medievalrosalie | Recent Entries

...and then suddenly, this happened!

Cheers to InHouse Publishing in Brisbane for the astonishing turnaround and the beautiful print job! You can order this and my last one from their online bookshop!

Both books are available through them.

Medieval Wisdom For Modern Women: https://inhousebookstore.com.au/products/medieval-wisdom-for-modern-women
Medieval Household Hints link: https://inhousebookstore.com.au/products/medieval-household-hints

Medieval Household Hints:
Advice on Running a Household From The Middle Ages Which You Still Need Today

The household advice in this petite coffee table style book is taken from the pages of actual medieval manuscripts is as relevant today as it was back then.

Photographed with an array of modern women and handcrafted reproductions of historic artifacts, this little book makes a perfect little gift for your favourite modern person.

This book is proudly Australian written, photographed, processed and printed in Australia by Australian businesses right here in Brisbane. 100% Australian every step of the way.

Book specs:
Medieval Household Hints
Advice on Running a Household From The Middle Ages Which You Still Need Today.
Genre: Petite Coffee Table Book
Paperback: 64 pages
Illustrations: 60 photographs
Format: Full colour
Printed: InHouse Publishing, Underwood, Brisbane
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-646-73501-6
Product Dimensions: 20.3cm x 20.3cm
Weight: 370 grams

NOW AVAILABLE!
Buy from the InHouse Bookstore

I'm excited to announce I'm partnering with InHouse Publishing for the rest of the little Medieval Wisdom Quote books set.

The

y're family owned and operated right here in Brisbane, (and have been for 25 years) employing local people. What this means for me, is that my little medieval quote set books can be ordered and sent out directly from their web shop and they'll handle my distribution for shops. I'll be announcing pre-orders for Medieval Household Hints: Advice of Running a Household From The Middle Ages Which You Still Need Today early next week, so keep an eye out for that!

Best for me is that along with the ones they'll be publishing for me, they'll be adding my first one in the set, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Women, to their book store as well and adding it to their new catalogue, so potentially it opens up a whole new reach for me.

Local sales have been well supported, but getting the book into shops has been a lot harder as an individual. Having an established publisher behind the new releases will lend a bit more street cred to the releases.

Pre-orders will go live early next week and the fantastic thing about this is there's no Amazon involved. The physical copies of books will be around four weeks (or slightly less) and I've had the guided tour through their facility and can confirm that any pre-orders will be honoured right up front (unlike the first book Amazon pre-orders which got cancelled and disappointed a lot of people and they had to re-order.)

There's other book news too, but that's still under wraps for now!

Things are afoot! I've met with my last time printer, and have a meeting tomorrow morning with a publisher, so things are moving at a great pace!

I've made some adjustments to the cover art, bought the ISBN and the barcode, so I officially have a second book in the set! I have preemptively set up the website pages, with the book landing page, banners, headers, About The Book, reviews and promo pages and where to shop, although that page is incomplete until I know who is printing it and where it's being published or if I'm self publishing this one.

I'm very excited!

I'll be getting the models together and planning a little launch party, of course along with a slew of social media.

Illness in the Middle Ages really wasn't great for anyone, but it was less so for the poor. Should a poor single woman contract leprosy, she was ousted from the municipality and forcefully pushed to live beyond the walls of the town, along with those accused of prostitution.

The borough ordinances of Bristol in 1344 encouraged this by making her home unlivable, giving the woman no alternative but to leave or live in a home which was not secure or weatherproof.

“And is such a woman should be found so living that then the doors and windows of their houses be taken down and carried off by the mayor’s servants as far as the constable of the peace of that ward’s house and kept there, and such women be entirely removed.”

For more information on Single Medieval Women and how they lived, just find your favourite online book seller, or better yet, your best bricks-and-mortar store and ask them to get it for you!

Well, there's book things afoot and with some news I received from my publisher yesterday, I'm now in overdrive with the second of the medieval quote books, Medieval Household Hints: Advice on Running a Household from the Middle Ages Which You Still Need Today and getting that out. Here's the sneak, peek of the cover:

I had originally hoped my existing publisher would pick it up to compliment my two non fiction books, but there have been... issues... (friends only post about that shortly) and they aren't taking new books at the moment, and while mulling over a bunch of things, I've decided to see about having the next Medieval Advice book published here in Australia.

