Award-winning author Suzanne Adair's blog | Author Suzanne Adair

Empress Theodora: Saint, Sinner, or Both?

Posted on October 9, 2018 by suzanneadairOctober 9, 2018

Relevant History welcomes back Mary Reed, who, with Eric Mayer, co-authors the John, Lord Chamberlain, Byzantine mystery series and, writing under the transparent nom de plume Eric Reed, the Grace Baxter mysteries, set in WWII England. An Empire for Ravens, John’s latest adventures, will be published by Poisoned Pen Press in October 2018. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, blog, and author page, and follow her on Twitter.

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The depiction of Empress Theodora in our John, Lord Chamberlain mysteries is based on her character as described in contemporary historian Procopius’ Secret History.

Justinian I ruled the Byzantine Empire from 527 to 565, and once married to him, Theodora was in effect co-ruler and thus in a position help the downtrodden in various ways—and women in particular.

According to late legend she was spinning wool and living a virtuous life when Justinian, heir to the throne via his uncle Emperor Justin I, fell in love with her. We might well speculate how likely it was their paths would cross given their disparate social positions and especially her colourful past.

A notorious act
Theodora had been an actress, regarded as synonymous with prostitution. Procopius mentions her notorious semi-naked act presenting the story of Leda and the Swan, in which trained fowl pecked grain from her groin. Even before that, according to his Secret History, when prepubescent she worked in a brothel servicing customers while “still too young to know the normal relation of man with maid, but consented to the unnatural violence of villainous slaves…” Common gossip had it Theodora worked her way back to Constantinople by prostitution after being cast off by a man named Hecebolus, whom she had accompanied abroad when he became governor of Pentapolis in North Africa.

Procopius is a venomous writer, but there appears to be some truth in his allegations. John of Ephesus was a Monophysite bishop and therefore adhered to the belief Christ had but one nature, a theological distinction causing significant upheaval in the church for years. He would surely would be grateful to Theodora, who provided refuge for a number of his fellow co-religionists, going so far as to hide them in Constantinople’s Hormisdas Palace and extracting a promise from Justinian he would protect them after her death. Nevertheless, John mentions in his Ecclesiastical History that Theodora had a daughter before her marriage, and in his Lives of the Eastern Saints refers to her in an offhand manner as “Theodora who came from the brothel.”

A stumbling block overcome
But love is blind and Justinian wished to marry her. The major stumbling block was it was illegal for an actress and a man of Justinian’s rank to marry. The law had to be changed to get around the difficulty, but the problem was Euphemia, Justin’s wife, was set against such a marriage. She herself had been a slave, purchased by Justin well before he ever had any notion he would rise to be emperor. As empress Euphemia staunchly upheld imperial dignity, and it was not until she was dead that the needed legislation could be passed.

It laid down “…women who had devoted themselves to theatrical performances, and, afterwards having become disgusted with this degraded status, abandoned their infamous occupation and obtained better repute, should have no hope of obtaining any benefit from the Emperor, who had the power to place them in the condition in which they could have remained, if they had never been guilty of dishonorable acts, We, by the present most merciful law, grant them this Imperial benefit under the condition that where, having deserted their evil and disgraceful condition, they embrace a more proper life, and conduct themselves honorably, they shall be permitted to petition Us to grant them Our Divine permission to contract legal marriage when they are unquestionably worthy of it.”

Marriage brings power
Justinian and Theodora were therefore able to marry. As empress Theodora is regarded as having a hand in legislation helping those forced into prostitution, some of them only children or country girls sold by their impoverished parents or lured to the city with fine promises of a better life. It is not unlikely this was so, given both her past and Justinian’s statement that “Having reflected upon all these matters, and discussed them with Our Most August Consort whom God has given Us…We enact the present law,” in this case one forbidding the purchase of office.

Justinian’s law against pandering declared “No one shall carry on the trade of pandering, prostitute women in his house or in public for gratification of the passions, or do any other act to that end.” It commanded guilty parties to leave Constantinople, providing that “if any one hereafter takes a girl against her will and keeps her force in order to make money for himself by meretricious traffic, shall be arrested by the worshipful praetors of this fortunate city and visited with the extremest penalty.”

Help for the downtrodden
Theodora made other efforts to help these unfortunate women. An imperial building on the Asian side of the Bosphorus became a refuge known as Metanoia (repentance), and about five hundred former prostitutes were sent there. Procopius waspishly declares residency was not a matter of choice for these women, and some committed suicide by throwing themselves from a height, but he does not deny Theodora’s role in the matter.

Theodora was involved in other good works such as founding hospices and an orphanage, repairing holy buildings, charitable giving, and so on. These acts are acknowledged by an inscription in the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Istanbul, referring to her as “God-crowned Theodora whose mind is bright with piety, whose toil ever is unsparing efforts to nourish the destitute.” Justinian was just as active in attempts to better the life of his subjects, including judicial reforms and an extensive building programme covering public works, defences, and numerous churches, most notably the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It is worth noting the imperial couple are regarded as saints by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

It appears Theodora’s marriage to Justinian was a true love match. Even Procopius in his History of the Wars admits this to be the case, referring to Justinian’s “extraordinary love” for her. It seems to be the truth, for Justinian did not remarry after Theodora died in 548, although he survived her by seventeen years.

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A big thanks to Mary Reed. She’ll give away an electronic copy (ePub format) of An Empire for Ravens to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.

