New Generation Thinkers: Ruffs in Jamestown

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The discovery of goffering irons, the tools used to shape ruffs, by an archaeological dig in North America, gives us clues about the way the first English settlers lived. Lauren Working's essay looks at the symbolism of the Elizabethan fashion for ruffs. Now back in fashion on zoom, they were denounced by Puritans, shown off in portraits of explorers like Raleigh and Drake, and seen by the Chesapeake as a symbol of colonisation, whilst the starch was used for porridge at a time of scarcity and war.

Lauren Working teaches at the University of York and was chosen in 2021 as a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which turns research into radio. You can find another Essay by Lauren called Boy with a Pearl Earring https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014y52 and hear her in a Free Thinking discussion about The Botanical Past https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wlgv

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say?
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0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
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0:35.8	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. You're listening Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:39.8	You're listening to the Radio 3 Arts and Ideas podcast.
0:44.2	I'm Loren Working, and in this edition of the essay,
0:47.3	I trace the journey of a prominent piece of Elizabethan fashion
0:51.3	from the courts of London to the shores of colonial Virginia.
0:55.6	That's coming up after this.
1:06.0	Hello, I'm Neo, the singer, songwriter and daily meditator, and I have a new series
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