Middle-Tech: Books on Crafts and Skills for Ancient, Medieval, Frontier, and Other Self-Sufficient Characters copyright 1997 by Historical Novelists Center   Through thousands of years, people used the same basic middle-tech skills. There were no factories, stores and markets were confined to the cities, and most people were moderately self-sufficient. Notably, it was in temples and palaces that people fell into specialized jobs of manufacture. The average woman throughout most of history was expected to be able to grind grain, bake bread, brew beer, prepare other foods for storage as well as for eating, milk animals and make cheese or butter, prepare fibres, spin thread, weave cloth, care for the sick, and raise her babies to boot. The average man knew how to herd animals, geld and deliver them, shear, skin, or butcher as needs be, plant crops, care for them and harvest them, build a house and other shelter, and work in stone, leather, and wood. From an ancient Sumerian through a Renaissance Scots crofter, the skills change relatively little. This is a bibliography of handy crafts books on those necessary, widely known skills, so that you don't have sheep-shearing in June, a hide tanned for harness in three days, and the like. It will help you avoid other anachronisms, like a spinning wheel in the Middle Ages. If we seem to emphasize spinning and weaving, it is because women of all stations took part in this activity. In ancient Rome, a citizen's wife was required to do no work whatsoever, except to supervise the household and to spin wool. Through the 1800's, glamourous French court ladies kept a small spinning wheel, inlaid and fancily turned, sitting on a side table, and spun linen as an elegant accomplishment. Rating System for All Bibliographies no mark: have not read, or read long ago YY = good details, but not focused on the period X = poor, possibly misleading; avoid * = passable; may have noticeable gaps or lacks ** = basic and introductory, but accurate *** = good; may have outstanding features **** = outstanding, even if limited in subject *****! = superb; recommended reading; gives unique insights   Andrews, Jack New Edge of the Anvil: A Resource Book for the Blacksmith Skipjack Press, 1997 This is the new version of Edge of the Anvil which you can still find at the library if someone hasn't got it checked out. This is the favorite guide for many modern blacksmiths. T2 Angier, Bradford Skills for Taming the Wilds, a Handbook of Woodcraft Wisdom **** Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, PN, 1967 Hunter-trapper, old-fashioned, high-impact woodsmanship. Includes canoeing and pack animals, telling weather, etc. Very good. Too much today is Sierra Club, "pull out your ecologically safe heating unit," which doesn't tell how anyone before 1970 built cooking units out of saplings. T1 How to Stay Alive in the Woods***** Collier Books, NY, 1956 Written more for the beginning hunter or the suddenly stranded. Plants and animals heavily oriented to Canada. While attempting to be a general survival guide, the sections on desert questions are sporadic and, while not wrong, nowhere near as much as you need (according to a friend who has travelled alone through both the Mojave and the Canadian north woods both). Does not attempt tropical situations, swamp, or anything outside North America. T1 Bealer, Alex W. The Art of Blacksmithing **** Castle; 438 pg, 500 drawings Covers everything with traditional tools (but see Buehr for when they were adopted) and gives techniques for forging armor (see ffoulkes, too), tools, and various other items. T3 Old Ways of Working Wood **** Castle, 255 pgs If you're tired of books on woodworking that start out by discussing which sort of power saw you need, this is a delight, as it details not only the different kinds of tools, but the jobs they are designed to do. Also goes into the behavior of the different common woods and their suitability for different jobs. T3 Brookshier, Frank The Burro**** Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1974 Pleasant to read, photos from all over the world and a certain amount back through time, covering the history of donkey usage, and extending it to glimpse the world around the donkey. Pop rather than technical. Very good for the target reader of this book. T1 Bubel, Mike, and Nancy Bubel and Pam Art Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables **** Storey Books, 1991 Canning was a Napoleonic invention, so before then and even since then on