A quick note, my trip up to the site after not having felt well most of the day was not the best in the world either.  Combine feeling ill with a horse pulling during loading and putting a good rope burn on my hand and allow two hours of sitting in traffic on the interstate not hardly moving (four miles in two hours) to allow it all to settle well and you get the idea.  Combine that with my good friend Edmund having a blow out and being hours behind me, at least until I was stuck in traffic and you get some idea of my thinking it was going to be a bad weekend.  I should have known better.  We arrived to stalls already made up, water in the buckets and in general very well set.

Saturday we started the day with some breakfast and much needed coffee.  There was some general discussion between folks present but classes did not start until yours truly got going at 9:00am, with a welcome and given a state of affairs for the Equestrian College.  I figured I would be thirty minutes and have a few questions.  After the first hour and only being half way through the notes, Peitre graciously bowed out of one class to allow me to continue.  The discussion on several issues was really good and general nature of the questions said to me such a sit down discussion from dean to marshalate is needed on regular basis.

During this time it was open riding to participate in whatever games and practicing that anyone wanted to do.  Apparently the classes and especially discussion through out was so interesting that everyone seemed to have forgotten about the riding.  Up next was a discussion about the balsa wood jousting experiment, that again I headed up, as I wanted to get that out there in front of everyone.  There was a good sharing of equipment and much discussion that followed.  Much gratitude to Edmund for his insightful comments during this session as well.  I do apologize for regrettably never getting to the jousting demo by the way – there were several issues.  First, balsa to make tips arrived late, though it could have been worked around.  Lonesome (the newer horse) is a bit green about it and Angel (the backup) came up lame Saturday afternoon).  Hopefully everyone will make it to Siege next weekend and get to see some of it.

During the afternoon, I personally got in some riding on Jack and he was being his usual high strung self, made all the worse by his extreme herd bound attachment to Angel.  Once I got him going at the games good a few times we slacked off and let him have off (at this point, thinking we may do jousting later or on Sunday morning sometime).  I got back over for some of a class on elegant attire for your war horse.  Some of it looked really good and I would love to get my chamfron/crinets finished up.  I have inspiration now.

I don’t recall what order things occurred in next, but I know there was a class on the history of the warhorse which was well done and something else that I am failing to recall now.  Later, several headed out for a trail ride around the farm, which is where Angel showed up lame.  As Jack was having such issues I felt this was a strong suggestion I should not make this trail ride.

I think there may have been another class in there, but I was beat and went to have dinner and get some refreshment.  Later, toward dusk, we were entertained His Excellency, The Baron, playing his guitar and singing.   A bottle was passed a few times and after moving to a bonfire as stories starting to come out the bottle was passed a few more times.

Sunday morning we awoke and after a hot breakfast and more coffee (seeing a theme?) we heading over to do some games practice, get some pointers, and work on getting some folks authorized.  All went extremely well and we now have three new riders in the kingdom.  If you see them, a hoo-bah for Enkara of Darkhorse, Patrick von Brandenburg, and Sir Jasper of the Lakes.  Additionally, during the Sunday morning time frame I wrapped up the testing for two new marshals and hoo-bah is also in order for Erelwin Sarpo & Azzah bing al Bardawi al Murabbiyyah al Rualliyyah (yeah, that is just two names).  Congratulations are in order to all!

I was seriously thinking of heading out after lunch on Sunday, but Patrick’s two session class on historical mounted combat techniques was too much for me to pass up in the end.  I stuck around to see that and it was very interesting.  I was proud of that moment when asked about left to left passes and I was able to cite that in Germany some styles in late period with full breastplates were right shoulder passes at tilt.  The class was very interested and the mobile wooden mounts (very similar to some illuminations I have seen) added a lot to the class.  I still have a doubt or two about a couple of moves working when at speed (even the trot) but will explore that at another time.

Again, if you missed it this year you should put it on your calendar for next year right now!  Truly a great event, even with traffic issues and lack of jousting due to lame horse.

