iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Borage flower embroidered ca.1615-25. Where the central black anthers form a cone, silver threads remain, but the black silk is lost, degraded by iron in the dye, leaving just a pale brown stain and some holes in the linen ground. Victoria and Albert Museum T.13-1956 #FlowersonFriday

Close up detail of an embroidered flower with five petals of dark and light blue and a central column of dark silver that is now almost black. The flower grows from and is encircled by a twisting gold stem from which springs a green leaf. Above the centre of the flower the off-white linen ground onto which it was stitched is slightly discoloured, and the material pierced by several tiny holes, showing where stitches once passed through the cloth.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Today’s challenge: locate (and cite) the best, earliest possible definition of the thread - gimp, a silk floss core tightly wrapped with contrasting silk floss - that was couched to make this delightful little caterpillar on the circa 1600 Bacton Altar Cloth. #TextileTuesday

A simple embroidered caterpillar or worm in shades of cream and golden yellow, on an off-white ribbed silk fabric with broken strips of silver. Tips of embroidered leaves, mostly cropped out, appear to the right and left of the animal.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Explored All Saints, Brixworth, Northamptonshire, and admired the effort put into carving the mail on this effigy. Probably represents Sir John de Verdun (1299 - 1376) first Baron Verdun, Lord of Brixworth. If only I could see it in its original brightly coloured paint. #MonumentsMonday

Inside an arched stone recess in a church wall, the nearly colourless carved stone effigy of a cross-legged knight lays on a plain stone slab. Both hands grasp the hilt of his sword. His legs have been broken off and battered and his face worn until almost featureless. His head, neck, arms, hands and lower legs are carved in a texture that represents linked metal mail while his torso and thighs are covered with the flowing facsimile of his fabric surcoat.

Detail of the head of the carved stone effigy of a knight as viewed from above his left shoulder. His head and neck, except his face, is encased in the round linked pattern of a medieval mail coif. A flat band on his forehead encircles his head. His head rests on two battered pillows and the eroded face has lost all human features.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Archaeological artifacts gain context when paired with historical depictions of them in use, and come alive when practitioners recreate and use them. Bone tablets for weaving narrow wares (Roman Britain) and an illuminated detail of a girl weaving with tablets (N Germany c1320-50). #TextileTuesday

A museum display of two Roman weaving tablets made of thin square pieces of bone with four holes, one near each corner. The larger tablet also has an inscribed cross dividing the square into quadrants. Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery

Detail of an illuminated medieval image showing a young girl draped in a cloak working on a narrow woven band on a bow-shaped wooden frame tucked under her left arm. Her left hand manipulates a small stack of square weaving tablets on a gold warp while her right hand holds a weaving sword for beating the weft into the warp. From Sermologium, produced in northern Germany c 1320-50 showing scenes from the life of the Virgin. Bodleian Library MS. Douce 185 f. 35v, University of Oxford. https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/43f84a7d-2160-4cfc-9e68-c3981788a4f6/surfaces/b2dede3e-49fb-4c3f-91cd-84c000bb829d/

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Modern artists recreating historic textiles set themselves impossible goals, like trying to find washable inks to wipe away the patterns drawn on to guide embroidery. They didn’t do it - why should we? Detail of an early 17th century English jacket at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An embroidered butterfly-like insect in yellows, greys, and browns flies between loops of elaborate, shiny gold metal stitching arranged in a coiling vine pattern. The threads making its lower body are missing, revealing the outline of the pattern that had been drawn onto the linen, and empty stitch holes. To its lower right, a borage flower embroidered in shades of blue and white grows from one of the looping golden vines, but its black flower centre is missing, again revealing ink lines. Bits of other embroidered leaves, flowers, and fruits are also visible in a wide range of colours. Embroidered jacket object number 23.170.1, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

This #SaintGeorge with the family of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York is a missed opportunity. Nothing wrong with the saint and dragon–that’s dramatic enough–but the utterly generic, stylised royal family in formulaic fashion saddens me; I want detailed portraits and contemporary clothing. 1/2

In a landscape with fantastic castles in the background, Saint George on horseback attacks the flying dragon before Princess Cleodolinde, who holds a lamb. In the foreground are two tents with an angel holding open the flaps. Before the tents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York kneel facing each other with their children, sons behind Henry and daughters behind Elizabeth. https://www.rct.uk/collection/401228/the-family-of-henry-vii-with-st-george-and-the-dragon

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I travelled Shropshire last week absorbing springtime to the rhythm of this Robert Frost poem: Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

The first new leaves and flowers burst forth from the twig of a maple tree, a bright yellow-green in the sunshine.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Admired the carved beams of this gable helpfully dated 1570, now in the Shrewsbury Museum. The sinusoidal pattern with pairs of leaves above and below, here with grape clusters between the leaves, is also commonly found decorating carved effigies. Was this a carvers pattern or also used on textiles?

