First let me cover the Illusion of Certainty. I learned about this concept in some Human Resources training but it applies many places. Humans, and especially modern humans, like certainty. We want to be able to know things are true. And we want to give true statements. In HR, the example given was a project deadline. Manager: “Here is this project. When do you think it will be done?” Employee: “I can have it for you by the end of the week.” The Manager now has certainty on when the project will be done but it is an illusion. Much can happen before the end of the week. Maybe the project will experience mission-creep. Maybe a disaster will happen. But the employee can’t say “I don’t know when it will be done.” The employee wants to project certainty as well.
The other part of the illusion is that everything is knowable. We believe there are answers to all questions. You just have to look hard enough.
And lastly, once we know something, we tend to persist with that “fact”, regardless of new information.
This all has to do with brain chemistry and I don’t understand it well enough to explain it so let’s leave it as that. The brain likes to feel like it knows stuff and doesn’t like having to rewire itself unless it has to.
I had a great conversation with a Laurel yesterday (10/16/21). He had good things to say about my vinegars. He had positive and negative feedback, given in an approachable way. It was likely one of the more in-depth conversations I have had with a Laurel (outside of my own). Laurels who are reading this: you need to do this more often. You need to seek out artisans and have in-depth conversations with them. You do not need to know the subject area to provide feedback and challenge assumptions. This, to me, is what I wanted to have happen at the Tournament of Art in Jan 2020. Don’t wait! Have these conversations with everyone now!
One of the main things he said to me is “you are looked at as an expert. If you say something is a certain way, people will believe you.” I think what he forgot to say but was implied in the rest of the conversation is “you should make sure you are right.”
I sometimes don’t put the phrase “as far as I know” or “to date” or other qualifiers when I am asked questions about vinegar. I, just like everyone else, like to be right. I want to project certainty. I am very well aware that I don’t know all the answers. I am bit like Socrates here. I know that I don’t know. And in asking some of the questions, the asker wants certainty that doesn’t exist.
For instance, from the Virtual Cooks and Bards, I was asked by two separate Laurels, what the phrase “strong vinegar” means? I don’t know. I don’t know that anyone knows. There might be some archaelogical evidence out there that someone could analyze with X-ray diffraction or your favorite technique and tell us, “ah yes, strong vinegar was at least 10% acid by volume because we found residue in all of these medicinal cups.” I don’t have access to that. More to the point though, our medieval ancestors didn’t either. They didn’t really know about acetic acid until late. They didn’t have a way to measure % acidity as we do. They certainly didn’t know it was a bacteria turning their wines and ales into vinegar. We want certainty. We can’t have it.
What I did say is “my guess is that strong vinegar means undiluted wine vinegar.” Medieval people knew they could dilute vinegar (they did it often in drinks) and they probably knew wine vinegars were “stronger” than ale vinegars. That is a simple taste test. I am guessing. I often guess. It is an educated guess but a guess nonetheless.
The main questions posed by this Laurel was one of research. “You have shown that people used wheelbarrows in France to sell vinegar. How can you say the same of England?” It was couched more in terms of my approach. Did I look for it and found nothing? What was my research process?
This discussion has occupied my brain for most of the last 24 hours.
My first impulse is “is this an important question?” Does it matter whether the English sold vinegar from wheelbarrows or not? If I did find evidence that they did, is that sufficient? For instance, if I find something that shows that someone in London did that, do I then need to find evidence that someone in Somerset did that? Do I need to go further and show that someone in Bristol did that? Ultimately, I decided that it was not an important question.
I did find this illustration
This is from the 1688 the Cries of London. What does this prove? That vinegar merchants in London sold vinegar via donkeys in 1688? Certainly this ONE did. But we also know that there were spice shops that sold vinegar. We know that people sold all manner of goods from carts. So, do we state that English vinegar sellers did not use wheelbarrows or carts? My earlier woodcuts show French sellers used wheelbarrows and at least one guy strapped the barrel to his back. Are those the two choices? Does 1688 tell us anything about 1500?
For the purist, 1688 tells us nothing about 1500. The evidence you found is what you can say. This illustration is out of period and shouldn’t count. Thinking long on this question, I am not a purist. I work more by intuition. Certainly if a French guy figured out he could use a wheelbarrow instead of his back, the English guy could have figured it out too. It is like the question of why do all pyramids look similar? Well the answer that makes the most sense is there are only so many ways to stack blocks and since people are mostly the same, they all figured out a similar answer.
We know that there were many mobile vendors. Some probably used their backs, others a cart, others a wheelbarrow, and others a beast of some kind. There are only so many ways to move a 40 lb barrel around.
We chatted on Sunday as well and I showed him the 1688 illustration. To an extent, it verified that there were small sellers. So why were we having the conversation? I assumed people knew about things that I didn’t tell them. I didn’t include dates in my blog post (I did on my display printouts). And I tend to write more formally in class notes and documentation, which include references, than in these posts. I have since corrected my blog posts.