Immediate Upcoming Events:

Crystal Chamfron – Not Just Horsin’ Around is coming up first.  The event is out on the western edge of the kingdom and will be occurring June 25-27.  I went out last year and had a blast.  The group out there is very enjoyable company and very good competition as well.  (I would go again this year, but Border Raids is the same weekend and I think I should make an appearance as it is just down the road.

Middle Kingdom Equestrian Symposium is a few weeks after that over the 4th of July weekend (July 2-4).  A new idea and one I am totally behind.  It will be a day of classes both mounted and dismounted covering a variety of things regarding SCA equestrian.  I have not seen a complete list of classes, but I know that it includes some basics of getting your horse reading for an event to what is involved in becoming and equestrian marshal.  I have just this evening cleared my schedule to attend the event and I will be present a class or two myself (at this point I am do not know if it will be with horses in tow or not).  Regardless, I encourage everyone to make it out and it is in a very central location near Lafayette, Indiana.

The following weekend of July 9-11 will see the equestrians at the Siege of Talonvale.  The last couple of years the focus has been jousting due to the attendees having that as a primary interests.  I will be the equestrian marshal for the event and would love to do some of the more traditional games if there are those attending that will have horses and are interested.  Additionally, we will be doing a balsa wood joust demonstration/tournament, the newest experimental activating allowed to us SCA equestrians.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• I am getting access to the page that you land on if you click equestrian on the new (and improved) Midrealm website.  I will only have a few short pieces of information there and still point things to our primary webpage (which will hopefully be found more often that way).
  
• There is going to be a slight schedule change on the reporting for marshals coming in the near future.  Expect it move up by a couple of weeks, as my superiors need reporting information before I am getting myself.  I will be conferring with regional and senior marshals about this shortly.
• Speaking of which, at the symposium I would like to met with all marshals attending for about thirty minutes at some point.  We can work this out from a time perspective in the near future.  Just know I am looking forward to that.
• I look forward to seeing everyone in the near future at one of the events listed above or some other event that we have such an opportunity for otherwise.
  

Having recently gotten mostly settled into a new residence, I have managed to get my things (yeah, my things – your stuff) in one location for the first time in three years.  Probably more than you want to know, but in the process of that, it is all in one building instead spread out over four of five like it was before.  Anyway, this has allowed me to get my books all in the same relative location as well.  While I am liking bookshelf space for all of them at this point, it is giving the opportunity to re-read a few select scholarly medieval works that I greatly appreciate.

I was immediately drawn to the Hundred Years War time frame and more specifically, Henry V and Agincourt.  Largely because it is this immortalized battle from Shakespeare that more than anything else lead me to my passion for medieval reenacting in general.  My first selection for rereading is Agincourt by Juliet Barker (another inspiration with her collaborative work on Tournaments with Richard Barker).

Before even getting to the text, in the preface and notes I was struck by a notion.    She explains about translating to modern English the Latin, older English phrasing and especially the Medieval French.  She follows this up by also noted that the fractional units of the pound are retained, instead of the decimal amounts used today, including things such the pence and even the crown, noble, and mark.  What in particular struck me though was the compared value.

According to the Office for National Statistic (England?), a pound of 1415 would equate to 414 pounds in 1999.  I figure that has to be pretty close to the same amount today, given the heated economy and subsequent rapid decline in the last ten years.   So, do a little thinking about that and consider the typical that we expect on investments today.  For instance, most of my 401K stuff brings about historically (20-30 years) averaging something close to 10%. The stock market historically (100+ years) averages about 10% for investors putting in and holding).

Doing a little rounding to make it all simple, assuming an average return of 10%, compounding only once annually a 1 pound investment 500 years ago would yield 496,984,196,731,243,500,000 pounds today.   If we get rid of compounding though we would hit only 51 pounds.  And while this seems so much smaller, it is much closer to the actual gain of roughly 400.

Really makes me stop and wonder if we are being honest with our compounding (overall and in general, not necessarily specific).  It also makes me wonder what criteria was used to reach that 414 pound amount by the National Office of Statistics.  Lastly, makes me realize that investment in art and armour would have been a much better investment 500 something years ago then just putting the money in the bank so to speak.