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Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

Gadigal Land

Posted on September 25, 2018 by suzanneadairSeptember 25, 2018

Relevant History welcomes Patricia Leslie, a Sydney author with a passion for combining alternative history, fantasy, and action into stories that nudge at the boundaries of reality. In Keeper of the Way, Patricia “solves” a mystery over 100 years old: the destruction of the magnificent Garden Palace. “Magic,” Patricia says, “is an ages old fall back when dealing with the unexplainable.” Many of the characters are based on her own family history—and one woman in particular who emigrated from Scotland bringing magical traditions and supernatural links on the long journey to the New World. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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It takes more than a surface look to see the levels of history on display in Sydney. Especially, if you’ve come from a country where an old building could be anywhere from 200 to 700 years, where crumbling ruins dot the landscape and point to a built-history much older, more fraught with intrigue and story than anything you’ll see in Australia. Stories here are layered. From the Gadigal who inhabited the area for thousands of years before the first European ship sailed into the harbour, to the French who weren’t particularly interested in staying, to the English who not only dropped their anchor but stuck a flagpole into the ground and laid claim.

From 1788 onward, people came in droves; willingly, non-willingly, eyes wide open, or blurred with exaggerations, they overwhelmed the native population through sheer-number. Stories and pictures distributed around the colony and to Britain showed a dream-land where native people were marginalised (through stereotype or lack of depiction).

Move forward one hundred years from the arrival of the first fleet, and Gadigal land is built upon, fenced, and controlled; people are ravaged by disease and displacement. Families still camp around the foreshores and fish in the harbour, they travel through and around their homeland now etched with English culture and industry. They haven’t vanished, but for many of the colonial inhabitants of Sydney, they are reduced to newspapers stories, cartoons, and museum collections.

International exhibition in 1879
In February 1878, it was decided that Sydney would host a grand exhibition in a specially built venue. The Royal Agricultural Society was to run the project, but when it became clear the Society didn’t have the capacity for the mammoth task it was taken over by the Premier of New South Wales, Henry Parkes (who’d been itching to get his hands on it). The Colonial Architect, James Barnet, was given instruction to get moving in November 1878. Land from the Governor’s stables (now the Conservatorium of Music) to the Sydney Free Library (on the site of the State / Mitchell Library) was dedicated to the project. Barnet had nine months.

The Australian Museum was approached to loan its ethnological collection to the exhibition. While the curator, Edward Ramsey, collected and organised thousands of items for the display, James Barnet sat at his drawing board and put his vision to paper. His designs would take a step or two beyond his usual grand government buildings as he let his fancies fly with a Victorian Italianate design popular in Australia at that time.

Drawings were completed in January 1879, and John Young, who’d worked on London’s Crystal Palace, Sydney’s General Post Office, and the Prince Alfred Park Exhibition building, was contracted. To facilitate the deadline, Young imported electric lighting to enable the labour force of 1500 men to work around the clock in three shifts. The foundation stone was laid (by Lady Robinson, Honourable Nea Arthur Ada Rose D’Amour) in February, and by 17 September the Exhibition was open, and the first of 20,000 people started filtering through (that was just on opening day). By the time the exhibition closed seven months later, over 1 million people had stepped through the doors.

The Palace’s shining glory was its massive dome: 64 metres high and 30 metres in diameter, it towered over the city and harbour and sheltered an equally majestic bronze statue of Queen Victoria. The statue stood atop a fountain of sandstone, lion heads, and glistening copper lily pads.

The Palace and its related buildings—Fine Art Gallery, Machinery and Agricultural Halls, ten restaurants—took up a land area of 14 hectares. The exhibition halls contained collections showcasing Australia’s industry and agriculture as well as examples of art and industry from around the world, and 2,000 items that represented the Aboriginal and Islander people.

The exhibition halls were filled with massed items from every region and country that could be managed. The ethnological collection of spears, hunting equipment and canoes, while extensive, perpetuated the “savage” stereotype. There seemed to be little interest in sharing other stories of the native population; their culture and religions, relationships with the natural world, or their struggle with the new world imposed upon them.

This was typical of Victorian-age museums. Images of other display halls show this pattern clearly. Looking at the exhibition as a whole, it can be seen that the Ethnographical Hall where the Aboriginal and Islander items were located, showed one end of the progression of “modern” culture in its material evidence of “primitive” in contrast to the Agricultural and Mechanics halls which held the latest in industrial technology.

After the International Exhibition closed, the collections were returned, sold off, or kept in storage. The Australian Museum’s ethnological collection was permanently housed onsite.

The rest of the Palace was converted to offices, galleries, and a concert hall. Stored were government records like the recent census and railway plans (the railway was in the middle of its growth period stretching from the city into regional areas) with the bronzed Queen Victoria perpetually on guard.

The demise of the Garden Palace
At dawn on 22 September 1882, fire ripped through the complex. The magnificent palace, built of Oregon timber and stucco, went up like a bonfire. Queen Victoria was engulfed, the census and railway plans disintegrated, and the 2,000 plus items of the Ethnological collection, their stories still waiting to be told, were turned to ember and ash.

A year after the fire, the Royal Botanic Gardens took over the land, memorial gates were installed, and the Palace faded into history. The current museum’s ethnological collection tells a deeper story.

The recent re-emergence of the Garden Palace in collective memory reminds us of a point in time and history where the British established their control of a country with a veneer of European civilisation that became so entrenched many forgot that they were squatters on a land that did not belong to them.

Sources:
http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/garden-palace
http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/project-32-jonathan-jones
https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/magazine/galleries/garden-palace-fire
https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/garden_palace
http://sydneyarchitecture.com/GON/GON06.htm

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A big thanks to Patricia Leslie! She’ll give away trade paperback or Kindle ebook copy of Keeper of the Way to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery of the paperback is available in Australia and New Zealand only.

Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

Medieval Beasties

Posted on August 29, 2018 by suzanneadairAugust 29, 2018

Relevant History welcomes back Jeri Westerson, author of the Crispin Guest Medieval Noir novels, a series nominated for thirteen national awards, from the Agatha to the Shamus. For her debut urban fantasy series, Booke of the Hidden, Publishers Weekly said, “Readers sad about the ending of Charlaine Harris’s “Midnight, Texas” trilogy will find some consolation in Moody Bog.” The next in the series, Deadly Rising, releases in October. Jeri is twice former president of SoCalMWA and OC SinC, and former vice president of SinC-LA. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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In my latest Crispin Guest Medieval Noir, called The Deepest Grave, my disgraced knight turned detective Crispin and his apprentice Jack, are called upon to investigate the graveyard of a nearby church where the priest claims that he has seen the dead walk. In the book, Crispin speaks of “Revenants” from the Latin, meaning “the returned” specifically from the dead, which implies both vampires and zombies.

Hunting a vampire isn’t easy
Let’s look at some of the historical roots of vamps first. The dead have been walking a long time. Since even before biblical accounts. Long before Bram Stoker penned his bestseller in 1897. Matthew Beresford, author of From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth, notes, “There are clear foundations for the vampire in the ancient world, and it is impossible to prove when the myth first arose. There are suggestions that the vampire was born out of sorcery in ancient Egypt, a demon summoned into this world from some other.” You’ll find the idea of vampires all around the world: Asian vampires, such as the Chinese jiangshi, evil spirits that attack people and drain their life energy; the blood-drinking wrathful deities that appear in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and from ancient Egypt.

Some vampires are said to be able to turn into bats or wolves; others can’t. Some are said not to cast a reflection, others do. Holy water and sunlight are said to repel or kill some vampires, but not others. The one universal characteristic is the draining of blood.

Hunting a vampire isn’t easy. According to one Romanian legend you’ll need a seven-year-old boy and a white horse. The boy should be dressed in white, placed on the horse, and then both set loose in a graveyard at midday. Watch the horse wander around, and wherever the horse stops, that’s a vampire’s grave. Or…there’s just really good grass there.

In Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality, folklorist Paul Barber noted that centuries ago, “Often potential revenants can be identified at birth, usually by some defect, like when a child is born with teeth. Or with an extra nipple (in Romania); or a lack of cartilage in the nose, or a split lower lip (in Russia).

The belief in vampires stems from superstition and mistaken assumptions about postmortem decay. The first recorded accounts of vampires follow a consistent pattern. Some unexplained misfortune befalls a person, family or town—a drought, disease—and then it’s blamed on a vampire.

The solution? Graves were unearthed, and surprised villagers often mistook ordinary decomposition processes for supernatural phenomenon. They assumed that a body would decompose immediately, but if the coffin is well sealed and buried in winter, putrefaction might be delayed by weeks or months; the body shrinks, making it look as if the nails and hair continue to grow. And weirdest of all to medieval people, intestinal decomposition creates bloating which can force blood up into the mouth, making it look like a dead body has recently sucked blood. In certain eastern block countries, they still believe this.

Many people in medieval England thought that corpses of evil or vengeful individuals were capable of “reanimating” in the ground and then rising from their graves to attack or harm or even kill the living. Historical accounts from Britain, Ireland, and Scotland tell of fear of revenants and blood-sucking.

A 12th-century Yorkshire cleric, William of Newburgh, described an evil man, who, escaping from justice, fled the city of York, but then died and rose from his grave. Pursued by a pack of barking dogs, he wandered through courtyards and houses while everyone locked their doors. Finally, the townspeople decided to put an end to the threat by digging up his dead body, mutilating it and burning it. This is Newburgh’s account of what happened when the townspeople opened the grave:

[They] laid bare the corpse, swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood. The young men, however, spurred on by wrath, feared not, and inflicted a wound upon the senseless carcass, out of which incontinently flowed such a stream of blood, that it might have been taken for a leech filled with the blood of many persons…

Zombies in long-deserted medieval Yorkshire village
Now—on to zombies. They are very closely related and can just as easily be called “revenants” as well. We see an emergence in our popular culture of zombies, but it originated from Haitian/African folklore, with the word “Zombi” being of West African origin. A witch doctor turns dead and living people into zombies. The belief in zombies in Haiti and certain places in Africa still persists today, the belief in either reanimating the dead or controlling living people to do their bidding in a perpetually dazed state.

Bringing it back to Europe, scientists from the University of Southampton completed a study of human bones from a long-deserted medieval Yorkshire village, Wharram Percy, and the study strongly suggests that they were from individuals regarded by their peers as revenants. The scientific analysis revealed that the individuals’ skeletal remains had been deliberately mutilated, decapitated and burned shortly after death. It is the first time in Britain that such skeletal evidence of a probable medieval belief in revenancy has been found. The work in Wharram Percy carried out on 11th- to 13th-century human bones is particularly important because it appears to confirm historical accounts of such beliefs.

There have been other skeletons found in eastern Europe with stones embedded in the mouths of the corpse, presumably to keep them from wandering. I guess it worked, because the bodies were still there.

Crispin and Jack must put aside their fears and superstitions to find out what’s really happening in the graveyard of St. Modwen’s parish and solve two murders before an innocent child hangs for the crime.

*****

A big thanks to Jeri Westerson!

