Let me say this at the outset: as a child I was absolutely fascinated by the idea of knights in armour.
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I was especially taken by the helmets they would wear – how some were large and flat-topped (the great helm), some were pointed as a bird’s beak (the hounskull and bascinet), and some were just odd (the sallet). How did these soldiers wear the great weights of armour? How did they not cook themselves to death in the scorching desert sun of the Crusades? (Answer? They did.)
Everyone loves a cracking medieval story. Look at the popularity of the TV series Game of Thrones and Vikings. Swords and sandals, wimples and warlocks have been the staple of Hollywood’s take on the Dark Ages since Cecil B. DeMille pimped the ride on The Crusades in 1935.
But what of medieval reenactment? Why is there a growing popularity in Australia – and especially in Ballarat – for recreating a period of history to which we have no geographical connection?
For example, the recreation of battles is huge tourism in Poland where, of course, medieval history actually happened.
Ballarat is justly famous for the fabulous and fearsome folly that is Kryal Castle. At once monument and mausoleum to the vision of its creator Keith Ryall, it is a backdrop for the ‘medieval renaissance’ – and that was a deliberate oxymoron – that is taking place here.
Obviously Kryal is no more medieval than a jumping castle. As odd as it seems, the recreation of goldfields era Ballarat at Sovereign Hill, sanitised as it may be, at least has local historical context. Families can trace their forebears’ military service through reenactors’ Light Horse Troops across the country. In the United States, whole set pieces of the Civil War are replayed.
But Australia as the backdrop to the Field of the Cloth of Gold? That seems to be drawing a long bow. (Sorry, that was too easy.)
So why are people so fascinated with a kind of convoluted and juxtaposed general waving in the direction of the Middle Ages? Why dress up and pretend to live in a period that, let’s be honest, regarded human life as pretty disposable; where women (and most men) were possessions who could be traded away or indeed done away with most horribly?
This weekend the Ballarat plays host to its second ‘Medieval Faire’ – two days of creative anachronism (more on that later) that encompasses jousting, mounted archery and a running armoured battle. There will be encampments and food stalls, costumes and genuine historical items on display.
Later in the month we’ll see cross-Tasman jousting championship at Kryal Castle.
The Faire is for charity; it’s a non-profit organisation that will donate money from the days to assist the homeless through Uniting Care’s Sleepless program. That’s a cause worthy of supporting in itself. As Medieval Faire organiser Susan Mitchell eloquently puts it:
As re-enactors we choose to sleep rough, but there are a lot of people in our community who don't have that choice
- Susan Mitchell
But I’m curious. Why do people find such joy in dressing in the idea of a costume of one thousand years ago and then beating the living daylights out of each other with replica swords?
It all sounds fun, but it’s not as if it’s anywhere remotely accurate in reproducing the lifestyle of the time. (Black Death anyone? Drawn and quartered? Bloodletting, leeches and childbirth mortality? Famine? Ergotism?)
Susan Mitchell says the Faire is not about recreating history as it actually was.
“Look we’re really about having a great time,” she says.
“Some medieval events you must be period accurate; you must have handmade shoes. We’re not. We accept the fantasy side and the historical side. We’re about families having a fun time and children being educated.”
Mitchell says there are quite a few reenactment societies in Ballarat and the number is growing.
“There’s the JOAS group (Juvenis of Accendo Sarcalogos, or Youths of the Illuminated Christ); Glyndwr Rising, a Welsh 14th Century reenactment group; there’s Swordcraft; there’s SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism. There are 25,000 registered reenactors in Australia and about 15,000 non-registered reenactors,” says Ms Mitchell.
“We have everything from Greek and Roman, the pre-Middle Ages right through to Tudor and beyond to the Light Horse Brigade, various Renaissance groups. We focus on general Medieval, which is roughly 600 AD to 1600 AD.
“In that we’ve got fantasy and reality, and all the pomp and ceremony of the medieval times.”