A triangle of wood from the gable of an Elizabethan house sits in a museum surrounded by signage. The wood is dark and on two sides carved with decorative leaves, vines and grapes, and the date 1570 below a merchants mark and the letters D and LL for David Lloyd who commissioned the building. Behind the wood are old photos of the building before it was dismantled.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

The kids jousting with hobby horses and pinwheels are absolutely delightful. I love these little treasures preserved in churches, and also the magic of stumbling across them unexpectedly.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

When I go to churches, seems like I take photos of everything. But today I needed a photo of someone wearing a medieval hood, and so this little bedesman from the side of the c.1502 tomb to Richard Croft and Ann Fox in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, just made it into the slide show of my next talk.

A late medieval alabaster carving of a seated man in the hood and gown of a bedesman, holding prayer beads in front of his torso in both hands. He is bearded, likely representing an older person, and his gown hangs in loose folds all the way to his ankles. His left hand has been broken off. The off-white stone is unpainted.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

This delightful door from St Mary’s, Goudhurst, Kent, apparently needed to be rehung to swing the other direction, but not replaced, leaving an artistic shadow from the iron hinges. One of the very first parish churches I visited, February 2013, and still such a happy memory. #ADoorableThursday

An unpainted wooden door with ornate black iron hinges set in the cream-coloured stone of an arched doorway on the outside of a church. The iron hinges are huge, with branching scrolls, and each cover about a quarter of the height of the door. They have clearly been moved from one side of the door to the other, because lighter-coloured wood shows the exact shape of the hinges, but from the left side, while now the hinges are on the right. The overlap of the light wood “shadow hinges” and dark iron real hinges is artistic. The stone surrounding the door is aged and worn, coloured greens and yellows in places by moss and lichens.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Some daffodils for a seasonal #FlowersonFriday, taken three years ago in front of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, following a visit to that and the Queen’s House. Plus a lovely view taken there of the Isle of Dogs, viewed through the twin spires of the Old Royal Naval College.

The branching shadow of a tree falls diagonally across a brightly lit field of daffodils in two shades of yellow.

A bright blue sky full of puffy white clouds over a distant view of a city, taken from an elevated perspective. In the foreground, paved paths, green lawns, and park benches. In the middle ground, grand 17th century architecture made of fine white stone: a pair of domed towers on two symmetrical buildings with gables on the roofs and arcades of columns along the ground. In the background, a cluster of modern skyscrapers visually fills the space between the two 17th century buildings.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Tombs survive for such interesting reasons. Take John Dudley: after he died in 1580, this fine tomb was erected. His widow Elizabeth remarried Thomas Sutton, but when she died in 1602, she too was buried here, in Old St Mary’s, Stoke Newington. That’s not so unusual, asking to be buried 🧵

A large, ornate Elizabethan tomb, finely carved and fully 3-dimensional, primarily in natural creamy stone colour but with parts painted black, red, and around the heraldry, many coloured. The base of the tomb is a large chest with three panels for inscriptions and much decorative moulding. Above this is a shallower portion with inscriptions above and below three figures: a man in armour, kneeling at prayer and facing his wife and daughter, also kneeling. Above this is a fancy gable shape pediment on top of which is carved a large rondel with complex heraldry and an ornate crest.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Is anything more whimsically delightful and anatomically questionable than a medieval elephant? Maybe one with a castle on its back, like this 15th century misericord in Manchester Cathedral. I love how the carver felt compelled to give it horse’s hooves and bat-wing ears. #WoodcarvingWednesday

A medieval wooden carving of an elephant wearing a saddle with a castle complete with central tower and walls on its back, standing between two stylised trees. The wood is a dark red-brown and the elephant's trunk is broken, lost. At the top of the image is the wooden edge of the small seat under which this decoration was carved.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

The mid-15th century silver-gilt Foundress’ Cup from Christ’s College, Cambridge (bequeathed by Margaret Beaufort, though originally made for Eleanor Cobham and Humpfrey, Duke of Gloucester) and its ornate lid, refashioned by the King’s Mother to include the Tudor Rose on top. 1/4

A dark photo of a medieval golden goblet covered with raised ornamentation: grape vines and flowers on the bowl, a crown-like ornament around the foot.

