Medieval Madness

Last Sunday Laurent and I packed up the kids and headed over to Brain-sur-Allonnes for their annual Medieval Festival. As a medievalist by training*, I was ashamed to admit I had never attended one of these, especially surprising taking into account my fondness for High Cheese. And this event taking place in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't wait to see just how high the cheese factor would go.

I must report that my cheese craving was fully satisfied, but I was truly impressed by the measures these people went through to create the re-enactments. Although, if you stop to think about it for a second, most of them probably just had to dig out the family album and look at Great Great Great Grandma Guenevere and Papi Percival to know what to wear.


The guy on the left's sheer control-top pantyhose made my day.

We watched a medieval armor display, during which two knights were dressed in different types of armor by squires who took a while to figure out which way the leg-plates went on.



The knights then clinked on over to a patch of dirt where they had a slow-motion sword fight.



I shot the video in two takes, not knowing how long it would be, but the second bit only lasts a few seconds. One of the knights did exactly what you would have expected from a knight in heavy armor: tripped and fell flat on his face. That one second probably represented the most accurate historical re-enactment that we saw all day.



We were halfway through the jousting competition when Max and Lucia both started their "must have nap now" flailing about, so we headed home early. But when they awoke, our house was the site of its own medieval festival, with both children going into a fencing frenzy.


Warning: sword-fight commentator has a cold and is thus barely understandable.

To see the rest of the photos of the Medieval Festival click here.

*My M.A. at the Courtauld was in Sienese Painting, 1260-1348