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Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

The Fadoodlin’ Etymology of Sex

Posted on August 14, 2018 by suzanneadairAugust 14, 2018

Relevant History welcomes internationally renowned author Ellen Notbohm, whose work has informed, inspired and delighted millions in more than twenty languages. In addition to her award-winning novel The River by Starlight and her perennially popular books on autism, her articles and columns on such diverse subjects as history, genealogy, baseball, writing and community affairs have appeared in major publications and captured audiences on every continent. Ellen is an avid genealogist, knitter, beachcomber, and thrift store hound who has never knowingly walked by a used bookstore without going in and dropping coin. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

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The question comes up at every reading and book club: how and where did you research? And the answer is a historical fiction echo of Johnny Cash: I’ve been everywhere, man. My research for The River by Starlight and its based-on-real-life protagonists Annie and Adam Fielding sent me across eleven states and four provinces, through the doors of seventeen libraries and archives, and cyber-consulting twenty-seven more. I thought of it as a treasure hunt, unearthing vital statistics, school, military, prison, cemetery, land, court, census, immigration, naturalization, and theological records. Voter registration. Business licenses. Insurance policies. County and state fair entries.

For historical fiction authors, our drive for accuracy in the smallest details can border on obsessive. But after ten years in hot pursuit of those details, the resource that honed my manuscript’s voice to its finest edge of historical authenticity was a human, not a repository: an eagle-eyed editor with an exuberant love of etymology.

For scenes taking place between 1910 and 1921, I’d already caught early-draft anachronisms like surreal and radar. But my editor caught upwards of a dozen more. Who knew that no one shushed anyone until 1925, that place mats and drop cloths weren’t called such until 1928, that “dust mop” didn’t come along until 1953? That little girls didn’t wear their hair in a “ponytail” and jokes didn’t have a “punch line” until 1916. Jeepers! Whoops—that interjection wasn’t around until 1927.

Blue language: some things old, something things new
But most amusing was how many of her etymological catches had to do with that universally intriguing and bestselling subject: sex. And it offered a fascinating dichotomy: as we delved into the origins of blue language (an expression dating to 1840), we learned that words we think of as contemporary may go back centuries, while words we think of as vintage are in fact relatively contemporary.

Our etymological sex education started when Adam, in a 1911 scene, needed a sarcastic simile to express his contented state of mind to a bartender. “I’m happier than a baby in a barrel of tits,” he explains, which my editor flagged for revision: Teats was in use as early as the 13th century, titties dates back to 1746, but tits didn’t come into usage until 1928. Later in the story, another character’s reference to diddies was revised to diddeys, per Merriam-Webster.

On rolls the story to where, in the face of relentless physical and mental health issues with Annie’s pregnancies in the 1910s, the couple is advised to consider using rubbers. “The condom sense of this word dates only to the 1930s,” said my editor, suggesting maybe I should revert to condom (1706). I hauled out my (highly entertaining) file of early condom advertisements, and noted that while all the packages used the terms rubber prophylactics or protectives, none used the word condom. Further research revealed that the, um, contents of a condom were the origin of one of today’s favorite insults, scumbag (1939). We settled on rubber sheath (1861).

Later still, Annie finds her virtue questioned by a mental hospital patient who hurls the insult, “Slattern!” (1630s). Not one to go quietly, Annie returns a fusillade of loose-woman epithets. Up went the editor’s flag. Seems that harlot (ca 1200), strumpet (ca 1300), trollop (1610s), hussy (1650s), and floozy (1902) were appropriate to the 1918 scene, but tramp met with the delete button because its meaning “promiscuous woman” dates only to 1922.

Surely things would mellow out for our heroine as she overcomes extreme adversity, settles into a placid spell, and can enjoy some long-overdue tender lovemaking. But no. Said my intrepid editor, “While this word has been around since the fifteenth century, its original sense was of courtship. As a euphemism for ‘have sex,’ it is attested only from c. 1950.” Disgruntled Author changed it to coupling (late 1300s), muttering that it sounds too much like hardware.

Charting word usage through time
Frequency of usage is also a factor in historical authenticity. Tools like Google Ngram use charts to visually depict word usage over centuries. Here we can see just how much that usage of the f-bomb, that ultimate in sexually-charged verbs, now turned everyday adjective, has increased—by a whopping (1620s) 23,000% since 1950. Before that it had nearly flatlined since 1820 or so, hence it pops up only once in dialogue in The River by Starlight—as an unintended double entendre, with great impact bestowed by its rarity.

But our free-wheeling contemporary use of the f-word doesn’t hold a fadoodlin’ (1611) candle to our bawdy ancestors, who in the mid-1600s used it at twice the rate we do today.

Hubba-hubba (1944)!

Resources:
o Online Etymology
o Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition), Merriam-Webster Unabridged (website)
o A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English, Abridged from the Seven-volume Work, Entitled: Slang and Its Analogues (Farmer & Henley, 1905)
o Dictionary of American Regional English (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985)

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A big thanks to Ellen Notbohm. She’ll give away a trade paperback copy of The River by Starlight to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. only.

Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

Unlocking the Secrets of Historic American Cities with Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

Posted on July 31, 2018 by suzanneadairJuly 31, 2018

Relevant History welcomes Ana Brazil, author of the historical mystery Fanny Newcomb and the Irish Channel Ripper (Sand Hill Review Press) and winner of the Independent Book Publishers Association 2018 Gold Medal for Historical Fiction. Ana explored the historic houses of Virginia as a teenager, earned her Master’s degree in American history from Florida State University, and traveled her way through Mississippi as an architectural historian. She also spent one very long, very hot summer in New Orleans researching content for her Master’s thesis. Ana, her husband, and her dog Traveller live in the beautiful Oakland foothills. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest.