most farms you are going to know how to properly put up the apples, potatoes and cabbages. T2 Buehr, Walter Warrior's Weapons **** Crowell, NY, 1963; illustrated by author Covers primitive smelting in bonfires and clay kilns, early steel and the pragmatic purpose of damascene or sprinkling powdered gems over red-hot blades. T1 Ciba Review The Spinning Wheel **** Basle, December 1939 Reprint and translation of 8 articles on the age and development of the spinning wheel: "Spindle and Distaff as Forerunners of the Spinning Wheel," like all the rest, by W. Born, takes Europe from ancient Egypt through the Renaissance; "The Indian Hand Spinning Wheel and its Migration to East and West"; "The Twisting Mill -- the First Step towards Mechanized Spinning"; "The Spinning Wheel with Flyer Spindle and Treadle Drive"; "Types of the Spinning Wheel" (there are many, often geographically divided); "Spinning in Art"; "Leonardo da Vinci's Ideas on the Mechanization of Spinning." Also, "Historical Gleanings" on silk throwing in England, spinning parties, spinning schools in Scotland, early English money and coins, and a 17th century pictorial laundry board (the original write-on, wipe-off laundry list). The mid-1500's is an important watershed. T1 Dalton, Frank Eugen & Louis C. Swimming Scientifically Taught: A Practical Manual for Young and Old 1912, 1918; Funk & Wagnalls, NY; At Project Gutenberg. This provides you with a lot of variations, whether you swim or not. I no longer assume everyone does. Includes early resuscitation methods, how to swim like a porpoise, and a bunch of tricks your fisherman or mountebank may know. T2 Daly, H. W. Manual of Pack Transportation **** Washington, DC, War Dept., Office of the Quartermaster General,circa 1910 Superb reference, though sometimes a little rough on the animals in the top end of demands. Well, they expect people to get crippled or to die for them, too. In the era before animal humane laws, this will pass without a blink. Davenport, Elsie G. Your Handspinning **** Select Books, 1953; 132 pg, index Great how-to reference, especially if you know nothing on the subject. Covers flax spinning as well as wool. This takes up a lot of most women's lives. T1 Deming, Barbara & Dick Back at the Farm: Raising Livestock on a Small Scale **** Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY, 1982 How-to with a vengeance, including butchering, gelding, etc.; graphic, but feed info is great. T2 Diringer, David The Book Before Printing, Ancient, Medieval and Oriental *****! Dover Publications; 604 pgs When your characters are reading something, WHAT are they reading? A scroll? A book? A clay tablet? This book not only covers European development from Mesopotamian tables through scrolls, codexes and tomes to familiar if handwritten books, but also the development in Africa, Asia, and pre-Columbian America (the Spaniards burnt a lot of native books). Necessary any time the characters are literate. T2 Farnham, Albert Burton Home Tanning and Leather Making Guide: A Book of Information for Those Who Wish to Tan and Make Leather, etc. **** A. R. Harding, Columbus, OH, 1950; available elsewhere still in reprint Dead practical and no-nonsense. Includes proper skinning, green-drying, working rawhide, bark-tanning, etc. T3 ffoulkes, Charles J. The Armourer & His Craft from the XIth to the XVth Century *****! Methuen & Company, Ltd., London, 1912; now from Dover Publications, Inc., NY Excellent! The author appreciates the design of working armor rather than drooling over pretty doodadery, explains design detail, and the work and tools of the armorer. Deals in cuirboilli and jack as well as metallic armor. Excellent appendix of the procedure (incomplete survival) for a judicial armed combat. T1 -- you can't get bad armor myths out of your head too quickl Armour and Weapons ****! Oxford Clarendon press, 1909 Most of the volume is on armour development, as well it might be, including one chapter on horse armour. One chapter only goes to weapons. It's a simple explanation: while you can get all ob-com about details of pommels on swords and the snaggles on polearms, for the most part there is only a limited development of weapons, with variations in size: the sword, the mace, the flail, the spear and lance, the polearm. Here they are considered mostly vis-a-vis their effectiveness against various forms of armour--which in this book strongly considers that of the ordinary man-at-arms, wearing leather or quilted linen, rather than just the knight