Crescent Shadows On-Line Newsletter of the Hudson Valley Pagan Network, Inc.

Have you ever pondered the significance of those voluminous and elaborate garments worn during the Renaissance? I mean besides Louis XIV's suppression of any challenge from the nobility by keeping them perpetually short of cash as they kept up with the fashion at court (and thereby supporting the textile industry).

In fact, the 17th century is referred to in meteorological, biological, and paleoclimatological circles as the Little Ice Age.

There is evidence that polar and mountain glaciers were larger (although not nearly to the extent of the last true ice age about 12,000 years ago). Studies of pollen in sediment cores (usually taken from the ocean and large lakes) and ice core samples from current glaciers indicate that temperate ecosystems (those around our latitude) were populated by trees and plants that preferred cooler climate back when the thrones of England and Scotland were first joined, and James first politicized the Bible.

In the Renaissance day and age, long before the advent of central heating, one kept warm by wearing more cloth; pleating fabric to add warm insulating layers; wrapping the head with intricately twisted hoods. Don't underestimate how well those layers retain body heat and protect you from the chilly fingers of the outside air; and don't neglect the advantage of head coverings.

So the next time you're wilting under your wimple or perspiring in your pantaloons at the summer renaissance faires, remember - life was cooler then. And our current warming trend may be, in part, just to normal fluctuation in the climatological cycle.

- Susan

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Last Updated: September 24, 2002
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