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I’ve always been attracted to cities. Not humongous, out-of-control, no-place-to-walk-or-breathe-in cities, but gentler, gracious, and smile-when-you-meet-new-people cities. Southern cities like Tallahassee, Vicksburg, and New Orleans.

When I wrote my debut historical mystery Fanny Newcomb and the Irish Channel Ripper, I worked hard to make sure that I presented the historical environment of 1889 New Orleans correctly. I walked around the Irish Channel neighborhood, photographed all kinds of buildings, toured St. Alphonsus and St. Mary Catholic Churches, and, of course, shopped as much as possible in the boutiques of historic Magazine Street!

I wanted to make sure that I described the buildings, banquettes, electric streetlights (yes, they existed), and streets traveled by the mule-driven streetcars as accurately as possible.

I also dug into the newspapers, city directories, and city “booster” materials from the period. And as a final way to understand the physical environment of 1889 New Orleans—to make sure that I didn’t locate a house of prostitution where a church existed, or sink Charity Hospital into a drainage canal—I explored the city through the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps (aka “Sanborn maps”).

What are Sanborn maps?
I’m so glad that you asked! From 1866 to the mid-1960’s, the Sanborn Map Publishing Company of New York City created complex footprint maps of approximately 13,000 American cities. Fire insurance companies used these maps to estimate the fire risks for individual buildings and decide how much to charge the building owners for fire insurance.

I was introduced to Sanborn maps when I worked as an architectural historian for the Mississippi Department of Archives. My job was to evaluate and nominate historic buildings and places for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. The Sanborn maps were vitally helpful.

Although Sanborn maps are a treasure trove for architectural historians, historians, and historical novelists, that’s not where their value ends. If you’re an archaeologist, genealogist, realtor, public works employee, or geographer, you can use these maps to unlock the secrets of your city, neighborhood, block, or building.

All you need is a key
Every group of city maps had a “key” similar to the one in this image. Once you understood the key, you could understand everything about the buildings on the map.

As this example of New Orleans’ French Opera House shows, the maps displayed the footprints of building (to scale), building materials used (red=brick, yellow=frame, blue=stone), existing firewall information, locations of available water reservoirs, other buildings in the area, and whether the building had a watchman. Just to name a few of the map attributes.

This information—about how people lived, worked, and entertained themselves—cannot be found anywhere else! And these are the types of details that I love to use when creating my historical fiction.

When I began writing Fanny Newcomb and the French Quarter Laudanum Lover—the (in-progress) second book in my Fanny Newcomb trilogy—I wanted to understand more about New Orleans’ historic French Quarter. Specifically, I wanted to know where the Italian restaurants, drug stores, tobacco manufacturers, and “female boarding” houses (an oft-used Sanborn map euphemism for houses of prostitution) were located in the late 1880’s.

This image displays what I call the “big view,” which shows some of areas that were surveyed by the Sanborn Company. The “42” in pink refers to Page 42 of the book and is the location of part of the French Quarter from Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral to Canal Street.

Here is a close-up image of part of Page 42 showing Jackson Square on the bottom center and St. Louis Cathedral above it. Most of the buildings and green spaces shown in this map still exist, although their uses have changed. But look at some of these 19th century uses!

Cooper shop
Carpenter
Snuff and fine cut tobacco factory
State arsenal
Gun & locksmith
Paints & oils

All of these building uses contribute to the flavor of New Orleans 1889. It would have been impossible to understand “the business of Jackson Square” without a Sanborn map.

Although I did find a tobacco manufacturer in this area, there were no Italian restaurants or drug stores. And—mostly likely because of the Cathedral, Courts, and Police Station in the vicinity—there were no female boarding houses in this area of the French Quarter. Although there were many, many female boarding houses just blocks away from Jackson Square.

I hope this short tour through late 19th century New Orleans illuminates the importance of historic Sanborn maps, how fun they are to look at, and how much they can tell you about your chosen locale! To make your foray into Sanborn maps as easy as possible, the Library of Congress—owner of the largest collection of Sanborn maps—has made their maps available online. In addition, many university libraries throughout the United States own sets of Sanborn maps (bound in books which can weigh up to 30 pounds!) and—once you put on a pair of white gloves—you can research directly in those books.

One more bit of good news: in the late 18th century, insurance companies began mapping the buildings of London, and other countries also have their share of “Sanborn-equivalent” city maps. But since Gilded Age New Orleans is my city, I’ll have to let another Relevant History blogger share the secrets of other city maps with you.

Note: All Sanborn map screenshots in this post are courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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A big thanks to Ana Brazil! She’ll give away a 13 oz. can of New Orleans’ Cafe du Monde’s French Roast Coffee and a Kindle ebook copy of Fanny Newcomb and the Irish Channel Ripper to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. only.

Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

Those Dastardly Smuggling Gangs

Posted on July 3, 2018 by suzanneadairJuly 3, 2018

Relevant History welcomes back Helen Hollick, who lives in Devon, England and has been published for many years with her Arthurian Trilogy and the 1066 era. She became a ‘USA Today’ bestseller with her novel about Queen Emma, The Forever Queen (UK: A Hollow Crown.) She also writes the “Sea Witch Voyages,” pirate-based adventures with a touch of fantasy. Her non-fiction book about pirates and smugglers will be published in 2019. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, blog, and historical fiction review blog, and follow her on Twitter.

*****

We see the smugglers of yesteryear portrayed in fiction, movies and TV dramas as small groups of local fisher-folk from picturesque coastal villages intent on making an extra penny to keep their starving families alive. Or we have the nasty ruffian out to bully his vulnerable young nephew into breaking the law by smuggling a keg of brandy, using a somewhat leaky old boat. Images which are true to a point. But only to a point.

