Hawkyns

No problem. I've got some plain belts and sword belts already made up, and I'm bringing leather and supplies to make more. Michael, I've got 4 cutlasses in stock, including the one I just finished with a shell guard and horn grip. Hawkyns

Thanks James!!!! Hawkyns

Good Morning, Beowoulf. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it looks like it may be reprocessed leather, or some very thin splits. Either way, I'm not seeing any natural topgrain, just artificial finish. Let me know what you are looking for in terms of sizes. Width of buckles, length of belt and baldric, etc. I will be bringing tools and raw leather, so I'll be able to work on pieces on site, as well as repairs for people. Hawkyns

At The Sign Of The White Rose will be at the Fort Taylor Pirate Invasion, in the fort. We'll have shirts, slops, coats, belts, baldrics and assorted leather gear. I've also made up some one of a kind cutlasses. So whether you are camped in the fort or staying elsewhere in Key West, come see us and get yourself ready for the festivities! Hawkyns

Diosa- I'll be on for the beef stew and the pig roast. NOT for the chicken (chicken is foul ). Lily- will the gates be open Wednesday night for those of us driving down? That way we can at least get to the parking lot and bathroom. Hawkyns

I think the main difference is that we are comparing two different areas. The research presented is from the colonies, from relatively respectable areas, where there was an operating justice system. I'm more interested in the Port Royal type areas, when the legal system did not function and acceptable behaviour was whatever did not get you killed. I base this on a couple of things. From the few existing pirate codes we have, fighting and stealing from each other was one of the most considered items. If this was not such an issue, why was it so forcefully mentioned in these codes? Second, the pirate rep had to come from somewhere. Calling Port Royal the 'Wickedest Town in the World' was not a mild insult, considering the general attitude of the period. Hurricane, are there any court records from Port Royal? I know most such things were destroyed in the quake, but had any been shipped to other places, Admiralty Courts, Governor General's records, etc.? SOP varies. I know from my study of the ECW that things were very different in England than they were in the colonies. The American Colonies had quite the puritan influence and towns and cities were considerably more staid than similar towns and cities in England. Based on what I've researched of England in the 1640's to 1690's, and what I've read of Port Royal and similar places, I think trying to take behavioural examples from the American Colonies is a bit skewed. Hawkyns

Well, considering that I have seen more than a few of my Yank friends fall over when trying to keep up with the Brits beer consumption........ There is definitely a consideration of how much you are used to drinking and what your tolerance level is. And what do they mean by 'cider'. Frequently, in the US, that refers to unfermented apple juice. There are alcoholic ciders, both then and now, but the modern ones are not as strong as modern Brit ciders. Do we have any clue what the alcohol level of 17th century colonial cider was? And I never see references to scrumpe on this side of the pond. Seems that kind of cider was uncommon to say the least.. Hawkyns

But then you have to consider the general mindset. The people of the time, and especially sailors, had a very different concept of private vs public behaviour. People were used to living on top of each other. Even in the article it quotes sources saying it was quite reasonable for men and women unknown to each other to share beds or to dress in front of each other. Consider also that the woman had a gallon of cider before she was brought to the attention of the authorites. If that cider was anything like the scrump I've had in Somerset, I'm surprised she was still conscious enough to do anything! If we want to consider it in today's terms, what gets reported is only a fraction of what happens, but, depending on your circle of society, much worse may happen but not be considered worth reporting. Think of it this way, what would get the police involved in a Georgetown bar, would not even be noticable at Sturgis. This is getting a bit convoluted, and I'm not sure I'm making my point. Basically, I think we are still looking at this with a bit too much of a modern eye. Of course we can't know all the details of what happened, but when we consider that the late 17th century was a time of licentiousness and excess (in reaction to the previous puritan interregnum), and the reputation that was built from the actions of the pirates and seamen, I think we can reasonably guess that things were pretty wiold in the waterfront taverns. Hawkyns

Interesting stuff. The more I read it, and the more I look at the art provided with it, the more I begin to think that there may have been more truth than satire in some of Hogarth's work. Particularly with the art, some of it is showing exactly the same things. Hawkyns

Thats a good point. My kit has many match burn holes, gun spooge stains, wear stains and the like. I wash my shirt, but the doublet and breeches get washed when it rains or when the bow spray hits it. So a wine stain wouldn't bother me a bit. But there are pirates out there who don't see it the same way. Hell, I've known pirates who have their kit dry cleaned. We need to get together at PIP and see how many others would be interested in a real pirate evening. Not for the faint of heart or the picky. Hawkyns

I think that is one of my big questions out of this whole discussion. How much would people be offended? Not just with wenches getting the girls out, but with drunken behaviour in general? I'm not seeing a lot of answers to that. I think the family friendly issue is also one that needs to be defined. Should the same behaviour be required whether it is 3pm in public hours or 10 pm after the public is gone and the kids should be in bed? I'm not seeing a lot of hard answers to this. We can go round and round on what historical behaviour was, and I'm sure that with the the libraries and scholars here, we can all justify our positions, documentation being sketchy and incomplete as it is. But to go back to the original point of this thread, what should be our limits? How far should we be allowed to go in our own taverns and camps, when the public is not around? Hawkyns

