Multisensory Virtual Experience of Tanning in Medieval Coventry

Abstract

In the medieval period, Coventry, in the English Midlands was a major centre for tanning as well as for its better-known cloth industry. Heavily damaged during the Second World War, and unsympathetically rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s, there is little left in modern Coventry to remind visitors of this important period in Coventry's history. The tanning of cattle hides was a labour intensive and smelly process. After the hooves and horns had been chopped off the animal skins from butchers, the skins were immersed in pits filled with dog dung or lime, scraped and then sprinkled with urine and left to rot in a warm environment. Finally the hides were soaked for up to twelve months in a tanning liquid to achieve the desired quality of leather. To fully appreciate the medieval tanning process, any virtual recreation needs to be multisensory: the sites of the skins in various stages of processing, the shouts of the workers, and the pungent smells. This paper presents the process of recreating this important multisensory experience and discusses how this can provide visitors with a richer experience of Coventry's illustrious past.