Modern ideas of Chivalry

Let's start out the New Year with a story about modern ideas of chivalry.  I found a 15-year-old account of the SCA's Pennsic War lurking on my hard drive while I was looking for something else.  It was a year when a good number of us fighters were revisiting the medieval sources for chivalry (meaning both fighting and non-fighting aspects)  with the desire to see the relevance of the medieval ideas and practices to a bunch of fun-loving reenactors.  Lots of special events touching on this took place that year,

One of the key medieval characteristics of chivalry is the conviction that present-day knights (or men-at-arms) are not living up to the standards of the Good Old Days.  Several modern scholars have pointed out the strong reformist strain in medieval treatises.

At the Pennsic War in question, there was one notable incident that showed the disagreements about the nature of chivalry could easily pop up.  A rather large group of fighters were in one of the camps working on practice exercises based on 14th-century techniques.  No doubt they felt rather virtuous; I did. (Yes, I was one of them.) Most SCA fighting is based on no medieval precedents. Here we were doing something provably medieval!

Then we were called out.  Here's what I wrote at the time:

A male inhabitant of the camp rather self-righteously informed us that all us “gentlemen practicing a martial art” had ignored a lady struggling to put up pavilion walls the previous day.    After our apologies and his departure there was a lot of speculation about whether this had actually happened or how much we were at fault, since none of us had noticed said lady.    I discussed this with lots of people over the next few days, and even wondered rather maliciously if this should be a topic for the chivalry roundtable on the upcoming Monday, instead of the proposed questions.

A victory for medieval re-enactment:  we re-created the lack of sympathy between fighters and non-fighters.  At least we got close.  And everybody got to feel virtuous and that the other guy just didn't get it.

Image:  Damsel in distress.  Did the knight carry her luggage to his camp afterwards?

A welcome tribute at Pennsic War 46

If you are not interested in the Society for Creative Anachronism, skip this.

I used to be relatively famous in the SCA for being one of the very few people  who had attended all of the yearly Pennsic wars, and for having fought in all the major battles.  Well, my health has prevented me from doing this for the past two years.  This year, somebody did something about it.  My daughter Eanor's husband, who goes  by the medieval name Haroun, decided to host a deed of arms in my honor early in this Pennsic war.  (If you don't know what a deed of arms is, I've got several relevant books on them for sale.)

I had already decided not to be miserable and envious of my friends having a good time, and I had succeded, pretty much, but this deed of arms and the efforts of Eanor and Haroun sure made it easier. One feature of deeds of arms in the SCA is that there is usually a book in which participants record their thoughts about the event, the hosts, etc. For this deed there was a blue-bound book
The fighters who turned out, filled with respectful, eloquent, even philosophical messages.
I was truly touched.
I was also impressed by how well-spoken and thoughtful these people were, remembering that their distinguishing characteristic is that they like to hit their friends with wooden swords while wearing funny clothes.
One person who I would have liked to have seen was Bill Colbert (William de Montegilt), who is one of the most senior members of the SCA, noted also for his long service in unglamorous jobs. I respect William because he joined very early on in the East Kingdom. He was -- like many back then -- an unlikely warrior, one who you might think would not be able to take the punishment. But he's still with us, more than 40 years on.
Pictures to follow.

The woods battle at Pennsic 39

Here is a brief video of one of the battles at last week's Pennsic war. It was produced by students of the Entertainment Technology of Carnegie Mellon University. They used a "shield cam," a camera embedded in a shield, which meant the mechanism had a good POV and a certain amount of protection. Link.

Vacation

For the next two weeks I will be away from my computer, specifically at Pennsic War 39, one of the biggest historical re-creations I know of (re-creation rather than re-enactment because it recreates medieval activities but doesn't strictly re-enact some medieval occasion). As a whole, it is like a giant celebration of whatever people feel like celebrating. Like the eternal war between the East and Middle Kingdoms.

There will be one notable re-enactment, by the Company of St. Michael, on the Tuesday of the main week of Pennsic, of the Seneschal of Hainault's deeds of arms of 1402-3. The previous link will tell you more. I hope to be there, but I promised last year and ended up too exhausted to take part.

Image: Do you know that Google returns 19,000,000 results when you search for images of the Company of St. George?

The Pennsic War, July-August 2009

A while back Will McLean posted a video on the most recent Pennsic War. It rather got overshadowed by the Staffordshire Hoard, but now I will embed the video, a classy job by Voice of America. (No, I'm not in it.)

The Pennsic War

During my recent vacation I attended, as I usually do, the SCA's Pennsic War. The Society for Creative Anachronism or SCA is a very large medieval re-creation group -- not a reenactment group because it does not reenact specific events of the Middle Ages, but has created its own Middle Ages for fun. The Pennsic War to give an example is fought between two SCA kingdoms, the Middle Kingdom and the East Kingdom, and their allies, none of which you will find on a map of Europe in any era. Wrapped around this war, which is by far the largest SCA event on the calendar, are a large number of organized and spontaneous activities, martial, educational, and artistic -- not to mention the parties and the various efforts to survive in what is essentially a tent city of 10,000 people or more.

I could go on for a long time trying to convey the Pennsic experience, but I will restrict my remarks to a few. First, reenactment. If neither Pennsic nor the SCA are primarily meant as reenactments, a fact that earns them scorn from many people who are aiming at reenactment, there are moments of reenactment nonetheless. At this Pennsic war I was able to witness attempts to re-create or reenact, with differing levels of accuracy, to deeds of arms of the 14th century which I have written about in scholarly venues, the Combat of the 30 against 30 that took place in Brittany in 1351, and the deeds of arms at Vannes, also in Brittany, of 1381. (The image above shows a few of the French 30 preparing for the combat.) Though one could easily stand back and list deficiencies in these reenactments, I found them enjoyable and even educational. (Here's my kvetch: Armor fans will note in the image above that the participants in this annual event tend to favor late- rather than mid-14th century armor. And many of them seem to be armored like princes instead of mercenary scum.)

More interesting even than the recreations and reenactments of the Middle Ages is the is a freewheeling modern-medievalist (?) culture of Pennsic. Two small examples will give an impression, I hope.

The first is the Pennsic rune stone. Long ago (1981), some SCA members from the American Midwest tried to express what the martial competitions at Pennsic, which are vigorous and sometimes painful but seldom really dangerous, meant to them. They did it in mock- Viking style by erecting stone monument. It is pictured above. The inscription, which I offer without comment, says:

In memory of Pennsic X.
In war we test our honor, courage and strength.
Let no man strike in anger.
Let no man lie in pain.

The work was done by Lars the Fierce, now a professional potter, who still attends Pennsic.


My second example is newer than the rune stone: it is a Turkish-style coffeehouse called Your Inner Vagabond, which is dedicated to the pleasures that can be achieved with such legal stimulants as coffee, sugar, chocolate, and all the spices of the silk road. Not to mention occasional music and dance. The IV, as the worst addicts call it, has been such a success that it now has a permanent location in Pittsburgh, about an hour from Pennsic site. The on-site location is now considerably bigger than shown in the picture above, which is two years old.

Usually my time at Pennsic is entirely devoted to nonliterate pursuits. I tend to avoid the printed page, and I entirely avoid the glowing screen. But this year I did something I've never done at Pennsic before: I wrote a lecture (on the Second Crusade). And I did it while sitting in the Inner Vagabond and sampling its wares. It was pure pleasure.