OK, questions. Did he break it down by type of tavern or area? Dockside alehouses vs travellers ordinaries, for instance? Civilised areas like Boston or Philadelphia vs places on the fringe like Port Royal? That sort of divide still exists today- upscale wine bars and biker bars, Central Park and the Lower East Side. Women will still be found in both of them, but not the same type of women. Does he have this lecture avaialble as printed text? I'd really like to see it. Hawkyns

Any indication of population breakdown by profession, Hurricane? Hawkyns

I've got one of the City Waites CDs. I've also got a couple of CDs of period 17th c broadside music. And one more called "Naughty and Bawdy songs of Olde England"- it's actually quite explicit. They were common in the 17th c reenactment camps and we'd sing them at most musters. Not so popular in the pirate world, though. I'll bring my songbooks to PiP. Hopefully we can change some minds about what we should be singing. Hawkyns

Good point. When we are talking about the dockside taverns of Port Royal, Charleston, or Southwark, are we going to find any 'respectable' women? Move uptown to a traveller's inn or hostelry and perhaps. The ladies of the town will entertain each other at each other's homes. The clientel at the boozing kens and alehouses would be of the lowest sort. As the song says (period): He that would an alehouse keep Must have three things in store A chamber with a feather bed, A chimney and a whore (ok, they said hey nonny nonny, but we know what they meant) Hawkyns

Putting aside for the moment the fact that I'm a Royalist officer and this song is treasonous..... Is there documentation that that is the original tune? I know from the mid 18th c as 'Ye Jacobites by Name". Any idea which came first? Never knew Chumbawumba did historic stuff. have to look up more. Hawkyns

No thanks, I prefer English. Hawkyns

We use ground beef now, but Mum used to make it with tinned corned beef, as well. Brown it with onions then add a bit of gravy and some spices. There are commercial shepherd's pie spice packets available. I tend to use a bit of garlic powder, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, salt, and gravy browning. Put it in a loaf tin, add peas or peas and carrots, then top with mashed potatoes. Corn is an abomination and a heresy that should never be used. Dab the top with butter and bake. Hawkyns

Right, I'll stop in at Yale tomorrow and see if I can get a copy of that. Agreed on the singing. There are plenty of period tavern songs that we could be singing, The Trooper Watering His Nag comes to mind, or Back and Sides Go Bare. But we have this twitch that sailors sing chanties, even when most of them date to 19th C whaling. That's a hard one to deal with. Unfortunately, most of the pirate bands out there perpetuate the myth. If it's Irish or about sailing, it must be period, so we'll put it on our CD. Strikes me we need to do some serious reeducation in this regard. I'd love to see someone with a keg of rotgut red heaving it about and making people drink. The vomit and refuse are more of a problem with the site cleanup than anything else, though we have very little refuse that is of a period nature- broken pots, animal bones, etc. And I don't see being able to bring a pig to wander about the site. But beyond that, the biggest problem with period behaviour is the attitude of our own. How many can drop their 21st century ideas of what is 'proper' and go along with, or at least ignore, some of these ideas? How many would squeal and get upset if they got splashed with red wine? How many would complain about raucus singing in the next tent at 3 am? How many would get offended if one of the ladies did parade her charms in an effort to emulate the whores? Like everything else, period behaviour becomes an issue of how much people can put on the perioad attitude with the clothing. Hawkyns

Not sure how typical Port Royal might be, hence the question to Hurricane. From what I've heard, though, it might be analagous to what shows in Hogarths etchings. That's what I want to find out, if it really was that wild. OK, 'splanations. One of the reasons I got into living history was to escape the 21st, then 20th, century. Getting far away from the comfortable, politically correct, family friendly world was the target destination. So my reenactment 'homes' are Carlisle and Southwark in the 1590's; France, as a English Routier in 1453; England, 1643 in the middle of the war, and the low dives of the Eastern Seaboard and the Carib in the GAOP. Basically places that law and respectability do not exist. So when Mission tweaks me about things 'not being real enough', it's 'cause I'm still fighting to find the lowest level of Society and hoping enough comrades will descend with me. Ergo, the obvious interest in this topic and wondering how far people are prepared to go. Hawkyns

Paging Hurricane. Hurricane to the white courtesy phone..... You are our Port Royal expert. Are there any primary source descriptions of the Port Royal taverns and the common behaviour? It's not my area, so my library is lacking. Got to wonder what things were like in the Wickedest City in Christendom. Hawkyns

Sorry, Mission. Every so often somebody hits the big red candy coloured button. But if you know of taverns that look anything like Hogarth's taverns, do let me know. I have the distinct impression, though, if we turned the tavern at PIP into that, half of our own people would complain. Hawkyns

Unfortunately, most of the behaviour pictured, that which was common in the dockside taverns, would not be tolerated, even in our nonpublic, recreated taverns. Sad to say, many (most?) of our brothers and sisters bring their modern hangups and, yes, prudishness, with them when they enter the pirate realm. It's been a long fight of mine to show more of the reality and less of the glorified version of piracy, and reenacting in general. Where are the whores, the drunks, the criminals, when we portray an encampment or town scene? We focus mostly on the idea of pirates as jolly rogues, rebels against conformity, yet we are unable, as a group, to drop the conformity of the 21st century and deal with those subjects that "one does not speak of in polite society". Too damn proper for pirates, we are. Hawkyns