The Trade, the Big Money Makers were far from this romantic view of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century smuggler. The gangs were vicious thugs, organised by efficient leaders who were the Mafia equivalent of their day.

These ‘smuggling companies’ operated along the south-east coasts of England. Not the fictional image of a rugged Cornish cove as in Poldark—the West Country did have its smugglers but they operated in a very different style.

Members of these gangs were not always seamen but landsmen based along the roads leading to London and the larger towns. Seamen brought the cargo in, the gangs collected and dispersed it. If there was trouble from the Revenue Men, the gangs were ready for them. They were comprised of up fifty men, although for larger ‘runs’ this could increase to two or three hundred men if gangs united. The Revenue, by comparison, were ill-informed, undermanned, under-armed and under-paid men. They rarely had any hope of intervening, let alone putting a stop to these formidable opponents, especially when a run had bodyguards wielding stout ash poles for protection. (Think Robin Hood and Little John’s quarterstaff.)

When smuggling began to deplete the purses of the government and the wealthy, something had to be done. By the 1780s the militia and customs men were equipped with better firearms, better ships, and more reliable ‘intelligence,’ which meant they were able to thwart gangs and seize contraband. But the gangs were a tough lot. Well-armed, rough, ruthless men who ensured potential informers kept quiet. Permanently.

The gangs
Several of the gangs had interesting nicknames: ‘Yorkshire George,’ ‘The Miller,’ ‘Old Joll,’ ‘Towzer,’ ‘Flushing Jack’ and ‘Nasty Face.’ These nicknames were used among smugglers and highwaymen not as terms of friendship but to hide a true identity.

The Colonel of Bridport Gang from Dorset were led by ‘The Colonel.’ One contraband cargo was nearly intercepted by the revenue and had to be sunk in the sea to hide it. Alas, it drifted ashore not far from West Bay, to the delight of the locals who claimed the cargo. The Colonel’s gang were successful and never caught. They supplied the Bridport and Lyme Bay taverns with French liquor.

The Groombridge Gang were named for a village west of Tunbridge Wells and were active from about 1730. The Groombridge Gang was first mentioned in a 1733 legal document when thirty men were bringing a cargo of tea inland using fifty horses. Militiamen challenged them but, outnumbered, were disarmed and marched for four hours at gunpoint until the cargo was delivered,, when the militiamen were set free unharmed, but on oath not to renew their interfering. An oath which was not kept!

The North Kent Gang worked from Ramsgate to the River Medway. In 1820 their violent methods increased when blockade-men discovered them bringing in contraband. A fight followed with one officer seriously injured, but the gang got away with the cargo. During the spring of 1821, forty gang members gathered at Herne Bay to land a cargo, protected by twenty men armed with bats and pistols. Unfortunately, these batsmen had enjoyed too much pre-run ‘hospitality’ at a nearby inn. Led by Midshipman Snow, the blockade-men appeared drawn by the noise the drunken smugglers were making. Eighteen smugglers were arrested. Four were hanged, with the others transported to Tasmania.

The two worst gangs
The Northover Gang were from Dorset and named for their leaders. In December 1822 preventative-men, Forward and Tollerway, were on patrol and discovered the smugglers, three of whom dropped the kegs they were carrying and fled. Tollerway guarded the abandoned contraband while Forward seized more kegs after firing his pistol to summon help, but the gang surrounded him. Tollerway ran to give assistance, and fighting broke out. The gang leader, James Northover Junior, was subsequently arrested when assistance arrived and was sentenced to fourteen months in gaol. He served time twice more, and then impressed into the Royal Navy in 1827 for another offence.

The Hawkhurst Gang. Hawkhurst is ten miles inland from the Kent and East Sussex coast. Between 1735–1749, the gang became known as the most feared in all England. They smuggled in silk, brandy and tobacco with up to five-hundred men able to assist when required. The gang joined the Wingham Gang in 1746 to bring ashore twelve tons of tea (a lot of tea!) but attacked their partners and made off with the tea and several valuable horses. Despite the benefits of smuggling, villagers grew fed-up with the increasing violence, and a retaliation was made in April 1747. Confident of their influence, the gang marched into the village not expecting to meet an army of people determined to stop the bullying. One of the gang’s hierarchy, George Kingsmill, was shot dead and is buried in Goudhurst churchyard. His brother, Thomas, was hanged at Tyburn in London with his body returned to Kent to rot on the gallows. Does his ghost linger there I wonder?

*****

A big thanks to Helen Hollick!

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A Masked Pimpernel: Alexander Peden, Devout Preacher and Religious Rebel

Posted on June 19, 2018 by suzanneadairJune 19, 2018

Relevant History welcomes back Anna Belfrage, who, had she been allowed to choose, would have become a time-traveller. As this was impossible, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests: history and writing. Anna has authored the acclaimed time travelling series “The Graham Saga,” set in 17th century Scotland and Maryland, as well as the equally acclaimed medieval series, “The King’s Greatest Enemy,” set in 14th century England. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site and blog, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

*****

One of the joys of writing historical fiction is making the acquaintance of the somewhat lesser-known people who played important roles in the events of the past. One such person is Alexander Peden, the charismatic Scottish Kirk minister who set large parts of Ayrshire ablaze with his determined refusal to abandon his faith. He plays a pivotal role in my book, The Prodigal Son, and inspires my hero, Matthew Graham, to risk life and limb in his steadfast support of the Covenanter cause. While Matthew is a purely fictional character, anyone familiar with the history of the Covenanters and their persecution in the late 17th century will, at some point, have stumbled over Mr Peden.