I was the expert and I didn’t connect the dots for the reader. I assumed you were in my head. I also assume there are like 5 people who read my blog and therefore I have a very limited audience.
One of the other things I realized is that I am an experimentalist, not a researcher. With cordials, I ran an experiment on the same cordial in different liquids. With meads, I ran an experiment with different honeys. With ciders, I ran an experiment with different yeasts. And with vinegars, I have made vinegar out of so many things that it in itself is a giant experiment.
An experimentalist is good with uncertainty. There are many variables. There are things that should work but don’t. Experimentalists are good with “this works but I don’t know how.” Researchers want to know the TRUTH. My Laurel friend is a researcher and I am sure he has a different opinion. It is a bit like Sheldon and Leonard in Big Bang Theory.
In doing brewing, cordials, and vinegars, I am less interested in being period accurate. Why? I can’t recreate the agriculture conditions that existed. If you want certainty that this is an authentic medieval English West Country cider, we need the apples that existed back then, grown in the same soil conditions, pressed with the same tools, etc and so forth. We can’t do it. Even someone with the right knowledge probably can’t do it. Can you reconstruct what the atmosphere was 1000 years ago? In a specific place? So it is all “good enough.”
I can make something similar to it. I can make something with modern apples using a period process. The experimental approach is why I like what I am doing. It allows me to do what I call “a step back.”
You start with an entirely modern process. Then you take a “step back” to make it less modern. Let’s say you start making apple cider with frozen concentrate. You then take a step back to sweet cider. You then take a step back to pressing apples. You then take a step back to find apples that are like the medieval ones. You then can take a step back to plant your own trees of those apples. You can also make a medieval cider press and learn to brew in casks instead of glass carboys, etc. You go back as far as your willingness (and money and space) allow. At any point in the process, you can say “good enough.”
When I do research, I do look for certainty. Those are often a challenge from someone to something I think I know. Balsamic vinegar is an example. I have been challenged a few times “is balsamic vinegar period?” For a given value, yes it is. The trouble is no one used that word until the 1700s. I had to find references and other opinions that the Duke’s special vinegar is likely balsamic vinegar but the truth is we will never know. It was a secret. The growing of those grapes more than likely changed significantly. The soil conditions might be very different now. The real answer is “no.” The modern balsamic vinegar isn’t period. It can’t be. Nothing modern can be the same as it was 1000 years ago. The answer to the actual question being asked “did they have something like balsamic vinegar in period?” The answer is absolutely yes. You don’t give an emperor a gift of vinegar unless it was something truly special.
When I do classes on my history, we can be more certain. But making something to mirror a medieval process, we must be okay with uncertainty. If for no other reason, the people writing stuff down didn’t include stuff that we might think was important.
I had several more conversations and more to come over the next few days. I am pleased I made an impression on at least one individual. I am pleased to learn about things I need to work on. You eat crow as you eat anything else, one bite at a time. I am tired too. Crown tournament was 100% not about me yet I am as tired as if I had fought to the finals and lost. As I often tell my therapist, it is unfortunate that life is lived in first person. We would have much more understanding of each other in a different point of view.
I think I know the Laurel you refer to, so I wanted to clarify what I, I mean he, was trying to say.
There is no such thing as certainty. Even in the physical sciences, many very good theories have turned out to be wrong. Historians can’t quantify uncertainty like scientists, and at a certain point it’s reasonable to say “this happened” as shorthand for “there’s overwhelming evidence that this happened.”
However, even if we make our evidence available, most people won’t check it, so we need to be careful before we say “this happened,” and be conservative about qualifying what we know. Deciding when you have enough evidence to tell non-experts “this is what happened” is a judgment call, but at some point it is reasonable.
I totally agree and I appreciate that you took the time to remind me. I was being too casual with certainty, especially when I am not including references. I look forward to further conversations with you. And perhaps you would care to sample some vinegars? 馃檪
Hey, friend of Fairfax and laurel that was elevated partially for brewing here.
Your “step back” theory is similar to my thoughts, but I’d add this to it: not all steps back have the same impact.
For example: consider polishing metal. We have many period descriptions of various materials used to polish metal: pumice, ground charcoal, chalk, and even a plain linen cloth are well documented. What is the impact of using these materials as opposed to an equivalent grit of a modern abrasive? It’s really pretty minimal, once you understand what “an equivalent” really is, and learning THAT takes experimentation and research. In a piece of jewelry, whether or not one uses a period abrasive has much lower impact than say, using a period style tools vs a modern CNC machine.
Similarly, steps back do not always lead in the same direction. Which is better: using a wooden barrel of the wrong wood type, or using wood chips / cubes of the correct type in a glass carboy? Both are compromises, and both can teach us things about the medieval process and final product. Evaluating the impact of these choices is not always easy, but that’s what experimentation and research are for!
