Welcome to Rumwoldstow

Rumwoldstow is a historic reenactment / living history project based around a fictional Anglo-Saxon monastery dedicated to our local saint Rumwold. At the project’s heart are a cloister, garden and orchard located near Banbury which represent an early tenth century monastery in miniature. We’re setting up a local reenactment group for crafts, living history and roleplaying. If you live nearby and are interested in getting involved, please contact us by email:

info (at) rumwoldstow.org

In our story, Rumwoldstow was refounded in 916 AD on the site of an earlier minster that was sacked by Vikings, perhaps in 914 AD. We are tracking the tenth century against modern years, so 2016 AD corresponds to 916 AD in the story of Rumwoldstow. We plan to build up resources to describe Rumwoldstow and its history, such as a founding charter and monastic rule.

In our story, Rumwoldstow is a monastery of women. The Anglo-Saxons used the word ‘monastery’ or ‘minster’ for for establishments of both men and women; they did not use the word ‘nunnery’. Please note that we welcome people of any gender – there are priests, craftspeople and lay folk as well as nuns at Rumwoldstow. If you’re more interested in the Vikings than Anglo-Saxons, that’s fine too; there was a strong Viking presence in Mercia at this time and it’s very much part of our story.

Latest posts from Rumwoldstow

• A celestial riddle

  I will begin with my riddle, then proceed to spoilers and discussion!

  Confront me, and you will be as Frithuswithe's bane,
  Disarmed and defeated like that unwise thane.
  But I'm your daily guest, jolly and round.
  Under my gaze, warmth and light abound.
  Yet, in a girl's life came one strange hour,
  My blessings dimmed though I was not lower.
  The shadow's eye revealed a wonder
  And a fool's glance confirmed - I was grown slender,
  My body curved like a farmer's sickle,
  Twin to my sister so pale and fickle.
  A prayer restored me, full and ample,
  And soon my sister spread her starry mantle.
  So riddle me this, by Saint Peter's shoon:
  When did the sun become the moon?

  This riddle has two possible answers:

  • 29th October 878 CE
  • 17th June 912 CE

  So what happened on those days, and why did I compose this riddle? You may know that there was a total eclipse of the sun on the 12th of August 2026, with totality visible in Iceland and parts of Europe. Here in Rumwoldstow (just south of Banbury, UK), we saw around 92% occlusion of the sun’s disc, which prompted me to wonder what people in Early Medieval England would have known about eclipses.

  At the time of maximum occlusion, it was very obvious to us that the sun was dimmed but not why. We could see crescent shapes in shadows – e.g. from a colander, or by making a tiny “eye” with your fingers. A friend of mine said she glanced at the sun and had a crescent afterimage for some minutes (do NOT try this for yourself). A welding mask showed a clear crescent.

  But would our nuns have noticed, or known what was happening? The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the dates of various total solar eclipses and at least one that was total in Continental Europe but not England. However I’ve found no evidence that anyone in the UK would have been able to predict an eclipse. And when we experienced a 45% eclipse in 2025, we wouldn’t have known it was happening if we hadn’t been prepared with viewing equipment at the right time.

  Our methods for viewing the 2026 eclipse:

  1. Camera obscura – made in a cardboard box. Worked, but underwhelming.
  2. Welding mask – gave the best view, but didn’t get a good photo
  3. Phone camera – didn’t work. Sun still too bright.
  4. Colander – most fun! Clear projection of solar crescent instead of disc.
  5. “Shadow puppet” – use your fingers to make a tiny hole in your shadow and look at the shadow on a wall or sheet of paper. Also very good fun! Clear projection of solar crescent.
  6. Looking at the sun – accidental glance, no really don’t do this, but a person in the past might well have done this, wondering why the sun was shedding so little light. Did not try it myself, but apparently you get a crescent afterimage.
  7. Reflection in a bowl of water – tried this last year, didn’t get much out of it.

  

  

  Did Anglo-Saxon women have colanders?

  

  This was the prettiest image we got!

  

  

  The colander and shadow methods use the principle of the pinhole camera, where light passing through a small hole projects an inverted image of a scene.

  What might an early medieval woman have used to see the eclipse? Curiously, the Kentish spoons with holes in would likely have been perfect eclipse viewers!

  

  The answers to the riddle explaned

  Let us imagine an old woman in the Rumwoldstow monastery, born in perhaps 867 CE. She could have witnessed a total solar eclipse which was visible in central England in October of 878 (noting that the Anglo Saxon year started in September so the eclipse they recorded against 879 must be that of October 878 CE). This eclipse was total at Worcester, Abingdon, Peterborough and Canterbury, and almost total at Winchester, the attribution of the report:

  A.D. 879. This year went the army from Chippenham to Cirencester, and sat there a year. The same year assembled a band of pirates, and sat at Fulham by the Thames. The same year also the sun was eclipsed one hour of the day.

  There was a later partial eclipse visible from Coventry, so presumably also visible at Rumwoldstow, on 17th June, 912 CE, magnitude 0.813, peaking at 19:06 (just after 7pm). So I’ve based my riddle on this event, assuming that the abbess, Cyneswithe, had seen an eclipse before, and happened to be outdoors on a sunny evening in June (near midsummer, so sunset after 8pm) when this took place. She perhaps glanced at the dimmed sun, and maybe played with shadows to see the crescent of the partially obscured sun! Yes, this is a bit of a stretch. It was a long drive, I had to do something with my brain, so I composed my riddle based on what she could possibly have seen.