To me, Sandy Peden—oops, Alexander Peden (Sandy to friends only, and I’m not quite sure I qualify. “Aye, you do,” Sandy says, smiling at me. “You can’t help being opinionated, loud and sadly uneducated in anything having to do with faith and Bible.”)—came alive the day I stood in the National Museum of Scotland and peered at his mask.

I realise that the purpose of the mask was to disguise him, thereby leading me to assume he didn’t at all look like it. Still, when studying the mask, I had my first clear image of Sandy—a slight man who burned with restless energy, whose eyes glowed with passion when he spoke about God. A brave man, a stubborn man—and a man convinced that his faith and his beliefs were the right ones.

“Of course they are,” he says, sounding aggravated.
“You think?” I snort. “All that stuff about predestination, about the relative unimportance of women…”
“Pah! Just shows how little you know! Now, I am willing to take on the task of educating you—however much of a Sisyphus task that might be.”
I ignore the little man. I’m not uneducated, thank you very much.
“Aye you are,” he says. “You have studied such varied subjects but how much of your academic efforts have you expended on God? On the Holy Writ?” He sinks those luminous grey eyes of his into mine. “No, I thought as much,” he says before fading away.

Peden’s early life
Alexander Peden was born in 1626 and educated at Glasgow University. In 1662 he was ejected from his parish, New Luce. The restored king, Charles II, and his advisors were determined to supplant the Scottish Kirk with the Church of England. Peden spent the rest of his life as a religious rebel, holding secret services out on the moors of Ayrshire to fortify his ever-growing flock of die-hard Presbyterians.

The powers that be searched high and low for him, but Sandy knew how to blend into the landscape. To further confuse his pursuers, he wore the mask mentioned above. It is said that on several occasions he evaded capture by praying to God for deliverance—which God duly supplied through the opportune appearance of a thick fog or clouds to cover the moon.

“God looks to his own,” Sandy puts in, scratching at his balding head. He smells, his dark coat is frayed around the cuffs and has a long tear down the back. He looks tired and dirty, and he keeps on coughing. He frowns at my inspection. “It’s not a life of comfort to be constantly on the run.”
“So why not give up?”
“Give up?” Sandy raises fair, bushy brows. “I’m outlawed. They’d hang me off the first gallows they could find.”

A reprieve from transportation
Sandy’s luck eventually ran out. In 1673 he was captured and spent the next five years on the Bass Rock. After this, he was to be deported to America. With sixty others, he was set aboard a ship to London, where they were to be transferred to another, larger vessel. However, the captain of this vessel was so incensed when Sandy informed him why they were being deported that he released them, leaving them on the London docks.

“A good man,” Sandy laughs. “He would no more carry me off against my will than he would kill his mother.” He scratches at his chest. “Lice,” he mutters. “Courtesy of His Majesty’s tender care, I reckon.”
“Or of living rough.”
“That too.” He purses his lips. “Sometimes…”
“Sometimes what?”
Sandy shakes his head. “Nowt,” he says, smiling ruefully.
“Go on; sometimes…”
“…I long for a bed–a warm home, a family…” He stares off in the distance. “God has ordained, and I must obey.”

After the encounter with the godly captain, Sandy and his companions walked all the way home. For the remaining years of his life, Sandy divided his time between Scotland and Ireland, always on the run, always holding to his faith and preaching the word of God as he knew it.

Peden’s death
Alexander Peden died in 1685—in a bed, as he’d prophesised.

“Of course,” Sandy says. “God allowed me one last night of comfortable sleep.”
“That was nice of him.” Seems the least he could do, given Sandy’s unstinting service.
Sandy wags his finger at me. “You sound like Alexandra Graham. That woman is in serious need of guidance, but that husband of hers is too besotted with her to do as he should.”
“He is?” I smile, thinking that if Matthew is besotted with Alex, she definitely returns the favour.
“You know he is.” Sandy smiles. “A marvellous woman, for all that she is wild and half-heathen.”
“Matthew isn’t too bad either,” I say.
Sandy chuckles and gets to his feet. “Well you would say so, wouldn’t you? After all, you’ve made him up!” With that he is gone.

Upon hearing Peden was dead, a company of soldiers disinterred his body, intending to hang his corpse from the gallows in Cumnock. Loud objections from the people led to Sandy being reburied at the foot of the gallows. In due course, an impressive monument was erected over his final resting place. Not that Sandy ever wanted a monument—all he wanted was the freedom to worship God according to his beliefs.

*****

A big thanks to Anna Belfrage. She’ll give away a trade paperback copy of The Prodigal Son to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.

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The History of Wine in Los Angeles

Posted on June 5, 2018 by suzanneadairJune 5, 2018

Relevant History welcomes back Anne Louise Bannon, who wrote her first novel at age fifteen. Her journalistic work has appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Wines and Vines, and in newspapers across the country. She created the OddBallGrape.com wine education blog with her husband, Michael Holland, and is the co-author of Howdunit: Book of Poisons, with Serita Stevens, as well as author of the “Freddie and Kathy” mystery series, set in the 1920s, and the “Operation Quickline” series and Tyger, Tyger. She and her husband live in Southern California with an assortment of critters. For more information about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

*****

The fun thing about my latest novel, Death of the Zanjero, is that it really couldn’t take place anywhere but in Los Angeles, California, or at any time but in the 19th century. Okay, I could have pushed it to the early 20th century, but by then, the odds were not good that the body of the Zanjero (or water overseer) would come floating up as the sluice gate opened to a rancho’s zanja (irrigation ditch). Lots of places, even as far away as New Mexico, had zanjas for irrigation and zanjeros overseeing them. But they didn’t have the wine industry that Los Angeles did—one that predates wineries in Livermore and the Napa Valley.