in iron. Great reference to get away from expensive metallic armour. This is as much as you actually need on the subject of armour. T1 Foster, Edwin W Elementary woodworking *****! Boston : Ginn [c1903] If you're tired of books on woodworking that start out by discussing which sort of power saw you need, this is a delight. Heavily illustrated with engravings and the occasional photo. The whole back half is on lumber trees of North America (yay, descriptions of elms and chestnuts, now hardly seen thanks to Dutch elm disease and chestnut blight), with a bit on the use of the different common woods. Greenhood, David Mapping **** University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1964, var. rev. after; 289 pg, index Unusual chapter on how to draw maps with straight-edge and table outdoors; no surveying necessary. Also, in case you have a cartographer character in the Renaissance or later, how data are gathered and map-drawing properly done. T2 Hargrove, Ely, 1741-1818 Anecdotes of archery; from the earliest ages to the year 1791. Including an account of the most famous archers of ancient and modern times; with some curious particulars in the life of Robert Fitz-Ooth Earl of Huntington, vulgarly called Robin Hood .. **** York; Hargrove, 1792 Anecdotes are invaluable as a source of what might happen in a skill you don't actually practice. Hazard, Willis P. The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual, The Principles and Practice Are Thoroughly Explained, to Enable Every Lady to Ride with Comfort and Elegance London, Whitehead. 1838 This will give you a much earlier version than most of what your ladies need to know about the rider's sidesaddle, one knee forward, but still might help with managing her mount from a cargo seat. Unlike Macdonald, this book is part of a continuous common tradition (and considerably pre-dates 1890). It even includes among its many illos some of the cargo seat. T3 Heath, Ernest Gerald The Grey Goose Wing *** New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, CN, 1971 Excellent history of the bow from earliest times, including discussion of Assyrian compound bows. Goes into the bowyery and fletching. T1 Hochberg, Bette Spin, Span, Spun: Fact and Folklore for Spinners **** self-published, 1979; 66 pg, bibliography, index Treasure trove of trivia. What colours are flax? Where and when do men spin? and so on. Many non-technical items to dress the set. Global, not just European. T1 Hooper, Luther Hand-loom weaving, plain & ornamental *****! London : Pitman, 1920 Includes "The Rudiments of Spinning and Weaving" which is enough to get you set up in jargon. T1 Laubin, Reginald & Gladys American Indian Archery *****! University of Oklahoma Press, 1980 Excellent discussion of bow and arrow styles and materials by practicing bowyer willing to try any material in experiment. Sheds light on European use of horn and sinew. T2 Mason, Bernard S. Woodcraft *** A. S. Barnes & Co., NY, 1939; now from Dover Publications, NY Indian Camp woodcraft, including how to organize evening activities and ceremonies, but the information on wood for structures and fires, how to construct a teepee, etc. are very good. T2 Morfit, Campbell, 1820-1897 The arts of tanning, currying, and leather dressing; theoretically considered in all their details http://www.archive.org/details/artsoftanningcur00julirich Philadelphia, H.C. Baird, 1852 Dead practical and no-nonsense. Based on proper bark-tanning, etc., including what plant parts are good for making tan. For example, he lists-- TANNING JUICES. Catechu, japonica, or cutch: 1. Cake catechu. 2. Pegu catechu. 3. Bengal catechu. 4. Bombay catechu. 5. Gambir. 6. Arecha catechu. Kino. Vegetable fungi: Nut-galls; Chinese galls; Aleppo galls. Tree leaves. Tea: green; black. Flowers and flower tops. Fruits. Seeds and lulls : dividivi; squills; valonia. Woods. Roots: lead wort; filix mas; rhatany; leopard's bane; statice. Barks: cinnamon; birch; chestnut; horse-chestnut; sassafras; larch; hemlock; hazel; beech ; Lombardy poplar ; black thorn ; pomegranate ; ash ; elm ; cinchona; cork-tree; poison oak; sumach; willow; sycamore; tamarisk; winter's; tulip-tree; St. Lucia; wattle . . . before he even gets down to oak, which is the source of "tan-bark" per se. Then he discusses the virtues of snow-melt water versus rain-water...Your tanners can drive strangers to fleeing with tech-talk. While he deals with period industrial machines, he also discusses systems used by American tribes and Mongol