I suppose because of the sheer volume of the number of such books made and lack of really anything new or profound in them, while some are pricey, for the most part they are not excessively out of range.  For instance, the page above, one of the more extravagant that I have seen was priced less the $1000 and I have seen several actually sold in the $100-150 range, especially with less artwork.  My point with that pricing is it is not completely out of my own range and I have thought about acquiring a few of these beautiful works.

My thoughts run something like this, they are for sale.  I like them.  I like the period in general.  I am  likely never going to be able to afford a piece of armor or something from the period.  Clearly not something museums are very interested in given the volume of them already in museums and the lower prices indicate if they wanted they would pursue them.

But then the thing that stopped me before, was as it was pointed out to me by a friend, with a major in historic preservation – something is being destroyed in the process and spread to the winds.  Namely the book from which the pages are taken.  Of course, reality is I suspect in most cases the pages were taken from the books years ago.   But then there is the question of the ones that maybe are not already apart and by making such a purchase is there a promotion of such defiling behavior?  Does it make the next person who finds one in grandma’s attic decide to carefully remove the pages one by one?

And then my thoughts turn to I would care for it and cherish and probably leave it with some organization that would display it on my ultimate demise.  And I also think that if I saw a complete prayer book at a price I could afford that would be a good thing instead, of course the likelihood of that is pretty slim, both based on what I have seen and probably because of just the fact the price point of individual pages leads to easier sales over an entire book.  And that furthers the argument against single pages.

Anyway, just curious from those of you out there and what your thoughts on the matter are?

** – page from a Book of Hours, circa 15th century, listed on eBay several weeks ago

To begin, a bit of background about the term.  A lot of historians prefer to not use the term renaissance as a description for a specific time period, but rather as the time when society began to once again seek answers to questions and pursue methods beyond.  A number of the great thinkers that we associate with the renaissance and enlightened thinking are precisely why we call someone who thinks own there own and outside of the current world view a true renaissance man in todays nomenclature.

Further, a fair number of historians, instead of defining the period by timelines, again prefer to define the pursuit of the classics.  From my own very limited reading on the the subject a great number tend to define it as the time when the local scholars began to turn back to Latin for both science and math, and to some extent even the humanities like plays the theater and poetic writings.  Of course other scholars argue that the relative ease and even common availability of Latin works on such subjects and the turning  back to is not really a renaissance.  They would instead argue that the renaissance is much more closely defined as the time when the scholars exhausted the Latin resources and turned to the Greek, especially in regards to the arts and humanities.  They will note that by the late medieval times, most knowledge of Greek language had been lost and this required interaction with the Byzantine Empire and a rather large learning curve.

All of that aside though, most of us are much more apt to define it as a specific time period, specifically associated with both a rediscovery of classical art forms and scientific methods, in associate with exploration and expansion on all the concepts.  But even that definition leaves us with plenty of room to haggle about things, as each country or area of Europe seemed to have this process, for various reasons, occur at different times.

Simply put, there is clear evidence that most all would agree the concepts of the renaissance occurred first in Italy.  More specially those changes tend to take place in Florence before any other place.  There are many arguments as to the possible cause of this ranging from the support of the various families trying to out do the others, especially as the Medici came to power.  Another is of course the various artists and such vied for the attention and subsequent support of the powerful families that it spurred the rapid development of the art forms.  Regardless the typical date of the start is 1350, though I have seen as early as 1300 and a lot of 1380, 1390, and even 1400 dates suggested.   Clearly, this would say in Italy and Florence in particular the renaissance started in the 14th century.  As an additional note, it is typically considered as continuing up through about 1550.