Yes, you read that right. California’s wine industry actually began in Los Angeles. There were older vineyards in Arizona and other Spanish outposts. That’s because they needed wine to celebrate Mass, and making your own was somewhat easier than importing it from Spain. And, in the late 18th century, when Father Junipero Serra and company started trekking up Alta California, leaving the twenty-one missions behind, it only made sense to plant olives and grapes.

Spanish wines
I have heard it said that the reason the padres mostly planted a supposedly inferior variety that we know today as the mission grape was that the government in Spain didn’t want New World wines competing with theirs. That does not entirely make sense to me, but the mission grape was certainly plentiful, and the padres used it to make a fortified wine that resembled Jerez, or sherry. The version they made in what became Los Angeles was one they called angelica.

Now, Los Angeles was founded in 1781, and that’s presumably when the first vineyards were planted. But what really got the industry part of the pueblo going is when the appropriately-named Jean Louis Vignes, a Frenchman, first brought French varieties, such as cabernet sauvignon and others, and decided that an area just to the west of the river (now downtown Los Angeles) would be perfect for growing them. He later sold his business to his nephews, the Sainsevain brothers. Another man, Matthew Keller, planted out a good bit of what is now Malibu. By the 1840s, San Francisco and Napa were importing grapes and wines from Los Angeles. Not much changed when the Americans took over in 1850 and California became a U.S. state.

How this affects my novel
I ended up setting Death of the Zanjero in 1870 because I did not want to deal with the Civil War (although the city remained a hotbed of Confederate sympathizers). I chose winemaking as a profession for my main character, Maddie Wilcox, because my husband and I are passionate about wine and we both found the wine history of our local area fascinating. Around that time, about 3,000 acres were planted with vineyards, and upwards of 5,000 acres, if you count the Anaheim Colony, which was part of Los Angeles County at the time and later became Orange County.

It wasn’t the biggest crop by any means. In 1880, there were 10,000 acres of the notoriously hard to grow wheat across the county, 60,000 acres of corn, and 90,000 acres of barley. Oranges, which were to play a much larger role in how our community grew, were there, but not in any significant force. According to the same 1880 history of the county that I got the above numbers from, there were around 34,000 oranges trees in all of the county, with roughly 200 trees per acre, that makes 170 acres of what would become our signature crop.

The end of the vineyards
So, what happened? The railroads. In the middle of the 1870s, Henry Huntington and his pals started building steam engine railroads that connected Los Angeles to the rest of the country. This did two things. One, it opened up the market for oranges because you could finally ship them cross-country to the more heavily populated east before the fruit spoiled. Two, it brought people to Los Angeles. In 1870, there were roughly 5,700 people in the city of Los Angeles. In 1880, the town’s population doubled and grew at an even faster rate until by 1920, it had increased tenfold to 577,000. That’s only fifty years.

Also, in the mid-1870s, over-production caused the price of grapes to bottom out, and then the area was hit with Pierce’s Disease, which thrashed a goodly chunk of the vines. With people moving in, land became more valuable for housing than grapes. Oranges were still relatively hard to get in other parts of the country because they couldn’t be grown just anywhere, so that made them more valuable to plant. Wine grapes, not so much.

There are still wineries in Los Angeles. In fact, one of the state’s oldest, continuously running wineries, San Antonio Winery, is based here. Malibu has its own American Viticulture Area designation for its vineyards and several wineries, although that’s a very recent thing, and none of the old vineyards exist. There are even more wineries moving into the area. It’s a nice return to a formerly proud tradition—and one that made that a very fun background for a novel about a corrupt official getting murdered and the widow who finds herself trying to find whodunit.

*****

A big thanks to Anne Louise Bannon. She’ll give away a paperback or ebook copy of Death of the Zanjero to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery of the ebook is available worldwide. Delivery of the paperback is available within the U.S. only. Special option for a U.S. winner: In lieu of a book, and if you qualify age- and state-wise, Anne will send you a half-bottle of angelica, a delightful sherry-style wine, made from possibly the oldest vines in the state of California.

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Killer Debt Book Release 9 May 2018, and Thanks to Backers!

Posted on April 30, 2018 by suzanneadairApril 30, 2018

Killer Debt will be officially released on 9 May 2018. You’re invited to McIntyre’s Bookstore in Pittsboro, NC at 6:30 that evening to purchase your copy and hear how a subplot in the book fictionalizes one of North Carolina’s little-known historical events during 1781. Light refreshments provided.

Again, many thanks to all the wonderful folks who backed my crowdfunding campaign in March. Total raised: $1900. The following people backed the campaign at the $35 level or higher:

German Arciniegas
Martha Coleman
Beverly Gotthardt
Robert and Heather Gruber (executive producers)
Rhonda Lane
Norma Luther
Marsha McDonald
Margaret Millings
Carole Weiss
Nina N. Williams
and two people who wished to remain anonymous.

Action at the 2018 Guilford Courthouse Battle Reenactment

Posted on March 25, 2018 by suzanneadairMarch 25, 2018

Last Saturday I trekked to the annual Guilford Courthouse battle reenactment near Greensboro, North Carolina. The park is large, and between checking out the camps, sutlers, and battle, I estimate that I hiked around eight miles that day.

Fusiliers lining up in the British camp.

Video: Fusiliers executing a right wheel.

Continentals retreat with the Crown forces in pursuit and visible in the center through the trees.

Video: Two cool smoke rings from British artillery fire.

British cavalry.

Video: Final Crown forces charge.

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