A dark photo of a cone-shaped golden medieval goblet cover. It has similar raised ornamentation to that on the cup: grape vines and flowers on the bowl, a crown-like ornament around the lower edge, and a Tudor rose on the finial on top.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

When I visited Canterbury Cathedral for the first time in 2013, I stared at the ceiling and said “wow”. When I visited in 2019 (as part of a conference) they were restoring the roof and cleaning the ceiling, and I said “wow” much closer up. Still can’t believe I got to do this. #ChurchCrawling

An angled view from the floor of Canterbury Cathedral looking at the Gothic vaulting of the nave. Columns stretch upwards and fan out into decorative geometric designs arching high above the space. Although the photograph mostly captures the ornate stonework, coloured glass is visible in the clerestory windows and the large west window. Dots of colour, mostly red and gold, at the intersections of the arches are all that is perceptible of the decorative roof bosses and heraldry mounted on the ceiling.

View of the clerestory of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral, taken from the west looking east at the height of the top of the columns before the ribs begin to fan out, showing the decorative Gothic architecture arching overhead. Two people stand on scaffolding near the ceiling. The space has been partitioned by erecting a temporary floor during restoration works, brightly lit by fluorescent lights.

Detail of the ceiling of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral showing four stone ribs intersecting and at the meeting point the gold-painted face of a bearded man with a hat, wide eyes, and an open mouth. Cracks in the ribs near the head give evidence of previous repair or replacement.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

When I admired this 17th century cushion in Westwood Manor, a National Trust property in Wiltshire, they tried to tell me it was a pincushion, which it most certainly is not - those are silver spangles held with a single stitch threaded through a tiny bit of silver purl. #TextileTuesday

Detail of an embroidered seventeenth-century cushion covered with flowers and silver spangles showing some of the stems winding through a scattering of small round flat metal disks held on with a stitch through coils of wire. The ground fabric is white silk satin and it is stitched with a range of silk and silver threads in green, pink, red, blue and yellow hues.

An embroidered seventeenth-century decorative cushion covered with flowers and silver spangles. The ground fabric is white silk satin and it is stitched with a range of silk and silver threads in green, pink, red, blue and yellow hues. The flowers include Tudor rose, borage, pansy, cornflower, carnation, and others.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Was seeking the most ridiculous possible medieval hat picture to pair with a #CallForPapers for the Medieval Dress and Textile Society conference ‘Topping it off: dress and textiles above the shoulder’. Found it. www.medats.org.uk/events/cfp-t... #MedievalSky #ManuscriptMonday

Illuminated image of Virtues, from left to right: 1) Faith, dressed as a nun, carrying a church on her head, holds an open book in one hand, a candle ("lumen fidei") in the other; 2) Hope, a young girl wearing a conical hat, carrying a ship on her head, holds a spade and three sickles in one hand, a beehive in the other, at her feet a cage enclosing a bird; 3) Charity, mounted on a fiery furnace, holds a heart in her hand, and is wearing a nest with the mystical pelican; 4) Temperance, wearing a clock, her mouth clamped by a bridle, wears glasses, and her feet rest in balance on the roof of a mill; 5) Justice, mounted on a bed, a scale at her waist, a sword balanced on the point; 6) Prudence holds a sieve and a mirror, she is protected by a shield decorated with the instruments of the Passion; 7) Strength, raised on a press, is topped with an anvil, she strangles a dragon which had insinuated itself into a tower.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Detail of a 1471 window from Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, York. The Holy Trinity blesses the Virgin, but her head is replaced with that of a donor figure. Her body faces us, hair falling over her shoulders, while her head looks to the right, hair hidden under cauls and a veil. #StainedGlassSunday