And yes, as Fairfax says, it is absolutely critical to communicate one’s level of confidence in what one thinks one knows. Calibrating this for different audiences can be difficult, but IMO it comes down to guessing at how much the audience cares about the details. A random member of the general public isn’t going to be as interested in the relative credibility of various sources as a judge in an A&S competition or a laurel is.
Lastly, regarding your comments about strong vinegar: this is an interesting topic worth exploring! It’s clear from medieval sources that medieval brewers understood that sweeter wort made stronger beer (strong vs ordinary ale), and several circa 1600 sources even include rudimentary ways to measure specific gravity using an egg (Koge Bog, Denmark, 1616: “put an egg or two into this lukewarm brew so that there is a part of egg as big as a 2 shilling over the water then it is sweet and fat enough”). Furthermore, laws and trade records indicate that a wide array of categories of beer were developed based on various properties including color, strength, and the types of grain used to create it (for more see “Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissance” Richard Unger, especially chapter 11: Types of Beer and Their International Exchange). I’m no expert on vinegar, but it would not at all surprise me if there is similar corroborating evidence that might be useful for narrowing the definition of “strong vinegar.”
I will certainly keep my eyes out for anything that suggests a method to determine strong vinegar before 1600. To date, I have not found such a thing.
There is mention of vinagriers being sworn to secrecy on their processes upon becoming members in the French guild. There is also mention that we don’t get detailed manuals on the vinegar process until near 1650 or so. There are scattered references between the Classical period and 1650. After 1650, serious industrialization happens, eventually Pastuer comes along, and we know a LOT more about what vinegar is and how to define it.
But something may be out there I haven’t found yet.
Sure. Medieval folks being sworn to secrecy can make things more difficult, but there are many avenues of investigation which may bear fruit. Unger’s book has a great deal of excellent economic analysis. For example, while we don’t know the specific grain bill used for beer brewed at a given estate, there are, in some cases, records of the grain they purchased, or how much they paid in tax on those transactions (from which information can be derived). Of course, grain was used for both bread and beer, but it’s a data point which brings us a little closer than we were before. Unger’s book also has a great deal of other corroborating evidence, such as changes to local laws regarding beer and beer production (for example, if a particular ingredient was banned, we know that someone was using it!). Guild rules, and laws referring to the guild, can be an excellent place to pluck out similar useful clues and context. I highly recommend reading Unger’s book, even though it doesn’t cover vinegar, the sources and process he uses may be extremely valuable for you.
Similarly, processes at mints were very closely guarded *state* secrets, but by examining extant coins, dies, and mint / government records we can learn a lot. For example, the Venetian mint was significantly expanded when they began minting the Tornesello for their colonies. We know this because the government of Venice kept excellent records, and vast hoards of these kind of terrible coins have been found (see “The Venetian tornesello”, and “Zecca: The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages” both by Alan M Stahl). Numismatists have produced credible estimates of the number of coins produced per day using this data.
Another example: The Venetian mint once hired a man as a moneyer (process of striking coins) whose arm had been broken by a goat at his prior place of employment (the slaughterhouse). What does this tell us? Directly, it only tells us that a person with the use of only one arm was involved in coin production. However, with the additional context of scores of medieval images of people striking coins we learn this: the process of striking requires two hands. One to hold the dies, and one to hold the hammer. However, about half of the time people striking coins are shown with an assistant, who appears to be placing blanks and removing struck coins from the dies. Our practical experimental experience shows that having an assistant work in this manner makes the coin striking process both faster and less tiring for the striker. Thus, while we don’t have any direct evidence that the man with the broken arm performed this role, it seems likely.
There’s always more out there that we haven’t found yet. 馃檪
I am really glad you had a productive, useful conversation. I like having these conversations, but it can be difficult to start them when I don’t know where people are coming from. I am a vampire when it comes to in-depth feedback – you have to invite me in. I am, despite all appearances, a little shy and awkward, and I don’t want to provide feedback that isn’t desired at the time. I really strongly encourage people who want this to sign up for things like the TOA, craftspersons’ displays, artisans’ rows, and other such things to find Laurels they click with to have further conversations, as well as tell Laurels they know that they’d like to set up time to have these discussions. If you plan ahead, it gives Laurels like me who need time to study and digest the opportunity to really engage with your work.
I will say that I display a lot and even then, feedback is few and far between. I do have a whole series on feedback on this blog, gleaned from nearly 100 hours of management training and now as a (low level) HR professional. As with everything on this blog, it is totally my opinion but I do have some references to back me up.
If I have a display up, I totally want to talk to people about what I have. Even more so, I want you to taste what I brought. I hauled cardboard stands and dozens of jars for a reason 馃檪 Let’s sample and talk. But that is just me.