During the Faire you can expect to see blacksmithing, calligraphy and illumination, jousting, mounted archery and day-long rolling battles provided by Historical Medieval Battle (HMB) groups from around Australia and New Zealand.
A quick bit of research showed me what the HMBs might get up to. This is their set list for reenactment over the weekend:
- Bohurt (team sizes to be decided closer to date, but 3v3 to 5v5)
- Longsword 1v1
- Sword and shield 1v1
- sword and buckler 1v1
- pole axe 1v1
- profights for those that want them.
What’s a bohurt you ask? Watch this video.
That is about as near to an actual medieval battle as you can get this side of of a Rugby League State of Origin match, I’d suggest.
The Society for Creative Anachronism or SCA was founded in 1966 at Berkeley University in California. It’s one of the first coherent efforts at a mass-scale recreation of another period of history, and it’s been remarkably successful. The movement has spread worldwide; indeed it has divided the world into various ‘kingdoms’.
One of the reasons for its existence, it posits, is to offer participants a chance to ‘learn the skills and virtues of this exciting period of history.’
Not unsurprisingly though, the lists of these participants seem top heavy with lords and dukes, barons and duchesses and ladies, knights and squires, marshals and canons and heralds.
The actual grindingly poor masses that made up the populations - the tooth-rotted, urine-splashed, freezing and dying by the droves serf and peasants and slaves? Not so popular.
The Domesday Book records the English countryside comprised 12% freemen, 35% serfs or villeins, 30% cotters and bordars, and 9% slaves. Villeins, cottars, bordars and slaves lived in a perpetual state of bondage and effectively belonged to the lord of the manor: They couldn’t leave his service or even get married without permission.
That’s understandable. If I’m giving my weekend to travel back to mid- 13th century England, I’d want to be the king, too.
Australia, for your information, resides in the SCA ‘Kingdom of Lochac’. Here is your king and queen. No, I’m not sure if spectacles were invented ‘then’ either.
Also, I’m pretty sure ‘Ariston’ is a brand of whitegoods.
There’s also jousting on offer in Ballarat, both at the Faire, and in April when the international tournament arrives.
Now we know what jousting is. It’s two men coated in plate steel carrying pointy lances on heavy horses charging towards each other at speed, pointing the pointy lances at each other in the hope one gets knocked off aforesaid horse.
Those pointy lances are dangerous, and may have changed history.
Kryal Castle will host the inaugural Tasman Shield International Jousting Tournament on April 1 and 2. The promoters say it’s the first time an international tournament will be held at the castle, and the first time Australian knights will face off against their New Zealand counterparts.
Ballarat can lay claim to Phillip Leitch, one of Australia's most successful medieval jousters. Leitch has won multiple overseas tournaments. He will appear at the championship with Cliff Marisma, Ballarat's other professional jouster, who recently knocked out Phil to win the St Ives Medal.
Hopefully the New Zealanders will be a little more dressed than their Maori champions here. It can be hellacold in Ballarat in April.
Ultimately it can be argued medieval reenactment is really just a bit of fun, a fantasy away from the mundanity of the day-to-day. It’s a chance to see some skills that have been preserved, and no doubt physical prowess and horsemanship.
Why it has taken root so strongly in Ballarat remains something of a mystery, however. Reenactment as a whole seems to be part of the growth industry that is nostalgia, that great illusion that yesterday was somehow better than today.
It’s best not to take it all too seriously. Grab a goblet of mead, strap on a merkin and get your joust on.
The 2017 Ballarat Medieval Faire is a charity event supporting Uniting Care Ballarat. It’s on this weekend, March 11 and 12 at the Polocrosse Grounds, 207 Airport Road, Mitchell Park. More at https://www.facebook.com/events/1625363421100648/ and http://www.vicgoldmedievalfaire.com.au/
The Tasman Shield International Jousting Tournament will be held at Kryal Castle April 1 and 2. More at https://www.facebook.com/events/231553793918037/