Skipping over to the place that I know the history a bit better, in England the renaissance was a much later happening.  A lot of people would give the beginning date as 1485, very late in the 15th century and coinciding with the Henry VII taking the thrown and the end of the War of the Roses and the beginning of the Tudor dynasty, most closely associated with the English renaissance.  Many more would argue though, that the renaissance begins with Henry VIII coming to the throne in 1509, suggesting his father was more of a transitional figure.  And a few others would say it really does not flourish in England until roughly Henry’s break with the Church of Rome at a later date.  Regardless this put the date clearly in the early 16th century.   Of interesting note, is unlike in Italy where the focus was much more on painting and sculpture as art, here the focus was much more on writing, theater, and such as that from an artistic standpoint.  Clearly the greatest association with the English renaissance is the very stable reign and great support of the arts during the Elizabeth I time on the throne.  Most would argue an end to the renaissance between 1620 and 1650, though most will go with the later date.

History lesson over, any questions?

** – picture of Henry VIII, note not obese, but a much younger and very stout Henry and not a turkey leg, but as originally painted, a glove!

I made my way over at a good early hour, as I had not managed to get over and get an inspection prior and I did not want to get stuck in a line and miss out on anything waiting for an inspection.  What a mistaken idea on my part.  Anyway, inspection was quick, easy, and of not pain at all.  It was a very nice process and very well organized.  Given the number of those being done I was rather impressed with it.  I will note, the green paint on my black sword guards was a bit if a pain, but the open faced beater basinet getting a sticker was fine – would have to think twice on the other one though.

Then I made my way to some folks I knew and after some introductions and willingness to have me, decided to fight with part of Stalhgiest for the time being.  I had a couple of friends who are squired to a knight in the household so it made a good deal of sense as a beginner at this level to do that.  I was ready to go, pumped and had sword at the ready, helm on (since it is a bit of a pain to get all set), and sword on arm.  After about fifteen minutes past the start time I ditched that and chilled out.  Another eon went by, and then someone decided we needed to form lines and pair with someone for the other side.  What a forever long process and in the end, no one was sure what the reason behind it all was.

After what did seem another eon, we finally were able to start and we had one of the center bridges.  As we got close to the bridge, but still no where near an engagement I realized just how much of a press we were going to have.  For those not familiar with, as a shield guy my job is to protect those spear guys working over my shoulders and such, once we get up close enough in the land.  Generally, the idea of a sword guy getting a kill is not likely, short of a big surge forward.

Eventually the time came and I was front.  I think I made a decent showing before going down.  At that point, one begins to realize in a battle just how much bodies could pile up.  You read about such descriptions in the history and think little about it and even dismiss it.  But a limited front, where else can the bodies go.  And so there I was on the bottom and a battle going on over my head, until a couple of other folks were dead on top of me.  Eventually, unlike the real warfare, a marshal called a hold and let the dead get from between the lines.

The battle was to be contested three times, so a bit of a break while the first was finished and then shortly after that, back to it.  This time a slightly different approach and different organization as we went  at it.  This time we were closer to the front.  In the battle, we first settled, and later surged and amazingly I was still alive.  I am pretty sure in the surge I had knocked a couple of folks off the side of the “bridge,” which was death to them.  Then a count I know in front of me was taken out and we were pressed so tight he could neither go down nor even move.  He did get out though, eventually.  Then we were pushed back and surged forward again, somehow I got a bit ahead and by the time someone yelled loud enough for me to get back in position (helmets are hard to hear in, especially with the rush of battle around) I was hit.  As I went down, I was hit again.

I get a little fuzzy – but I think the situation changed somewhat, but it was still a limited front next up.  I know in this one our tactics broke down or we just got beat.  This particular battle I think I got a kill before I went down myself, but I am not 100% sure that it was taken.  I went down though and had some  step on my grill as the ebb and flow took place and that twisted my helm nearly off.  Just as I was about to yell hold, someone above me must have seen and did so.

After I cleared out and got back to a safe point, I realized my gauntlet was missing the linkage on the thumb.  That blow I took on the way down had apparently broken the rivets.  Worse, I was missing a piece.  Later, along with some marshal friends of mine, I did find the piece.  Still not assembled though.

