Dan,
bouilli does mean boiled... Cooked, or baked, or heated would come out ''cuit'', ''roti'' ''chauffé''.
As a noun, un bouilli, means a stew, in other words meat cooked in a liquid, with vegetables. Bouillon is broth.
As a verb,bouillir, means to boil.
Now I will grant you that all liquids will boil at the approriate temperature, so we might be dealing with a construct more complex than simple water, but that does not change the meaning of the word. Cheers, Jean-Carle

Actually more like "poached", not hard boiled. "Court Bouillion" is a solution of vegetables in water in which Salmon is "poached" . Boil it and you'll lose the steak which will fall apart during the boiling process. I believe the Bouille reference rather than a "rolling boil" is the effect here same as the fish. You don't want it to boil. It's great with a little Hollandaise on it.

Brawn,
not really. Poached is ''poché'', like for eggs benedictine: des oeufs pochés, .. boiling oil is huile bouillante, and so on.. ébouillanter is to splash with a boiling substance.. being scalded...
Now there is the exprssion : réduire en bouilli... which means to transform something into mush, and by extension, one can reduce one's adversaries into nothing by making mush out of them... les réduire en bouilli...but that is an extension of the basic image of what happens when you leave anything boil too long, it will eventually turn into mush.
Cuir bouilli is quite litterally boiled leather, though how and with what and for how long, is still up for debate. The language in itself is not really to interpretation...JC

I found an interesting note in the Oxford English Dictionary on cuirbouilli

in addition to showing various forms of spelling the word; it gives the literal meaning as being "boiled leather" (pg. 1241, 1971 edition)

The definition strongly implys that the leather is soaked or 'boiled' in water to make it pliable in order to facilitate forming the leather into the required shape.

"Leather boiled or soaked in hot water, and, when soft, moulded into any required form; on becoming dry and hard it retains the form given to it, and offers considerable resistance to cuts, blows, etc."

(the note I found interesting) "The word was in common English use from the 14th to 16th c. after which it is not found until modern times, when it appears as borrowed from modern French"

The OED also references an 1880 publication by C.G.Leland 'Minor Arts' which also indicates that the boiled or 'macerated' leather was for softening the leather prior to working it into form.

In searching for an existing copy of Leland's work I found the following URL, which may be useful:

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~Marc-Carlson/leather/hl.html


It seems clear, from the information that I have found, that 'boiling' is done to simply soften the leather in order to work it; the hardening process comes afterwards from the leather simply drying out on its own, or being put in rosin bath (which incidently needs to be heated), or another treatment to further harden the leather after shaping it.

From hands on experience, I can tell you that modern veg tanned leather does not 'soften' when boiled. It in fact shrivels and becomes some kind of ultra tough crap. Emphasis on crap. I could find some uses for it, but it's really distorted looking.

I am still currently of the belief that the leather is *tanned* in a different way (that's the word for it, right?).

M.

The problem with modern leather, even vegetable tanned one, is that the leather is stretched and pressed to obtain an uniform thicknes... different parts of the leather piece are pressed and stretched differently so when it's shirnks in boiled water, it will shrink differently. This wouldn't happened with medieval leather that was stretched only on a wooden frame by hand.

M. Eversberg,
my experience was different from yours. I think the trick is to have your form or mold ready so that the leather is stretched to the proper shape, and then blocked so it doesn't move during the drying process. I used an old wood form for making hats and in one instance made a plaster of paris mold of the inside of a motorcycle helmet to get the proper head side.
One thing I did notice is that the leather will still shrink a little, even after it appears to be dry I made a couple of leather skull forms, which my friend Dabek banded with metal, spangen style, and finished it off with butted mail. I sold them at Pennsic years ago to people who enjoyed a pseudo viking look.
Once dry, I used some varnish that I had hanging around in the basement, which I colored with wood stain. I still have mine, though it is now being used in some LARP by my sister in law's beau. JC

I willingly cede that I might be wrong in all points I've made thus far :p

Now, when I boiled the leather, it decided to become all gnarly in the pot, and the water wasn't quite a "rolling boil". I think it warrants experiment, and I do have some scraps, but I'd prefer to do it on actual period leather. This would be well out of my price range.

M.

Brawn
Got it. Didn't want to get anyone in hot water on a question of a simple variation in degrees... I have a few more puns in mind, but that should do for now... Cheers, JC

Yes that was my point also. In English the word "boiled" means that the water must be at boiling point. With the medieval "bouilli" I'm not sure the same thing is implied. The water could be cooler and the term can still apply. But like I said I don't study medieval French. I was merely attempting to trace the etymology of a single word.

Dan,
I understand the hypothesis, and I wasn't standing there with a thermometer in hand, but water doesn't boil at different temperatures according to language groups, and bouilli does mean boiled. Now even in english we might say that the weather is boiling hot, when in fact it isn't... we refer to people being fried when in fact they're not.. and so on.. but that doesn't alter the plain and simple meaning of words : bouilli is boiled... now whether or not they truly did bring the leather in the water up to a boil, or wait until the liquid ( whatever it was ) boiled before ''poaching'' the leather, I really don't know.. but I do know that there is no difference between boiled or bouilli, so I guess we will have to continue looking for the magic recipe.
I knew one fellow who made leather masks which he would sell at pennsic, or Renfairs... he used fabric softener as a component of the liquid bath to soften the veg tanned leather before forming them into all sorts of shapes. but I know that fabric softener wasn't around in the 1200's...
Lâche pas mon ami,
JC

Today we use the word to refer to a very specific instance - where the liquid is heated up to the point in which it begins to convert into a gas. That was definitely not the definition in the past. The word was used to describe a hot liquid - that is it. "Boiling in oil" just meant that the person was tortured by dumping them in hot oil. "Boiled leather" just meant that the leather was treated by using hot water. Whether the liquid had reached "boiling point" was irrelevant.

Idea about "cooking" leather: press the leather between two wooden tables, then put them into boiling water and let it dry. Then leather should shrink and harden but maybe at the same time it could keep a "normal" flat shape, without curling, and it would be of some use. I will try tomorrow...