earrings were common in other periods - how do we know? Because people recorded them. Then how do we know about seamen dressing differently, wearing trousers etc.? If earrings were as commonly worn by seamen as trousers were then we could reasonably expect to have some evidence of them. Listen to this argument and tell me if it holds water: Chocalatta North What are they and how often do you see them? Are they authentic to the Golden Age of piracy? Myth Origins All myths have origins, that's true. It is my belief that the myth of pirate-earring-fashions begins in the 1880s. By the mid-late Victorian period we again begin to see evidence of the wearing of earrings by seamen. Many of the long standing "traditions" of the sea go back to that era. Howard Pyle and his contemporaries start to include earrings in their depictions of pirates, and the myth begins. If we look at the other collection of pirate pictures from before that era, the pictures from the General History, the pictures from Charles Ellms' Pirates Own Book, they don't show earrings. The obvious conclusion? Even in the 1830s earrings still weren't associated with pirates, the myth is newer than that.

Like you say, loads of evidence before (patterned fabric remains from the Mary Rose for example), loads of evidence after (contemporary engraving of John Paul Jones springs to mind). Off the top of my head: In 1736 Thomas Powell recorded that he had lost "one pair of thin canvas trowsers, one pair of blew and white striped cotton ditto". John Hutchinson in 1684 bequeathed "two wastecoates, one blue, one coloured"; I'm not sure what "coloured" means but it may mean multi-coloured or patterned. He also left "one paire woollen drawers white and red" Diversifying a bit from stripes to other patterns. The possessions of James Bearcroft, sold at the mast in 1750 (a bit late I know, but it's on top of a big pile of paper on my desk...) after his death included 3 chequered shirts and 8 white ones, which I think shows a significant proportion. Slightly earlier, this 1693 picture shows chequered aprons (or possibly petticoat breeches) I think on the whole it's fairly safe to say that patterned fabrics are authentic for seamen of the golden age.

You mean the thing on the left of the skull? I think it's generally assumed to be a dagger, but I also don't think that's an authentic flag.

Fair enough. I'm talking more specifically about seamen of "European" origin, including the seamen from the colonies. I don't consider that I know enough to comment on Oriental seamen. :) That's exactly the thing, if you're being a Hollywood-type pirate then go for the earrings, the enormous sash, the fur-trimmed hat with massive plume, silver skull medallion on a chain... I'f you're being an authentic pirate then go for the slop breeches, short jacket, small hat etc. Teehee, you said "boobage"... That would be great, but do you really think people would change? Personally, I'm an authenticity freak. A: I don't see the point in doing something half-heartedly - I spend a lot of time and money on my kit, so I wan't to make sure that it's right, and B: if you dress as an authentic pirate you can still play a fantasy pirate (my group tends to portray Royal Navy rather than pirates, and though we do it authentically we are still frequently identified as pirates by the public), but if you dress purely fantasy then you can only do that. For the 1690-1730ish period you come across chains most commonly, but even so they're not that common. Also, it's very difficult to tell whether they are chains being worn, or just kept as something of value. It's also difficult to tell whether they are necklace type chains or watch type chains or a mixture or what. The next most common thing I suppose is probably rings, though again it's difficult (OK mostly impossible) to tell if they are being worn or just kept as valuable items. I don't know whether you'd count them as adornment, but one of the valuable things mentioned more often than chains or rings of course is buckles.

GoF, that's exactly the point I was trying to make, you did it so much better! If you're part of a group portraying pirates and trying to do so accurately that's very different from being an individual trying to portray a pirate. If you have one person in a group of say 20 wearing an earring that's fine, it shows that the odd person may have worn them, but that they weren't fashionable. As soon as one other person wears them it begins to look like a fashion, which it wasn't. I like the analogy about the Fallschirmjaagers with Stens, though at least your guys were able to show at least ONE person of the time did it! JoshuaRed, although I often pull my hair out (it's not like earring debates are rare!) I am enjoying this one too. I just wish we could move away from the idea that earrings are a long standing nautical tradition. I think that one erroneous idea has clouded too many good points made here. And yes, although I wear an earring or two in "real life" (I believe that's what they call it), and for Tudor re-enactment, I always take them out before a fight.

Yar, the DK mention wasn't personal, it was just a way to differentiate between books which rely on popularly held beliefs and those which rely on evidence. If I'd been talking to people in the UK I'd have said "Ladybird books", but I don't know if you get them in the US? We could, and as soon as someone offers some actual documentation of seamen wearing earrings in the golden age of piracy I will gladly do so. I quite agree, I've never once tried to suggest that the occasional person didn't wear earrings. My point is that it really wasn't a great fashion amongst pirates or any other seamen, and it definitely wasn't a "tradition" of the sea until much later. Now, if you start trying to give reasons for the odd earring then you might have to start providing actual evidence instead of supposition and intuition. Nope, and I'm not for a minute saying that. What I am saying is that I've not seen one single piece of evidence to show one single seafarer wearing an earring in that period. From the reams and reams of paperwork which still survive, the countless shipwrecks of the period, written accounts and stories, the evidence of the lives of thousands of men over a period of half a century, I've not been shown ONE SOLITARY PIECE of evidence of earrings being worn. So, I can't say (and have never said) with any certainty that no pirate wore an earring between the years 1690 and 1730. However, I can say with absolute certainty that it was NOT a fashion, fad, tradition or other, and that any pirate or other seaman wearing an earring would have been rare and probably commented on. There we are, if either of those sites had any actual evidence to support their theories then the other would be redundant, but the fact is that neither of them do. The business about seamen wearing earrings in Elizabeth's reign is what I was talking about earlier: in Elizabethan times earrings were fashionable, so it's not at all surprising to find seamen wearing them - however, if you look at the sources for later periods when earrings were not fashionable you find that seamen have stopped wearing them. The obvious conclusion is that seamen wore earrings because they were fashionable, NOT because they were a seaman's tradition. No, not a big deal. But 5 pirates with earrings would be a big deal. Nothing wrong with that unless you're telling people that your garb is entirely accurate.