What a HUGE amount of fun the fighting was though.  I could hardly wait for the next day, despite the heavy shield and fatigue I was feeling at the moment.  So, in the evening, we spent some time having a good meal, lots of mead, and eventually wandered around pursuing various parties.  I suspect some of them where good fun, but the ones we pursued were more of deep amounts of drinking and probably lewd behaviors.  All in all that was a lot of fun as well and not something, with horses, I had gotten to pursue a lot at Gulf Wars.

It use to be on back in the not so long ago time period of when I was purposefully living without a television set (or least with no real access to any real sustainable decent connect) when I would visit somewhere I would immediately flip to see what was on the history channel.  Usually this would result in my being drawn into to epic history of real substance,  a good historically set movie or at the very least something that aired originally in a different format that had been adapted to something for the network.   Today, my situation finds me with a television system that readily gets the network and it is only out of extreme boredom that I even bother to check what the listings are on the History network.

Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men, MonsterQuest & especially Life After People are shows that have been on in prime time no less in the last year.  None of those shows really has anything to do at all with history in way.  Most of them are some kind of adaptation of reality shows that the History Channel clearly feels it needs to do in order to be competitive, but in so doing, it has diluted and in my opinion alienated the very folks that made the network viable to begin.   Life After People actually takes the idea of history to the absurd and looks to the future, sometimes millions of years, at what will happen if people suddenly died off in some sort of cataclysm disaster.

I have wondered more then a few times just exactly what happened?  It started occurring well before the current economic downturn, but maybe the cost of making decent historical documentary or dramas was just to expensive.  It is clearly a lot cheaper to catch a few people working on some task over and over in repetition and edit until only the highlights of things going wrong, such as a crane dropping a log or catching on fire – and then follow this up with anxiety on the part of the people involved to top it off nicely.

I have also thought that maybe they have exhausted all the things historical that would be a worth to a audience and given that they only have the dregs left they need to explore other options until some new slant on all of history comes along that they can explore.   Who are we kidding though, there are a million years of history and few million events that could be explored in the relatively short time period of recorded history.

And recently, after seeing the very nice job Ken Burns did with the a huge mini-series on PBS about the National Parks.  I have to dismiss both of those.  He took something that had not been addressed before, at least to my knowledge, and worked from its beginning right up to the modern day in a series that resulted in maybe ten hours of viewing time.  It was beautiful, enriching, and HISTORICAL.  Further, if you break up into one hour slots, including the few extras that were not aired, but on the web and you have an entire season.

No, I really think they have split out into about five networks, like Military History, History International, and so on.  As they have done this have watered things down and stretched to thin.  So know, occasionally there is still some good history on the History Channel, but it so far and few in between making the effort to find is hardly worth it.

So to anyone on the history channel that may be listening, please change things back to a historical perspective.  And hey, if you want to have a reality show about axe-men logging, that is fine.  Just require that they use only what tools were available to loggers in say, the mid-1800′s and give it a nice competitive flair from that perspective.  Take it a step further and go after my own personal preference – reality show that focuses on training school for medieval warriors, or knights if you will.  Have a serious a competitions from the competitors along the way and culminate in a grand tournament that includes actual jousting!

** – Image from the History Channel

The first thing that I see as major problem with this episode is it completely based on the movies of most recent fame dealing with the two subjects.   I am the first to admit that the I am not very familiar with the Zulu warfare techniques and weaponry and really can not make a comparison of the movie to the reality.  However, as I think I have noted on another blog before, there are a huge number of issues with the the Braveheart movie, especially in regards to historical accuracy, even in regards to weapons and armor.

A first instance is the use of the much more modern very plaid and wrapped kilt.  Fact is in the late 13th century of Wallace the Scottish were not wearing kilts of that design and they were certainly not that heavy.  That does not really impact the outcome here.  What does though is they scored the claymore sword as being more effective then the short spear.  Fact is the longer hand and half or two hand sword that we think of as a claymore is much more of a 15th century weapon.  And even then it was not called a claymore, that term was actually used for a basket hilted broadsword of 17th century and onward, especially popular with Scottish officers.