You might remember that I self published the first quotes book, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Women: Advice From The Middle Ages That You Still Need Today, which was good but had a few drawbacks. The book itself was printed here in Brisbane, supporting our local industry, but unfortunately, the printer was just that- a printer, not a publisher. My plan was to sell online via postage and at events and see if I could get small amounts into local books shops, all of which worked well to a varying degree.

Now that the USA is off limits for postage and international post is very expensive, it just isn't feasible to post out. I'm holding more stock that I wanted to, which I paid for up front, of course, but I will just chip away at it over the years until it's all gone.

Yesterday I discovered a Brisbane printer who also taps into the publisher network, promotes the books on their online book shop and does some online sales from there. It's not a print on demand situation. Tapping into the book shop network, getting a book sent out as a new release in mailings and promo is absolutely vital for getting things into places. From what I can see, I feel like I'd need to cover the cost upfront for printing etc and they take a percentage of online sales and store an amount of stock in their warehouse also for posting out and promoting on their own online bookshop, which, quite frankly, is fair to me. It's a lot of work to do all that, and it helps support a Brisbane family-run business. I'd have the rest of stock on hand for book signings and events for sales.

Anyway, I've sent them an email about prices, and if things aren't too bad, I might proceed with that asap. I have Mother's Day markets coming up and it would be fantastic to have it out for that!

I've had a really busy few days planning and gathering images for my first ever After Dark with the Abbey Museum of Art & Archaeology. I've done a heap with the Queensland Museum for the British Museum which had a touring exhibit at the time called Medieval Power: Symbols & Splendour.

Last time I was giving my rather thrilling medieval sex talk, Between Linen Sheets: The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women (which turned into a book) but this time I'll be talking about medieval craftsmanship in dress accessories. It seems to be another topic that everyone feels they know about, but in reality, original artifacts are often much smaller or larger or better made than expected.

I'll have a look at some originals and compare them to some reproductions in regard to artisan skills and think about where we get our information from; artifacts, extant finds, art and so on.

I'll have some artifacts on display too, along with some reproductions of them for comparisons.

It's not until April, but since January is just about over, it's coming up fast!

I'm very excited to be prepping for a Mother's Day market this year! I don't do many markets, but this one raises funds for a cat rescue here in Brisbane, Best Friends Felines, and since I have a rescue kitty myself, I'm all for helping them out. They assured me they will have a lot of pet related stalls and wanted some other stalls to balance it out but also be something a little different, so that's me! I've been accepted already and I've made a little ad using their own promo colours and style, and I think it's come together well.

I'll have all three books and a range of other stuff which I can't take all of to other events: medieval stickers, little cosmetic bags, leather pouches in fun colours paternosters and prayer beads (in wood, stone, and semi-precious stones), some tote bags, perhaps some medieval "No Touchy Touchy!" coffee mugs as well.

I have a medieval weekend on the same time, but will do the markets and if it's not raining, will go for the rest of the long weekend on site. It almost always rains that weekend, and last year a lot of people had a lot of modern stuff out and blasted modern music for hours whilst sitting in their modern camp chairs under their pop up gazebos, which really did spoil it. None of the organisers said anything, so I'm expecting more of the same this year, sadly.

The Mother's Day Markets sound like fun!

In exciting news, I'll be speaking at a wonderful evening at the Abbey Museum of Art & Archaeology in April on Medieval Clothing: Dress Accessories, which will feature wine and charcuterie, my talk with close up images on a large screen of artifacts and research about the workmanship of dress accessories and a selection of high end reproductions and 14th century artifacts.

The artifacts and reproductions will be part of a white glove experience, where guests may carefully hold the artifacts in their own hands for a truly wonderful learning opportunity.

This week I'm gathering images and putting notes together which will form the basis of the presentation, but already I'm so excited to be sharing this! Many people have the idea that workmanship in the middle ages was rough and shoddy and I'm here to say it just isn't true!

I'm very excited to say that an article was recently published in the Abbey Museum of Art & Archaeology's magazine, Lindisfarne, all about my favourite thing! Well, my second favourite thing... Single Medieval Women! I've got to admit, my all time favourite thing is talking about all that behind-the-bedroom doors stuff from their lives!

It's a brief overview about who was actually single in society and what they actually did with their time whilst they were a small child, waiting to marry, or avoiding it completely!

If you'd like to learn more and would like to dip your toe into this world, you'll find an entire book, written by yours truly. It's not an academic read, because it's aimed at all of you lovely readers who know only what you've learned from Game of Thrones (oh no!) and enjoyed at your local renfaire (loads of fun but rife with historical inaccuracies!)

