Ghastly Glass (38 page)

The Renaissance was known for each tradesman and every noble dressing according to certain dictates. Fortunately for you, good folk, there are no such strictures. You can dress however you like. But truly, Renaissance fashions are an excellent choice for Halloween wear. You can even decide if you want to be a live peasant or a dead monk.

Here are a few Renaissance fashion terms to get you started:

The term
renaissance
means rebirth. It describes the life-altering changes that took place in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.

One of these changes was the Black Plague, which occurred between 1350 and 1450. The disease killed more than half of the population in Europe in really awful ways. No one, rich or poor, saint or sinner, was spared. People turned away from the church that had no answer to the disease. They left their families and abandoned their lives. Even governments fell during this time as wars and economic depression took their toll on humanity. It wasn’t a pretty picture. But it ushered in a time of bounty and radical free thought that the world had never seen before.

One of the greatest inventions of the Renaissance was the printing press, as I’m sure you’ll agree since you’re reading printed matter at this very moment! Up until this time, books were only in the hands of the rich and the church. The printing press changed all that by putting printed material into the hands of the masses. There was more information than people knew what to do with (kind of like the Internet now), and suddenly, even peasants wanted to learn to read.

Johannes Gutenberg was responsible for all of it. He invented the printing press in 1445. It didn’t take long before everyone wanted more. Almanacs, travel books, romances, and poetry were all being published and sold throughout Europe. It was the beginning of literacy for everyone, not just the few who could afford it.

Exploration changed the way people ate during the Renaissance. Europeans enjoyed precious spices like pepper, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon that weren’t known to their forbearers. So they made cinnamon couscous like this recipe! Enjoy!

Stir sugar and cinnamon into butter. Add almond milk. Pour over couscous. Stir in fruit and nuts. Cool and eat!

 

 

Check out these Ren Faire sites:

 

 

Huzzah! See you at the Faire!

 

 

—Jessie