Late medieval stained glass window depicting the Holy Trinity, crowned with radiant halos and wearing red cloaks, hands raised toward a seated figure in front of them, the Virgin Mary. She wears a red gown and white mantle with gold decorations, but the head is out of place, a duller grey colour and not original to the scene. The background is of highly ornamented Gothic architecture worked mostly in white with black outlines and gold accents.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

I haven’t been inside St Edmund, Holme Pierrepont, though I would like to - there are alabaster effigies and a brass that I have not photographed - but one stormy evening I did catch this atmospheric shot from the gardens of the adjacent hall. #SteepleSaturday

A cloudy evening sky over a medieval stone church with a tall steeple, the steeple in shadow but the wall and window tracery on the east end lit by floodlights. An old brick wall, similarly lit, divides the photograph in half. In the foreground, low box hedges are planted in the style of an early modern knotwork garden, accompanied by vines and bushes along the walls, herbs and flowers in the open spaces of the knotwork, and at the right edge of the photo a small sundial on a stone column.

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Reposted by Challe Hudson

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 10/01/2025

Join us on Friday 7 February for the first Society lecture of 2025: 'Dangerous Journeys: Framing Women’s Movement in the Medieval World', with Dr Natasha Hodgson (Nottingham Trent University) bit.ly/4gLj28g. Booking is now open, for in-person & online attendance #Skystorians #medieval

bit.ly

'Dangerous Journeys: Framing women’s movement in the medieval world'

The Royal Historical Society's Medieval Lecture 2025 will be given by Professor Natasha Hodgson (Nottingham Trent University).

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Contemplating #FlowersonFriday in Elizabethan textiles. When were they just pretty patterns, like the quatrefoil in this pillow border, and when did they represent known species? What did they mean to the people who commissioned these textiles and then these tombs? #ChurchMonuments (1/4)

Three dimensional carving in cream-coloured alabaster of a woman in Elizabethan costume, shown from the shoulders up with her head resting on a decoratively carved pillow. She wears a high-necked gown, a ruff set in figure eights, and a French hood that covers her ears. Her hair is arranged in a wavy heart shape around her face. Her nose has been broken off and her face, clothes, pillow and tomb are covered with scratched-in graffiti.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Today’s quest: locate a violet - flower not colour - on a mid 16th to early 17th century English textile or an artistic rendering of fabric. So far: nothing. Plenty of wild pansy flowers, like this detail of the ‘Rainbow’ portrait of Queen Elizabeth I located in Hatfield House, but no violets.

Detail of a painting of a wild pansy flower worked with purple, white and yellow petals and green and gold stems, leaves, and flower bud against a white background. Around the edges, additional tendrils of gold details from other motifs and an angled area of golden orange colour (another layer of textile in the painting) at the lower right.

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Reposted by Challe Hudson

AltYellostoneNatPar @altyellonatpark.org · 04/01/2025

The censorship algorithm on Twitter reduced our audience by roughly 95%, and seriously, who does that to a wildlife biology & advocacy group ? So we moved 😇 over here to BlueSky If you could, please help us regain our following Follow Retweet and Repeat ;-) Together we can change the world.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Contemplating the idea that the holidays are “over” and we should “return to normal work” with the same sceptical energy as this tiny eared owl. Book of Flower Studies by the Master of Claude de France c. 1510-15, photo provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art #ManuscriptMonday

A late medieval illumination of an eared owl painted in shades of brown on a cream background, standing on a light green succulent plant with hints of pink. It looks toward the viewer with human-like eyes and a steady gaze.

A late medieval illumination of hens and chicks, a kind of succulent plant, in bloom. It is painted in shades of light green with hints of pink on a cream background. An unnaturally small eared owl worked in shades of brown stands on the plant, looking toward the viewer.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

I love this so much, I even have a t-shirt with the three joined rabbits motif on it.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

I pulled this image for #FlowersonFriday, intending to muse over whether the pack animal was dining on thistle, but I became stumped describing the animal itself. I think it is a cow - cloven hooves, rounded ears, tufted tail - but it doesn't have the horns or bulky body that I expect. 1/4

Off-white stone relief carving from a fireplace mantle with moulding above and below a scene of a loaded pack animal, likely a cow without horns, eating a flower below a large bird perched on a disconnected branch. To the right of the scene is a fruiting tree, and other small flowers are scattered below the cow and to the right of the tree.