Another anachronistic aspect that was introduced by the show was when testing that short hand spear (which technically I think is more like a short sword in it usage) was the selection of maile that was used in the testing and conduction of the testing.  All the previous demonstration showed the weapon being used as a slashing weapon and for this they stabbed straight in without regard to speed but a full front open attack.  Given the nature of adaptation I could forgive that, but the chain mail used was mild steel butted links.  During most of the time period most mail worn would have been either riveted or alternated solid rings and riveted.  And mild butted links will tend to open up when a point penetrates, just like slow prying them open.

Another thing they do on this show is with each time they test a weapon it specifically a test they have set up for the weapon.  They never do a test of apples to apples so speak.  For instance the Zulu axe was analyzed while slicing up a static pig carcass while the war hammer was only tested versus crashing down on replica skulls.  If the Scottish warrior is indeed in the status of knight, like Wallace was, he would have had maile at least over his upper body.  This is exactly the kind of edged weapon the maile would have been best at defended against and they did not include his in the testing.

There are numerous faults with the data collection and very limited observation, but I will limit to just one more.  All of the analysis and data that is entered into the computer for the final simulation.  But that data as to which weapon is determined to be most deadly or effective at a given range is mostly decided by the various scientists, doctors, and whoever is involved.  And no matter how objective they claim to be, it hard to be totally objective in such an arbitrary call.

One more thing I think the show misses is the situation that the warrior culture was finding itself in and what the society was like.  For instance, the Scottish under Wallace had been oppressed for years by the English and were clearly fighting for both home and hearth and even a way of life.  They were fighting the English, that clearly had supply issues when in Scotland.  The inverse was true when Wallace did take York and his position there was largely untenable for more then a season or two and hence his eventual willingly yielding it back to the English for other concessions.   There are again, so many additional points about differences in cultures and background, how could one be comprehensive about this list.

I will say in this particular episode, it came out 67% of time the winner would have been Wallace over the Shaka, which is about the way I would have expected the outcome.  Though clearly the folks on the show seemed to have favored the Shaka weapons during the analysis.  But regardless, I give the show an overall bad review, fully meeting my expectation of the show.

** Photo from promotional materials for the show from Spike **

The real Ulrich had a life that was probably just interesting, perhaps more so, and certainly as ruled by the notions of courtly love and how to win the favor of his this lady that inspired in him all things.  Further, the true Ulrich was not only a knight and jouster of some fame during his lifetime, but he was further was educated and used his talents to write poetry describing his exploits pursuing the love that spurned him.  The title of the work the famed poet-jouster, as he is often called, wrote in the original Middle High German was Frauendienst. Translated to modern English, it reads as The Service of Ladies.  The work itself is, as noted, poetic in nature and is largely a autobiographical account of Ulrich’s attempts to win the attention and love of a Lady that somehow captured his young heart at the tender age of twelve. It is a true, or at least as true by the accounting of it, story of a knight errant on the mission of all that is embodied in the terms courtly love.  I am sure some of my friends find me, who reenacts an English knight somtimes in France are amused that I am pointing to a Germanic figure as a hero.

Ironically I found a copy of these yesterday at the half-price book store here in Lexington yesterday.  And though I have read some excerpts here and there, I have never had the full piece to devour in its whole until now.  For those that are interested, they did have three more copies and I am sure it is also available via Amazon.  It has quickly bumped up to the top spot on my current reading lists of about six or seven books that I have going at any given time, even for the short term bumping the biography of Sam Clemens.

What we know about Ulrich is that he is a real person, of noble birth (the von signifies that in his name) in modern day southern Austria.  We do not however, know if he was a first son or otherwise, which would have been important in regards to his right to inheritance and such.  We know the picture above was likely done a few years after his death and certainly after he was no longer jousting regularly.  Despite that though, it does show fairly correctly the chain mail and great helm that would have been appropriate for the time period that would have actively been involved in tournaments and his acts of courtly love.  Further, we are relatively sure that picture does depict his actual arms on both the sheild and again repeated on the trappings his mount presents.

