Campus Galli -- Back to the 9th Century

Late May, and I went back to the Campus Galli in southern Germany, near Messkirch. This is a 9th-century experimental archaeology site where a group of artisans, master craftspeople, architects, archaeologists, and historians are working to build the monastery of St Gall, as described in an early 9th-century manuscript. This is my third year visiting the site; I stayed for two weeks, which is the minimum for volunteers.

As usual I stayed at a guest-house in Sigmaringen and caught a lift from friends to go to the campus every day. It's a long day: I leave my digs around 830 in the morning and usually get back by 1930 or 2000 in the evening, six days in a row. The Campus Galli isn't open on Mondays -- that's usually when I take a little day trip to Tuebingen or places around the area. This year friends and I went to the Schloss in Sigmaringen on the day off.

The Schloss dates from around the 11th century, and has been in the Hohenzollern family for about 500 years. Most interesting there to me is a 15th-century Portuguese tapestry that depicts David and Bathsheba. Everyone is of course in 15th-century clothing rather than contemporary styles, but this means there were ladies (especially) and men shown wearing what appeared to be sprang caps.

At Campus Galli, I helped out in the Weberei again -- one new aspect to the Weberei complex is a new building, the Farberei, is quickly being built. This new building will have a central fire and be a warm and dry place to dry fleeces and dye the wool.

Most of my work this time around involved making nalbinding projects, including a couple of hats for humans, and one for the Campus Galli elephant, which came to hide in the Weberei whilst I was there.

I made a couple of pieces from sprang -- one of which went wonky due to carelessness on my part, but that can be attributed to being stung on the back of the next by a wasp whilst I was working.

The main piece ended up being a pair of sprang slippers -- absolutely not a Carolingian thing, but a fun piece nevertheless.

The weather was much better this year than last -- a little chilly in the first week, but nothing like the rain last year.

Wool blanket that I hemmed with blue linen, whilst a small sheep in a nalbinding cloak looks on.

Campus Galli is pretty much unknown outside of Germany -- but if you find yourself down in that area (about 2 hours' drive from Stuttgart), you should check it out.