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Reposted by Challe Hudson

Dr Lacey Bonar Hull @laceybonarhull.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

This is the oldest surviving crown known to have been worn by royalty in medieval England 👑 First worn by Anne of Bohemia & then by Blanche of England, this crown saw the overthrow & deposition of one king, the rise & rule of another, & the marriage of an English princess🧵 1/

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

May you ring out the old year in style - spend New Year’s Eve partying like it’s 1399! Or stay home in your nightclothes, if you prefer. Dream sphinx won’t judge. 14th century carved capital, Carlisle Cathedral.

A medieval carving in off-white stone of two figures between decorative foliage, detail of the capital of a column. On the right a man in a medieval hood plays a bowed instrument like a violin, eyes closed and head tilted back. On the left a fantastical creature with the head of a bearded man, the leg of a lion and the wings of an eagle.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

If I cannot remember why I photographed this expressive little wyvern, it must be just that it made me smile, and I wanted to share it with you. Wycliffite Bible, London?, England, around 1390-97. British Library Egerton MS 617 f. 164v #ManuscriptMonday

A medieval illumination of a wyvern, or fantastical beast with two wings and two legs, with a strangely long tongue resembling a leafy vine emerging from its mouth. The beast is worked in blue, red, pink, white and green paints against a background “shadow” or partial outline of shiny gold leaf. Most of the page is off-white but the wyvern appears at the lower left corner of a decorative frame painted in the same hues, above which appears a line and a half of calligraphy.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

If you enjoy looking at details down to the level of examining stitches, you are going to love this new interactive view of the Bayeux Tapestry.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Got nothing to do Monday evening (Europe) or afternoon (North America)? Now you do! Join this online talk about windows to puzzle over architectural details you probably never stopped to study before, but certainly will after you learn about them.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

17th c. coats of arms make delightfully over-the-top stained glass windows. With a reference book and time, I could decipher the blazon, but what about the fruits below and flowers around the shield? Do they have significance, symbolism, reason? St John the Baptist, Penshurst, Kent. #ChurchCrawling

A stained glass window in many bold colours: gold, red, orange, blue, white, black, green, purple. In the centre is an heraldic shield, quartered, with each quarter subdivided again, sometimes multiple times. Around the shield is a wreath of colourful flowers and greenery, and below it is a Renaissance style “shelf” with two decorative unclothed human figures from the waist up, on which sit quinces and grapes. The floral wreath is topped with a large crown, and below the shelf is an inscription: Anno Domini 1627.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Call the midwife, turn the cattle out to pasture, and sweep the barn, we’ve got guests coming! And for goodness sake, Janice, remember to look under the bed before you put fresh sheets on it this time. (Alabaster panel c.1350, Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk)

A medieval carved alabaster panel of the Nativity, off-white with discoloration and cracks as well as tiny traces of black, red, yellow and green paint. Seven human figures, from left to right: a midwife, adjusting the pillows on the bed. Mary, sitting up on the bed, lower body under blankets, with a halo behind her head, holding the Christ Child, who stands on her lap, looking about three years old. Jesus holds something in his right hand, now broken - perhaps bread? - and reaches with his left into the chalice offered by the first of the three kings. The first king uses his right hand to adjust the large crown on his head and the left to hold the chalice. The second king holds a small chest in both hands, and the third king holds a lidded jar in his left hand. The rightmost figure is Joseph, seated, leaning his head on his walking staff. All are dressed in flowing tunics and the adults all have mantles. The first two kings and Joseph are bearded, with downturned mouths, while the third king and the women have pleasantly neutral expressions. From under the bed peep two animal heads, most likely an ox and an ass.

A medieval carved alabaster panel of the Nativity, off-white with discoloration and cracks. At the top left, the hand of a woman adjusting a pillow. Top centre, torso of the seated Mary, holding (top right) the standing Christ Child. All heads have been cropped out of the scene. From under the blankets on Mary’s bed peep two animal heads, most likely an ox and an ass.