We also know that during this time that outside of the crusades, their was relative peace, especially in the areas where Ulrich was located.  We know that it was some time, despite having served as a page and later a squire in good and faithful service, before he was made a knight, largely because of the lack of war.  However, we know that he did actively participated in tournaments of the day and apparently gained some deal of renown in doing so.  Tournaments consisted of two types at the time for the most, the melee, where mock armies started with a horse charge and the victory was determined usually by whoever was less bloodied with the blunted weapons at the end of the day.  The second types is the early version of the joust we see depicted in the moves, horses charging toward one another, lance drops and hits the opposing rider, splintering into a pieces.

A brief excerpt to give you and idea of the flowery language:

Women are rich in charm and grace.

To match there lovely form and face

is more then angels hope to do.

A woman, virtuous and true,

who has no faults of any kind,

must have an angel’s heart and mind

and like an angel seems to glow.

You have my word that this is so.

The story told by Ulrich begins with his proclaiming that all ladies deserve everything a man can do for them to honor them, for they are just that great and full of grace and the only way men can if hope to do well is to do so by striving to serve the ladies, otherwise it is all for naught.  He then goes on to tell of how at twelve he fell fully into love, but was spurned because of his youth by this older woman.  Later he arranged to be a squire and page in her household in order to be close to her, but she still yet spurned him.  He eventually begins to take to the jousting field wearing her colors and wins acclaim and she still denies him.  He write her poetry, professes his undying love to her, and continues with jousting in her honor often, and still she takes not any notice.   At one point, she does note that an injured finger from jousting must have been mild and Ulrich was just a whiner who complained to much.  In response, he apologized and supposedly removed one his fingers and sent it to her as a token (and we though Jocelyn in the movie was hard on the Heath version of Ulrich), and this gesture began to break the ice between them. Even then though she thought he was plain and undesirable due to a facial flaw, which he has corrected through surgery, again just for her.

Eventually he took an oath tourney for the love that inspired him, vowing to met all comers during a month of travels, that he called the the “Journey of Venus,” in honor to the goddess of love, the honor his own love that inspired him, and indeed all women from which all love must obviously originate.   During this journey, he reportedly styled himself and dressed as the goddess Venus both during the joust and when traveling otherwise. During the month of this journey he boasts of having broke 307 lances for the honor of his love.  Also of note, is that during this time he gave a ring to any comer that was able to break a lance on him, or basically strike him with a the lance.  He gave out 271 such rings, meaning he was struck that many times himself.

Eventually his love does allow him to find her favor and one would think they would have lived happily ever after right?  Well, here you can here the record in the background being scratched across the surface as the happy music stops abruptly.  The “courtly love” was apparently one of an arrangement of patronage.  For it is noted, that during the time of trying to win such approval from this lady, Ulrich himself was indeed married and had an apparently lovely wife who bore him children.  In fact, his son, also named Ulrich, married well enough to secure a small region that become its own country, Leichtenstein, which still exists today.

Of particular interest to me, in 1240, at forty years of age Ulrich organized a new round of tournament jousting based on Arthurian legends.  He himself played the role of Arthur and those that would joust him assumed names such and Gwain, Kay and Lancelot.  I have to think that it is good to know as I myself approach forty that there is historical evidence I can keep going.  Further, forty then, would more like sixty today I suspect.  Now I need to find that love which will inspire me thus and challenge all comers to prove such love!

** Originally published on Mephistos on 24th August 2008

Interestingly enough this goes against most of what we have in both the record and what is put forth by most noted historians. In fact, most of the historians, and indeed most of the record seems to support, that the medieval era from horses standpoint in warfare actually sees its rise to the pinnacle of the ultimate shock troop and its fall from that position to the little more then a quick moving “infantry” or scouting role by the close of the period.

