Wednesday, 24 July 2024

The Lost Queen by Carol McGrath (guest post)

 

historical fiction about Crusades

Today I'm thrilled to invite Carol McGrath to my blog. If you're interested in the history of fashion, you're in for a real treat.


The Lost Queen

1191 and the Third Crusade is underway . . .

It is 1191 and King Richard the Lionheart is on crusade to pitch battle against Saladin and liberate the city of Jerusalem and her lands. His mother, the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine and his promised bride, Princess Berengaria of Navarre, make a perilous journey over the Alps in midwinter. They are to rendezvous with Richard in the Sicilian port of Messina.

There are hazards along the way - vicious assassins, marauding pirates, violent storms and a shipwreck. Berengaria is as feisty as her foes and, surviving it all, she and Richard marry in Cyprus. England needs an heir. But first, Richard and his Queen must return home . . .

The Lost Queen is a thrilling medieval story of high adventure, survival, friendship and the enduring love of a Queen for her King.


Acclaim for Carol McGrath's ROSE trilogy:
'Powerful, gripping and beautifully told' KATE FURNIVALL on The Silken Rose
'A tour de force of gripping writing, rich historical detail and complex, fascinating characters' NICOLA CORNICK on The Stone Rose
'A beautifully narrated novel' K J MAITLAND on The Damask Rose


historical fiction about Crusades



Purchase Link - https://tinyurl.com/5n8ab2xv


Author Bio – Following a first degree in English and History, Carol McGrath completed an MA in Creative Writing from The Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast, followed by an MPhil in English from University of London. The Handfasted Wife, first in a trilogy about the royal women of 1066 was shortlisted for the RoNAS in 2014. The Swan-Daughter and The Betrothed Sister complete this highly acclaimed trilogy. Mistress Cromwell, a best-selling historical novel about Elizabeth Cromwell, wife of Henry VIII’s statesman, Thomas Cromwell, was republished by Headline in 2020. The Silken Rose, first in a medieval She-Wolf Queens Trilogy, featuring Ailenor of Provence, saw publication in April 2020. This was followed by The Damask Rose. The Stone Rose was published April 2022. Carol is writing Historical non-fiction as well as fiction. Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England was published in February 2022. The Stolen Crown 2023 and The Lost Queen will be published 18th July 2024. Carol lives in Oxfordshire, England and in Greece.

Find Carol on her website:

www.carolcmcgrath.co.uk.

Follow her on amazon @CarolMcGrath

https://twitter.com/carolmcgrath

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/carol0275/the-handfasted-wife/

https://scribbling-inthemargins.blogspot.com/

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historical fiction about Crusades


And now Carol is talking about all things historical fashion-related. It's an absolutely fascinating topic. 

 

Fashion, fabrics and the Crusades

 

Crusaders brought home new fabrics and costumes from Outremer (the Holy Land) which inspired nobles dwelling in the west to desire similarly rich detailed clothing with complex tailoring and equivalent fine workmanship. This created a demand for eastern fabrics in Europe. Because clothing is perishable, it is difficult to know in great detail how the residents of Outremer dressed. Our information comes from textile and garment fragments, contemporary artistic depictions and literary descriptions. The styles were likely modifications of fashion set in Europe were made to accommodate weather and other conditions in the Holy Land.

 

An English lady in 1190 would wear a headdress, often hat-like and a veil, a waist belt and a woolen, silk or linen gown with a slight train. Noble women and men often wore embroidered leather gloves. Male tunics of the era were patterned with high collars and wide borders at the hem and they wore a long hip belt. Boots were short. Cloaks might be fur-lined and gowns patterned. Mantles were generally fastened at the front. Men favoured long hair and pointed beards.


history of fashion


 

Pilgrims traditionally wore wide-brimmed hats of straw, circular capes with hoods, two-tier tunics and footless hose. A Crusader wore a complete body suit of chain mail under a sleeveless body suit with heraldic decoration, sword and belt. The surcoat was a cloth garment worn over armour. Fighting in the sun wearing metal armour would have been an agony. We can see men in manuscripts, sculpture and seals.


history of fashion, crusaders


 

Women are depicted less frequently in Art relating to the Crusades. They are shown in Western conventional garb when they were. They did not go about completely veiled as did Muslim women. We know this because Muslim sources decry the lack of modesty displayed by Crusading women. European women most likely did wear veils over their faces when outside in order to protect their skin from the sun. They may have worn wide-brimmed hats to caste a protective shadow over their faces. They had clothing made in lighter fabrics. Many fabrics of Outremer were sheer, translucent or semi-transparent. Whilst their clothing was in European style these fabrics could have made European women appear provocative. If they were made from brocade, as during winter, their garments could be transformed into so something more luxurious and extravagant. Generally women adapted their conventional western styles to the climate of the Holy Land wearing looser garments and lighter fabrics.

 

Fabrics favoured in Outremer included silk, cotton, linen, felt wool and cloth woven from goat hair. These included a large number of hybrid fabrics composed of a warp of one kind of yarn and weft of another such as silk and wool, linen or cotton. Some of the finest cloth known to the medieval world originated in the Near East. For example, Egyptian cotton, linen and silk from Damascus were exported through parts of the Levant. Tyre was famous for white-silk and Beirut exported silk and cotton fabrics. Cotton was grown around Acre, Tiberias and Ramla. As for dyes, Crusader States were famous for saffron, turmeric and indigo. Mussels found only off the coast of Tyre provided a rich purple dye. These dyes were used widely and generously in Outremer creating much brighter colours than in the West. Block printing, embroidery, weaving with different colour threads were means of producing patterns for clothing decoration exported from Crusader States.

The vivid colours and fine fabrics must have made the inhabitants of Outremer appear exotic to visitors from the West. There was a proclivity for bathing and the use of sweet scents and perfumes and every day dress that in the West was saved for special occasions. I have aimed to include this sense of female life in Outremer into The Lost Queen. Berengaria and Richard wore fabulous wedding garments described in detail in contemporary source writings and again the clothing the women sourced in Jaffa.


history of fashion


Chez Maximka, historical fiction about Richard I


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