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Reposted by Challe Hudson

Dr Jill Whitelock @jillwhitelock.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

A silver leaf. Detail from a crimson velvet binding for a book of sermons from 1596, front and back covers embroidered in silver thread and silk with the arms of Elizabeth I. SSS.24.32 @theulspeccoll.bsky.social @theul.bsky.social

Close-up photograph of an embroidered silver leaf on deep crimson velvet.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

For #FlowersOnFriday, a detail of one of the fantastical #embroidered silk and gold creations found on so many 15th and early 16th century ecclesiastical vestments. This “water flower” once adorned a cope but is now reworked into an altar frontal in the chapel of St John’s College, Oxford. (1/4)

A tall and swirly imaginary flower shape embroidered in shades of light and medium green, cream, and yellow silk with metal threads in silver and gold, with areas occasionally emphasised by black outlines. This is applied to a dark maroon velvet and there is a bit of fringe in shades of maroon, cream, green and purple along the top. Part of a bell motif is visible in the lower right of the photo.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

On the tomb in Albrighton, Shropshire, Frances Giffard (died 1558, wife of Sir John Talbot died 1555) wears different bracelets on each wrist. I can see faint traces of yellow paint and suspect that this part of the effigy was once gilded. A tiny moment of #ChurchCrawling joy. #ChurchMonuments

Detail of a cream coloured stone carving showing two hands clasped in prayer, fingers broken at the tips. A carved ruffle of fabric is around each wrist, and each hand has a different bracelet; the bracelet on the left hand has a wavy inscribed pattern and appears to be made up of multiple long beads or segments with smaller beads between them. The gown underneath shows small ties holding it together in the centre front.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

I was a biology major, but took New Testament History to fill a humanities requirement. In the "what do you already know?" first day quiz I couldn't even correctly name the four gospels.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

The utter whimsy of #Tudor #woodcarving delights me, especially finding this wild, secular art in churches. What is the creature dancing with the pig? Who is frowning at them? What odd shape emerges from the barrel on the right? Are those flowers meant to be real? St Mary, Fawsley, Northamptonshire.

A dark brown, low-relief wood carving with three rectangular panels. The central panel shows a pig standing on its hind legs dancing with a fantastical fish- or dolphin-like creature with flipper forelimbs and legs for hind limbs, and a fat, short, pointed tail. Above them is a frowning face and a flower, below them are curling shapes like stylised flower petals or flames. In the narrower panel to the left a curling vine grows a stylised leaf and three different flowers. In the narrow panel to the right, at the bottom is a barrel, from which emerges a vase-like shape, out of which emerge two scrolling shapes decorated with circles, which enclose an ovoid shape inscribed with a lozenge-shaped.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

I pulled up this photo of the Sudbury Pall, now housed in Ipswich Museum, when looking for details of circa 1500 fringes. I hadn’t noticed before how consistent the fringe colours are across many hearse cloths and vestments I have seen: green, golden yellow, and (often faded) pink. #TextileTuesday

The corner of a worn maroon velvet cloth with curlicues of gold embroidery on it, bordered in light blue woven tape. Along the bottom of the cloth is a messy fringe of threads. The colours of the fringe are woven in sections: golden yellow, medium green, a pale pinkish brown, then golden yellow again. The header of the fringe alternates between the yellow and green colours in a striped pattern.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Visit little museums. They are full of unanticipated delights, like silver spoons with handles that look like a swan’s head and neck. This was buried during the mid to late fifth century in a hoard by the gate of Durovernum Cantiacorum, or Canterbury. My 📷, Canterbury #Roman Museum. #MuseumMonday

Two silver spoons sit on a museum shelf, the one behind out of focus. The one in the foreground has a large, slightly pointed bowl but instead of a straight handle, has an S-shaped handle like the neck of a bird, ending in a decorative head resembling a swan or a duck, complete with texture reminiscent of feathers, a glaring eye, and a flat round bill.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

A window of rearranged glass fragments containing the face of a late 14th or early 15th century woman in a frilled veil. There was probably once a monument here raised to her and her husband or her parents, and this window was part of the commemorative scheme. #StainedGlassSunday #Medieval (1/3)

A stained glass window with a jumble of medieval fragments in shades of clear, black, and gold arranged in a shield shape.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

I can confidently assert that the medieval artisan who painted this never saw a lion and probably hadn’t spent much time around felines of any size, but that didn’t stop them from packing their work with energetically confident character and a generously indecorous blep. #Caturday

A painted glass window, set inside a diamond shape. The primary figure is a yellow, black, and clear medieval caricature of a lion’s head viewed from the front, each eye looking outward, mane in wisps above and below, mouth set in a wide grin showing many teeth and a protruding tongue, ears slightly ovoid and almost human like, with a broad human-style nose. A black line of lead, a repair for a crack in the glass, crosses the face, and the rest of the diamond is filled with irregular tiny fragments of medieval painted glass in blues, pale pinks, and golden yellows.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

For #FlowersonFriday, a detail of the Hardwick Hall Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I with iris, lily, pansy, strawberry and other plants worked amongst waterfowl, sea monsters and snakes on her petticoat. Is it an embroidered or painted or imaginary skirt? What do you think?

