[MR] Info on Trinket boxes

[rmhowe]

SWRDBABE at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Greetings all,
> 
> My wonderful and dear friend just bought for me over the weekend a beautiful acorn shaped trinket box.  Its a 3D box about 4 1/2" by 3 1/2".  The reason I first saw it and fell in love was because even though its resin(or plastic) it looks like glass and gold and it would hold my thimble or a small spool of thread nicely.  My question is, just how period were boxes of this style in the Renassaince?  I was originally going to hang it from my belt like a part of my chatelaine  but have since decided to carry in my basket (where its safest).
> 
> Thank you in advance for any information you might have.
> 
> Lady Daniela Schwartzhaupt

I can't tell you much about Renaissance customs, I can tell you
a bit about other needle/thread cases though. I don't think I've
ever seen a chatelaine with a box hanging from it. Anything might
be possible though.

There is a book entitled _Chatelaines_ from about ten years ago.
It had only about ten pages of information on period chatelaines
for the $60. So for that price it did not make it into my library
yet. At a bargain price it might. I think it was one of those
big Abrams art books. Coffee table sized.

There is a bronze thread box from Viking Context that has a hinged
lid - actually a couple of links of chain between rather pointy
sheet metal protrusions from its sides. It was largely round and the 
top and bottom covers protrude a bit from the sides. The rest of
it was basically round and fit much like a shaker box.
It is probably in the three inch range.
The theory is that this was a threadbox. I'm not precisely certain
of which modern books it is in. It is in Du Chaillu's _The Viking_.
I have it in a number of others, but if you happen to have well over
a hundred Viking books as I do, exact recall can be a bit difficult.
Du Chaillu is about 1880, and mixes bronze age with Viking. The 
little box has appeared in other books I have that are identified 
with the Viking age though. I have a mix of these books in about
five languages.

The Lapps (Saami) had needlecases that were basically an open bone
sliding on a rope of fabric, I think with a knot in it's end. The
needles were inserted in the cloth above the knot, and the bone 
slid down over them. Some of the best examples of chatelaines for
extremely necessary use are in "The People of the Eight Seasons". 
This book is very much like the prune people Vikings book, by 
Bertil Almgren, published also by Tre Trekare about 1960. It is 
_nowhere_ near as easily believable though. While many items of
traditional Lapp use are depicted, very few are dated, or datable 
in the book. Citations may be 50 pages away from the relevant 
pictures. It's so badly written that you can hardly discern what's
relatively modern and what's actually old. There are several very 
well made Chatelaines in it. The Saami are reindeer herders, and 
the chatelaines included the necessary kit the woman carried to do 
all her work, including knife cases and talismans.

One of my books which (also contains bonework) has a needle case
(I think from York) that is basically much the same as a section
cut out of what appears to be a 3" bone similar to a large bird leg 
in size, with two holes in the top middle, I assume here for stringing, 
the ends of the bone have little incisions ringing the ends, about
a millimeter or so away. I assume (again) that this might be for
tying a cloth cover on or preventing thread from sliding over
the end. I intend to reproduce this thing for an exhibit of
bonework. My guess would also be that it held needles inserted
in a rolled piece of cloth. I have multiple books from York
before and of the current series.

Other needle cases I have examples of were generally a tube of
metal, open on the ends, with one or several bands around the middle
rising to a loop(s) by which they were hung. 

I have examples of these in archaeological books and articles.
Not that they are all that easy to find when your piles approximate
the ones in the living room. So basically I'm going on memory a
bit here. My primary interest is in Pre-Viking to medieval. 

I had an opportunity to buy a real needlecase for the wife a couple
years ago, and curiously she wasn't interested. I did buy her seven 
real spindle whorls, and an indented copper strip (served someone 
for an ancient thimble wrapped around the finger.). I've even seen
real gold needles from ancient collections. Those I did not buy.

Magnus, OL, GDH, Atlantia

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