The use of red flags can probably be traced back further than that, the Elizabeth Bonaventure, one of the English ships which sailed against the Spanish Armada in 1588, was equipped with several flags and streamers, including a "bluddey flagge"

Accepted by whom? I, for example, don't accept it, and I don't think many people outside Dorling Kindersly do either. I have found several examples of seamen wearing earrings at times when earrings were generally fashionable, and few (none that I can recall in fact) of seamen wearing earrings when they weren't generally fashionable. This leads me to conclude that when seamen wore earrings they did so out of general fashion rather than seamen's tradition. If they were then it would be, but it really doesn't seem that they were. I've been through hundreds of pages of source material (wills, probate lists, court records, records of mast-sales, archeological reports etc)dealing with the possessions of seamen in the 16th-18th centuries only twice have I seen earrings mentioned in connection with seamen of 1680-1730, and even those occasions were almost certainly possessions rather than apparell. Clearly then, it was not part of "the seafaring culture". That's no problem, plenty of records of seamen of the period having parrots, monkeys etc. If you want specifically pirate related then Dampier mentions parrots being kept by pirates in his journals.

My good friend Hiram V. Noodlewhacker, professor of Piratology tells me that there new edition of his seminal work "Rites and Rituals of the Olde Pyrate Brotherhood" will contain as a frontispiece a hitherto unpublished woodcut dating from around 1717. It depicts a pirate wearing an earring, and which definitively proves WHY they were worn. Hanging from the pirate's earring is a seed ring on which the parrot on his shoulder is nibbling. And no, my research doesn't end with the RN. Since in the 17th and 18th centuries there was no such thing as a Naval sailor or a Merchant sailor, they changed ships and employers as often as they wanted, in order to examine the lives and social history of seamen of the period one must take into account all branches of sea service.

I think that's quite possible. With a couple it seems the flags themselves are perfectly authentic, but the attribution of them to certain pirates seems anachronistic. The supposed Christopher Moody flag for example is shown (more or less) in a 1716 flag book as a Barbary corsair flag, and again in the 1730s (though that's probably just cribbing off the earlier source). However, I've not found any attribution of that flag (or any other) to Moody until the 20th century. Stuff like that would lend weight to the pulp-fiction idea, or more likely the pseudo-history of the same period. I ought to say of course that I'm not necessarily the first to question the validity of flags, but I think I'm the first to do it publicly. Just realised how vain I sounded in the last post.

Tis annoying, particularly as a couple of the pages I wrote specifically with that in mind for next time someone asks "did pirates..." The flags is an interesting one, I don't think anyone has ever really questioned the validity of most of the flags in books and on the web before - they're so common that people just accept them. I thought at first that the source for many of them (Avery's, Rackham's, Bonnet's etc) was 19th century - no earlier than 1880 - but I haven't actually found evidence of them outside the 20th century yet, they seem to have been unknown even in 1923. Swooning from the kisses

Criticism with sources I welcome wholeheartedly. One of the problems I had with the site (which is really aimed at those in search of historical truth, but starting from a less scholarly point than most on this board) was how to show strongly enough that I disagree with many points on other websites and in books, without going too far the opposite way myself. With the quartermaster I've really tried to fight the idea that the QM was always second in charge, and it's very difficult to do that while acknowldeging that he sometimes seemed that way. I believe Corsair mentioned the Snelgrave source on the original QM thread, and there's a very important point about it. Correct me if I'm wrong (because it's 1 a.m. here and I'm going from memory so I might well be), but wasn't Snelgrave a captive of Davis, then Cocklyn, then Roberts? Now, I firmly believe that most of the evidence which shows QMs in a position of unexpected power and authority comes from Roberts' crew (as I state on my site), and since the evidence from other crews goes against this (the lack of extra shares etc) I am of the opinion (until someone convinces me otherwise) that QMs in the Roberts "family" of pirates enjoyed a higher status than not only RN and merchant QMs, but also other pirate QMs, possibly because of the proportionally higher number of men they "represented". The statement "the Pirates had all other Officers as usual on board Men of War" is VERY interesting. I wonder how accurate this is? Roberts does seem to have had more officers than most pirates, I wonder how many more exactly...

Thanks everyone! I've found some more evidence toady about the so-called Christopher Moody flag and one of the Roberts flags so I'll be updating the flags page soon. I've actually managed to collect 120 or so genuine identifications of pirate flags which I'll be putting into a pirate flag website as soon as I have the time. In the mean-time, if anyone has any ideas for more bits of pirate mythtory which need publicly exploding I'd love to here about them.

You want MORE names?!?! You're clearly mad sir! {For those who haven't seen the full list the German section Mission posted is one of the shorter ones...}

Mission, I didn't post the whole list because a lot of those names are medieval and renaissance pirates which Marcus contributed. Also, if you brought the list over here you'd only need to bring the first post, including the editorial notes, the rest of the messages would then be redundant. Wartooth, I deleted all the names that were Dutch, those left should all be of German nationality even if their names sound Dutch