The Falcons of Fire and Ice - By Karen Maitland Page 0,206

but they were, of course, sterile. Throughout Europe, castration centres were established in monasteries to create castrati for the choirs. By the fifteenth century, castrati were well established in all the best Catholic church choirs in Europe, including the Vatican. Alessandro Moreschi was the last known castrato in the Vatican choir. He is believed to have been castrated around the year 1866. His voice was captured on recordings made between 1902 and 1904, and he died in 1922.

Cookbox – Ships were built of wood, the timbers coated in tallow and tar, and the gaps caulked with crushed hemp and pitch, materials so flammable that even a small fire could quickly engulf a vessel and all lives might be lost if it was far from shore. Yet the sailors needed to cook food and heat metal for the blacksmith to make repairs. So they used a cookbox, which was enclosed on three sides and underneath by high metal sheets which minimized the risk of sparks escaping and also shielded the flames from the wind. The floor of the box was raised on wooden runners to allow the heat underneath to dissipate and not warp the planks of the decks. The fires were lit on bricks which lined the bottom of the cookbox. Cooking pots stood on iron grids above the fire, but their handles could be hooked to a metal rod which was inserted through the sides of the box. This ensured that in rough weather the huge pots could swing freely on the metal rod and thus remain upright through the roll of the ship without spilling their scalding contents on to the deck or men.

Door-doom (dyra-dómr) – Part of ancient Norwegian law, which involved assembling a group of six, or even as many as twelve, neighbours who would act as a court ruling on local disputes, such as a man refusing to pay a debt or one neighbour accusing another of harming his cattle by witchcraft. According to ancient law, the door-doom had to be assembled at the front door of the accused’s house but far enough away from it so that the accused could hold his own door-doom if he wanted to bring a counter-claim against his accuser. Once both door-dooms were assembled there still had to be enough space remaining for a wagon full of wood to be driven between the house and the door-dooms.

But there are records of door-dooms being conducted within the house. For example, if a ghost had taken up residence and was refusing to leave, it might be summoned to appear before a door-doom of living neighbours just as if it was still alive, and it would have to abide by the decision of the door-doom which could force it to leave. On some occasions, though, the door-doom might rule that the ghost had the right to stay on in the house provided it behaved itself and didn’t annoy the people who lived there.

Familiaries – These were the lay agents of the Inquisition. They were not in holy orders, but were ordinary men and women recruited to work for the Inquisition. In addition to accompanying the penitents and condemned at the auto-da-fé, they acted as the spies of the Inquisition. Large networks of familiaries existed all over Europe. The Inquisition would send these agents highly detailed physical descriptions of people they wanted to find, even including observations such as a particular man who had nasal polyps and therefore breathed through his mouth. Since the populace didn’t know the identity of the familiaries – they wore hoods at the auto-da-fé – it meant that fugitives had to be constantly on their guard.

Farthingale – Adopted from the Spanish court, this was a bell-shaped linen or canvas underskirt into which a series of horizontal hoops of wood or whalebone were sewn to give full shape to the heavy gowns. It caused women to walk with a gliding, swaying movement. They also wore a linen or leather corset stiffened with strips of whalebone, wood or horn at the front, back and sides, to create a narrow waist and upraised breasts and achieve an hourglass shape. This corset was held up with shoulder straps, which helped to raise the breasts, since there were no cups built into it.

Gromet – An apprentice seaman. Among the ordinary sailors the most experienced men were known as ‘able seamen’. They could hoist and lower sails, make repairs to the rigging and read a ship’s compass when on watch. The gromets did the