A close-up detail of a painting. Most of the image is filled with part of a long white skirt, hanging in folds, covered with intricate and colourful motifs such as a three red lilies, two yellow irises, a purple and yellow sea monster with tusks, a green snake with an open mouth, a white swan raising its wings, an orange and yellow butterfly, two pansies, a black and white bird with a neck like a goose and long pink legs, and others. The scale is not realistic; flowers are larger than animals. In the top left corner is a red velvet pillow with a large, complex tassel on the corner. To the right of that, partially cut off by the edge of the image, is a large piece of jewellery with black stones and three large teardrop pearls. A red cord hangs down from this and loops back up.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

I go to churches looking for women so that I can ask: what are you wearing? What are those who raised this memorial telling us about who you were and what you valued? But when I see mothers with twelve children I just think “You poor, exhausted woman. Rest now. You deserve it.” #ChurchCrawling

A golden-yellow monumental brass cut to match the silhouettes of the figures, set into a light brown stone with a ten-line inscription in a Gothic hand engraved on another brass plate beneath it. Cut off at the top of the image is the bottom of a heraldic shield made of darker brass. Above the words, a woman in a long Elizabethan gown kneels at a low table with an open book on it. Her head is covered by a French hood and she has a modest ruff at her neck and wrists. Behind her are first a cluster of seven smaller more-or-less identical sons in long, loose men’s gowns and similar ruffs, and then five small daughters dressed like their mother. All have their hands pressed together in prayer, and all are looking to the left with neutral expressions.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Despite the need to keep light levels low, the way the artifacts at the Mary Rose museum are displayed is fantastic, and the textile finds are incredible. Highly recommend a slow, careful visit. And then visit again after you've had time to absorb the first experience.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Many strange faces peer down from the roof of St Mary de Castro, Leicester, but this jolly jester is my favourite. The south aisle was built in the 16th century - presumably post-Reformation, if they’re mocking mitre-wearing bishops like this - but restored in the 1930s. #ChurchCrawling

A dark coloured wooden carving showing a round comical face with a wide smile, protruding tongue, pronounced eyes and bulging nose with lion-like ears and a hint of a mane. On his head is a bishop’s mitre, decorated all over with more intricately carved detail. The carving us unpainted, the dark colour of very old wood, mounted on slightly lighter colour wooden beams.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

#CFP for 'Topping it off: dress and textiles above the shoulder' an online conference Sunday, 27 April 2025 hosted by The Medieval Dress and Textile Society. Twenty minute papers on #medieval (400-1600 CE) hats, head wraps, hair styling, eyeglasses, jewellery, cosmetics, or related topics sought.

An illuminated painting of a medieval woman (left) and man (right) shown from chest up inside a painted pink frame. The woman has a pink headdress and a tight fitting pink gown that leaves her upper chest bare, with many buttons on the sleeve. She is looking and pointing to the right. The man is wearing a slightly looser pink gown with the red cuff of another garment showing at the wrist. Over this he has a blue cloak closed with two buttons on his right shoulder. He is wearing a pink hood with horizontal white stripes and a blue cap over the hood. The man looking to the right while holding up a white bag as if offering it to someone outside the frame. The expressions on the faces are neutral and their skin tones light; the man has a grey beard.

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Challe Hudson @challehudson.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

A peaceful #angel for Sunday morning, remarkably whole and unbattered considering its age, from the canopy over the tomb of Sir John de Strelley, who died in 1501, and his wife Sanchia Willoughby, who died in 1500. I love that even this tiny figure, only about as tall as my hand, displays details

An angel from the waist up, carved in a light buff coloured stone, holding a long twisting scroll in both hands. His wavy hair flares out around his face, which is set in a peaceful expression. He wears loose Catholic mass vestments. His feathered wings are partially hidden by the large scroll, which is blank. Above and behind his head are three decorative four-petaled flowers in neat square shapes.

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