  The sun becomes the moon when the moon’s disc hides enough of the sun that you see only a crescent. And it passes in a few minutes – the time taken to speak a prayer or two.

  Frithuswithe’s bane is Alfgar, prince of Leicester, who made a nuisance of himself to her in Oxford and was struck blind for his trouble.

  I took the reference to St Peter’s Shoes from the old song “Martin Said to his Man”:

  I saw the man in the moon
  Sliding down Saint Peter's shoon
  

  This last is likely anachronistic, I haven’t researched it in detail the age of the song or references to Peter’s shoes, but the reference was too apt for me to miss (and I was struggling for rhymes). Forgive me – it’s a long way to Devon!

  References

  Pinhole camera page on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera

  Anglo-Saxon sieve spoon at British Museum: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1995-0102-347_1

  https://ia803103.us.archive.org/0/items/TheAngloSaxonChronicle/TheAngloSaxonChronicle.pdf

  Morrison, L. V., Stephenson, F. R., & Hohenkerk, C. Y. (2022). Accuracy of eclipse records in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Journal for the History of Astronomy, 53(2), 209-216.
  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00218286221097111?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.9

  Nasa calculator to find dates of past eclipses: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/JSEX/JSEX-EU.html

  Saint Frithuswith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frithuswith

  
  

• Spring, bees and cats

  It seems like spring starts earlier every year, it’s the middle of April and the fruit trees are flowering. Damsons, plums and pears have all flowered and are now showing set fruit. The quince is coming into flower. A couple of the apple pippins are flowering; so far only four of the eighty-odd pippins are at that point.

  A local cat has started visiting regularly, she’s very friendly and also runs around climbing on everything, chasing everything and generally Being A Cat.

  The latest excitement was a swarm of bees, which the local beekeepers have moved into a box and then left the bees to themselves for the rest of the day to settle in. The plan is to move the box up to their permanent home just outside the village this evening, once they’ve all settled in for the night.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Baked quince is better

  Last year the quince tree was sad and gave us no quinces, despite having produced a small crop the previous year (about 4). But this year, it grew lots of lovely quinces! I have been distracted this autumn and didn’t manage to harvest most of them, but I did gather a nice basket of them and have been pondering how to cook them. I learned from a friend that there are Greek recipes for meat with quince, which I would like to try, but someone else I met last week said “just cut them into segments and bake them with cinnamon” so I tried that, and om nom nom!

  I cut off the manky bits but didn’t peel them, as advised, cut them into eighths lengthwise and cut out the core. Not peeling them is a big process improvement! A raw quince is very hard and peeling is a lot of work.

  I shoved the fruit in a dish, sprinkled it with cinnamon and distributed a teaspoon or two of honey around. Into the oven at 180 C for about 25 minutes, stirred round halfway through to coat the pieces in the honey.

  Have I adjusted to the taste of quince? I dunno, but when I poached quince in syrup in previous years, it was ok, a bit odd… but I find the baked quince yummy and am really pleased. The cooked peel is perfectly eatable. Another time, I may serve unsweetened quince as a side dish with a meat.

  

  

• Meadowsweet mead

  It is late July and the meadowsweet is in full flower. Many years ago, I made meadowsweet wine and it was good, so now I’m having a go at a mead. I read that:

  …the name is in fact a corruption of the old medieval name “meadesweet”, stemming from the days when the plant was added during the brewing of mead, as a flavouring agent.
  Various parts of the plant have been used medicinally for centuries, primarily for the relief of pain and fever, but other uses have included the treatment of gastrointestinal complaints, including peptic ulceration, and the treatment of diarrhoea. Its anti-inflammatory effects can be accounted for by the fact that all parts of the plant contain several salicylate compounds, including salicylic acid itself. In 1897, when Felix Hoffmann produced acetylsalicylic acid, he used salicin produced from meadowsweet plants. This led to the development of the brand name Aspirin, which was derived from the botanical name at the time for meadowsweet, Spiraea ulmaria.

  https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/opinion/the-anti-inflamatory-properties-of-meadowsweet

  One may hope therefore that this mead will be its own hangover cure.

  However from the same source I note:

  Because of the high levels of salicylates, preparations containing meadowsweet extracts are contraindicated in patients taking warfarin, and also in those already taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Extracts of the plant have been to cause bronchospasm, therefore caution is advised in its use by asthma sufferers.

  …which is kind of important information…oh hear this, ye “it’s natural so of course it’s safe” brigade…

  I foolishly gave away my copy of C J J Berry’s indispensable “First Steps in Winemaking” so I am not working to an exact recipe. I gathered a small basket of open flowers, and have boiled 5 litres of water which is now cooling.

  My next job is to empty 6 jars of local set honey (340 g each, for a total of 2.04 kg) into the pan, and when it’s tepid, add the meadowsweet and yeast. I’ll be using Mangrove Jack’s Mead Yeast, same as I used for the apple and medlar mead that I started back in January of this year (2024 / 924). Yes, for a truly authentic brew I would rely on natural yeasts, but I haven’t the confidence.

  

  

  

• Dinner from the new oven

  Having briefly tested Al’s amazing new wood-fired bread oven, we tried it out more thoroughly a few days later.