Tatars. Perhaps most interesting are the chapters on parchment and vellum. You know how old things are always written on those rather than paper. Monasteries often had a group of brothers producing these for the libraries (requires dead goats skinned, which leaves chevon, goat meat, which roasts and stews deliciously). The chapter on leather bottles is not to be slighted, either. Richards, Matt Deerskins into Buckskins: How to Tan with Natural Materials *****! Backcountry Publications, 1997 Good reference on how to get by with no outside materials. T2 Richardson, M.T. Practical Blacksmithing (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4) **** New York, Richardson, 1889 Covers everything with traditional tools (but see Buehr for when they were adopted) and gives techniques for forging that can be applied to armor (see ffoulkes, too) and weapons, though actually addressing only horseshoes, tools, and various other farm items. If you need more than this thorough tome, you are getting way too technical. Many a smith could tell you much less. Riley, Harvey The Mule, A Treatise on the Breeding, Training, and Uses to Which He May Be Put *****! New York, Dick & Fitzgerald,1867 This book gives real, authentic older attitudes and habits. If anything, rather too enlightened for the Medieval and Renn, but useful and not "your friends in funny clothes," horse version. T2 Do not use this out-of-date stuff on real animals! Sears, George Washington, 1821-1890 Woodcraft after 1885 Welcome to outdoor camping and travelling the old way. Gives clothing and its colours, kind of hatchet to take, a discussion of fishing rods, the effect of black fly bites, building brush shelters, camp cooking, building fires all wrong and its mishaps--the details you need for when it isn't perfect, not the how-to guide that doesn't warn you what will happen if you aren't expert. T1 Silver, Caroline Guide to the Horses of the World *** Secaucus, NJ, Chartwell Books, 1975 Small, compact reference. Very nice paintings of most breeds, including those of Asia, Australia, Africa and South America, but each article is written in such isolation from the others that it seems she has forgotten to give us some overall introduction that would explain some of her historical reference, as to Norfolk Trotters, Narragansett Pacers, the Old Black Horse of England, and other extinct breeds. Perhaps the articles on them were cut. Her introduction is sketchy in this aspect, though very heavy on the prehistoric development of the horse, and includes chapters for the person buying and caring for a horse -- but not really for the non-rider. T2 Simmons, Paula Spinning and Weaving with Wool **** Pacific Search Press, Seattle, Washington, 1977; 221 pg, index Good detail and explanations, descriptions of equipment. Includes building plans for spinning wheels and loom. T2 Sloane, Eric A Museum of Early American Tools **** Wilfred Funk, Inc., NY, 1964 Excellent line drawings of a variety of large and small tools, often in use, often with dimensions. Deals with several crafts including logging, blacksmithing, and cider-making. T1 Solleysel, Jacques de, 1617-1680; Hope, Sir William, trl The compleat horseman : or, perfect farrier : in two parts : part I. discovering the surest marks of the beauty, goodness faults, and imperfections of horses ; the best method of breeding and backing of colts, making their mouths, buying, dieting, and otherwise ordering of horses ; the art of shoeing, with the several sorts of shoes, adapted to the various defects of bad feet, and the preservation of good : the art of riding and managing the great horse, &c. : part II. contains the signs and causes of their diseases, with the true method of curing them **** London : Printed by F.B. for R. Bonwick; trans 1717 Even closer! The original is 1660s, from what I can research. Notice that here there is no mention of driving--roads still sucked--but there is the Great Horse of legend. Note that "great" doesn't always mean "big, tall, hefty," in great horses as well as great men. T2 Streeter, Donald Professional Smithing: Traditional Techniques for Decorative Ironworlk, Whitesmithing, Hardware, Toolmaking, and Locksmithing *****! Astragal Press, 1995 If you need more than this thorough tome, you are getting way too technical. Many a smith could tell you much less. T3 Sunset Books, editors This series for the modern urban-suburban gardener is most useful to you as a guide to when plants flower or fruit, which must be annually