Welcome to Blood and Sawdust, my web site dedicated to the study and recreation of 16th and 17th century English and American colonial history and material culture. For some 25 years I have been active (on and off) in various historical study groups, such as the Society for Creative Anachronism and Gardiner's Company of the London Trayn'd Bandes. My particular area of interest is in the woodworking trades (such as turners, carpenters, and joiners) and the history and culture of the "middling-sort" at the end of the Middle Ages and in the Early Modern period. This was a period of great change, as the medieval gave way to an explosion of new science, religion, art, and philosophy in the European Renaissance. In some ways it mirrors our own times, as we have gone from first human flight to moon landings in a single lifetime. Not to mention religious conflict, extremism, and really questionable taste in fashion.