What I find most surprising, is that Steve Muhlberger, who owns the blog and is a professor of history takes the few written words by Henrik Olsgaard (I am sure that is his SCA name only) and without other supporting evidence presents it on his blog. That in itself is not so bad, but his blogs stated purpose is for the use of his students as a bulletin board and interesting history related information. I suppose that this is all well and fine, however, I take issue with there being very little counter balancing of information on this particular piece – not in fact, any real mention that this would be the opposite to the general accepted view.

I will give both Muhlberger and Olsgaard the point they fail to make fully in the blog, that being that the Hastings has been played up as the place where the heavy mounted lance/spear wielding knight, especially when couched, came to its own and turned the tide of the battle. In reality it was probably turned more by someone being shot in the eye, the horses sparing the stamina of those charging uphill repeatedly throughout the day, shear willpower and grit on Williams part, and lastly the ability of the mounted troops to mop up easily once the formation started to break open.

Olsgaard keeps most of the focus on the fact that horses are herd animals and are prone to follow the leader or run from anything frightens them. Further, he indicates that the horses they were using were very hard pressed, if at all, to charge right into a shield wall. All of this is really a no thought required in most of the ways of looking at it. Having trained horses for over eight or nine years to do some of this, what to the horse, has to be stupid medieval stuff, it takes time. Some of these horses had never even been mounted in amour until the day before, for a few hours at best of riding and practicing. It typically takes a good three or four months to get most horses ready for even the more simple things in relation to this kind of participation in a medieval event.

I am going to give you a basics for what can happen. My first horse that I ever did this kind of thing with, a gelding, been there and done that kind of horse when I got him. First Gulf Wars we went to, when I was still a bit of a green rider, he was a pain in the behind. He was nervous and wanted to kick at other horses when we were idling. We rode down a trail over behind the field battles and when the crash of shield and sword took place he got wide eyed and backed away. I then spent the next several months riding him as in similar situations almost daily – and as my fiefdom was small and lacking in numbers, we played battle scenes through loud speakers around where we riding, and we we would hit posts with swords, break lances on posts, etc. When the horse was retired a few years ago due to loosing his site, he would approach anything and even take a light blow with out a flinch or thought of fear so long as the rider on him maintained their confidence. This kind of training (with the sound actually included for real) was available to a knight and his horses readily – and is a large part of why we had the tournaments that eventually lead to the joust of one on one facing each down the lane (the first mounted tourneys were big melees, that often turned into bloody affairs, despite crests being the target sometimes).

Olsgaard makes another point about the severe spurs and bits that we sometimes see in the historical record as proof to just how frightened and hence how much effort was required to control the animals. I say ‘bah-humbug’ to that as well. The twelve inch shanks on bits can be found in many horse activities today, where the horse is certainly not being exposed to the kinds of terrors that you would find on the battlefield, though some would think the show ring is just as rough. As for the both of these devices, just because they were there does not mean that they were used to that extreme. I know one person that I took lessons from said you should not put spurs on unless you need them for the horse – I am of the opinion that you should have them in case you need them – cause it is a bear to go get them the moment you need them already mounted on a horse. Even then though, just because the spur was so severe doesn’t mean it was required and used in such severity. By today’s English standards, most big rowel star spurs of Western design are considered harsh – but watch just how often those are used to apply as much pressure as could be used with them in a western based high caliber reigning class at a show.

In short summation, I find the article that focuses on one aspect with out giving any credentials other then he has been in the SCA since its founding and has ridden a few times on untrained horses at the re-enactment of Hastings, a far cry from an authority on the subject. Even in his own article he notes of horses with training that will charge through a shield wall and in such instances, even in play with out intent to harm when it was maybe expected to give way, people were blooded. Imagine 30 or 40 horses impacting a shield wall at nearly the same time, as the ground shakes, as they approach at a gallop, with horses all trained to make that charge and as they approach all the horses are going that way so herd instinct drives it. And just imagine then, if just two or three gaps open in the wall where someone and his buddy next to him get a little scared. And if are in doubt, come to my house at feeding time and I will let you stand between me and the feed as the two or three horses come charging past you.

** Originally published on Mephistos on 19th of July 2008