replanted, and which will be thriving on a sunny, dry knoll, and which in a shady, moist ditch. Basic Gardening Illustrated ** Lane Publishing Co., Menlo Park, CA; 1975; 80 pg, index Soil improvement, watering considerations, grafting, transplanting, all explained simply without technical elaboration for the beginner, or the dirt farmer whose culture has no theories only rules of thumb. T1 How to Grow Herbs ** Lane Publishing Co., Menlo Park, CA; 1972; 80 pg, index Includes an encyclopedic chapter with descriptions of common or favorite herbs, not all edible. Clear and simple. T1 Vegetable Gardening ** Lane Publishing Co., Menlo Park, CA; 1975; 80 pg, index Good for varieties and limitations of various vegetables -- time from planting to harvest, etc. Clear, good illos. T1 Tunis, Edward Frontier Living **** The World Publishing Company, Cleveland, OH and NY; 1961, 167 pg, index Pen drawings manage to be technically accurate and artistic at once. Text in easy, personal style, accurate on what it covers, which is quite a lot of basic primitive technology. Hits early log cabin settlements, rivermen, Alta California, mountain trappers, weapons, food, milling, shelter, clothes, vehicles, et cetera! T1 Untracht, Oppi Metal Techniques for Craftsmen; A Basic Manual on the Methods of Forming & Decorating, etc. *****! Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1968; index If you can only get one book on light metal crafting, get this one! Very thorough in the basics, an excellent reference for many metals; communicative illos. Includes many hand methods, including working on a charcoal brazier. Many photos of Indian craftsmen who work on the floor so they can use their feet in the processes, a habit common to all ancient workers, often forgotten in our shoe-wearing, chair-sitting, work standing up at a bench, culture. This is how the craftsmen of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc. worked. T2 de Weaselow, M. R. Donkeys: A Practical Guide to Their Management **** Centaur Press Ltd., London, 1967 A good small book on choosing and caring for your donkey, by a professional breeder. T1 Whitaker, Francis The Blacksmith's Cookbook: Recipes in Iron **** With one or two of the other general blacksmithing books, this discussion of formulas for getting just the right metal blend is all you need. T3 Wigginton, Eliot, editor Foxfire series *****! Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, NY The Foxfire series derives from the magazine of Appalachian folkways. Along with interviews and oral autobiographies, there is an invaluable lode of methods of personal technology from a people who until after WW2 lived mostly on a self-sufficient, non-cash basis, indistinguishable from 19th century and earlier ways of life. T1 The Foxfire Book (1971) Moonshining, Preserving Food, Planting by the Signs, quilting, basketry with oak splints. T1 Foxfire 2 (1973) Beekeeping, Spring Wild Plant Foods, Ox Yokes, Wagons and Wheels, Tub (power water) Wheel, Foot-Powered Lathe, "From Raising Sheep to Weaving Cloth," How to Wash Clothes in an Iron Pot, Midwives, et al. T1 Foxfire 3 (1975)Hide Tanning, Cattle Raising, Animal Care, Banjos and Dulcimers, Gourds, Ginseng, Summer and Fall Wild Plant Foods, building a smokehouse, lumber kiln, or butter churn; Apple Butter, Sorghum, Brooms and Brushes. T1 Foxfire 4 (1977) Knife Making, Wood carving, Fiddle Making, Wooden Sleds, Gardening, Trapping, Horse Trading, making pine pitch, Logging, Water Systems, Berry Buckets, Cheese Making, Apple Cider, Bleaching (dried) Apples, Hewing, Cornshuck Chair Seat, Loom (216 years old), Casket Making, Moonshine Still, Ash Hopper, Bending an Ox Bow, Lufa Gourds. T1 Foxfire 5 (1979) Blacksmithing and Iron Working; Gunsmithing (muzzle-loading), Bear-hunting; each article very large. T2 ....and the series continues. Youatt, William & J. S. Skinner The Horse, A New Edition, with Numerous Illustrations Together with a General History of the Horse; a Dissertation with the American Trotting Horse, How Trained and Jockeyed, an Account of His Remarkable Performances; and an Essay with the Ass and the Mule By J. S. Skinner Philadelphia : Henry T. Coates & Co. 1843 This is a classic, which puts all your equine info in one place. Of course, too advanced for earlier ages, but much closer to them than anything written this century. T1 Do not use this out-of-date stuff on real animals! If you want to go back to a specific bibliography, use your browser's Back Up command. Back to Times and Places