Book Event Selfie!

Just home from a brilliant evening with the Books@Stones Non Fiction Book Club dinner at Taste of Saffron Persian Restaurant! My book was this month's read and it was so wonderful to chat to everyone and answer their questions! At least half the members are men, so it was very interesting to hear what surprised them the most!

Feedback was overwhelmingly good as none of these were medieval historians and were the actual target audience- people who knew nothing about the world. They were excited to hear that a medieval dress had a special name and were not already familiar with many things which historians and hard core re-enactors already know and had said were trivial and not really worth including (because who doesn't know it already?)
This group of people.

Anyway, it was really good to be the guest speaker and share a dinner with these wonderful non-fiction book lovers!

ps the book club has a new member now!

Babe, are you OK?

You’ve hardly filled up your cart and it’s your last chance to get free shipping AND 25% off 150+ hand selected indie bookseller picks!

Just a reminder that supporting these guys online supports bricks-and-mortar bookshops the world over and you can buy my books there as well!

It's 34 days until Xmas, so why not support a bricks-and-mortar bookshop and gift someone (or yourself) one of these? Perfect for your ren-faire friend or family who likes history and ye olden medieval dayes of olde might like to learn some real stuff! Written especially for non-academic history lovers.

A reminder that Bookshop is a great Amazon alternative (and I think they have a Black Friday sale running at the moment too.) If you live in Brisbane, BooksStones at Stones Corner on Logan Rd have stock and don't need to order in, and the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology Gift Shop are on Caboolture/Bribie Island Road, and always have stock too.

Other places may need to order in for you.

In case you're wondering what I get up to in the real world, I do historical displays at festivals and museums and I'd like to share some from a fun event recently!

I should have taken more photos on the day but it was very busy! The tooth powders and breath fresheners were of particular interest to the crowds at Southern Realm Festival on the weekend! so many interested folks!

The bathtub is always a firm crowd favourite, and since this event is quite a distance from the Abbey Medieval Festival, many attendees had never been and were seeing all this for the very first time! As you can imagine, so many comments about medieval hygiene from movies which we had fun chatting about!

I also brought the new red chest with arches. Here's how the new chest looked in situ!

I had a blue, wool cushion on top for comfy sitting and matching red oxide coloured display stand for books, bentwood boxes and some fun medieval manuscript stickers! Happily, the merch was tucked into the side wall where you had to come in to see it and it didn't spoil the display. This is the benefit of a non living history, educational display at a fun event!

If you'd like to see more of my medieval experiments, sewing and handcrafts, there's a whole other blog for that (so I don't bore the pants off you here) which you can check in with any time you like. It's on Dreamwidth too, under the name sister_raphael

Maybe I'll see you there!

Brisbane book lovers!!!!

Planning your Love Your Bookshop Day visits for this Saturday? Make Books@Stones a must stop! We have a lucky golden ticket, activities for kids and I'm the Author on the Sidewalk with an incredible promotion!

Buy either The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women or Single Medieval Women, and get my bonus Medieval Wisdom for Modern Women quote book FREE!!!

Only on LYBD this Saturday 11th October, and only at Books@Stones at Logan Road, Stones Corner!

Just in time! More Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women have arrived for next Saturday's Love Your Bookshop Day 2025 at Books@Stones, Logan Road, Stones Corner, who are my local bricks-and-mortar shop.

I'm always keen to participate and I'm hoping to have a fun book giveaway too, because if I know one thing, it's that book people love free books!

It'll be wonderful!

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MEDIEVAL WOMEN'S THINGS

Rosalie Gilbert. Author & History Enthusiast.

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Hot off the presses!

Medieval Household Hints is NOW AVAILABLE!

Book updates: Medieval Wisdom Quote books!

Medieval Household Hints, part 2

Medieval Women and Leprosy

Medieval Household Hints

An After Dark Experience at the Museum

Mother's day Markets

After Dark at Abbey Museum 2026

Magazine article for Single Medieval Women

Book Club Dinner Selfie!

How to avoid the big A

Books at Key Lime

Non book things in the real world

Southern Realms Festival

Single Medieval Women now at Key Lime!

Medieval women behaving badly.

Get ready for Love Your Book Shop Day 2025

Books back in stock!

Vale Jane Goodall

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February 2026

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