Around a week ago my first show season with Historia Normannis officially came to a close, so I thought I'd write up some reflections on the year. Completely by accident I came across the society at Freshers' Fair last year, and there was never any chance of me not joining, given my love of re-enactments when I was younger.
 | Looking back at the earlier photos, it's easy to see how far we've come since the start of the year. The photo on the left was taken at an inter-regional training session in November, around two months after all us newbies joined, while the photo on the right was taken at Whittington, our first large show of the season (and the only one where there's a good photo of us together in kit). In that time we've all learnt how to craft so many different things, from clothing and leatherwork to weapons and scribing. We've even become relatively good at combat, although you barely notice the gradual changes until you face someone newer to re-enactment than you are. In a way I'm looking forward most to training with the new newbies this week, as they'll be at the same level as we were when we joined - it'll be an interesting comparison to see what a year's training does for your fighting ability... |
I'm certainly not where I expected to be at the start of the year... I initially expected that I would go down the path of portraying a soldier on the encampment, but the discovery of the Guild of Scribes somehow lead to me taking the cloth and portraying a man of the church. I'm incredibly glad I did though, as it's opened up so many opportunities - otherwise I'd not have gotten the chance to bless armies before battles and to scribe on the encampment, something which always seems to draw a lot of interest from the audience and other members alike. I've also now moved on to training with a sword, and it's the best thing ever! This was what I was most excited to learn when I joined, so I'm really excited to be able to do this at last.
| Over the course of the year, I've definitely come to appreciate far more the work that goes on behind the scenes so that shows come out the other end. What might look like a simple tunic to a member of the audience has had hours of hemming to make it look that good. So have the braies that we wear under everything else, and they're never even seen by the audience! There's also the time spent in training to make sure the combat is as safe as it can be, considering we're swinging steel weapons at each other. Over the course of the year I'd (very roughly) estimate I was at around 25 training sessions, which works out at somewhere around 125 hours of training overall. But it's definitely all worth it, because when we do get to show season, it all looks brilliant and the audience love it. I can recall multiple shows where the audience have been genuinely enthusiastic despite the rain and dismal weather. |  |
There have been some excellent shows this year, far better than I could have imagined. It's actually been quite a wet season, and the sky water (t'is bad luck to mention the r-word) always seemed to choose its moments... but it's a testament to how great the people I've met are that even the bad weather couldn't dampen my spirits too much (except for a show in Golcar which was truly dismal). Still, I have no intention of going into this year without a gloriously warm cloak. After all, better safe than sorry...
And that's it, a year of re-enactment concluded, and a new one just begun. I'll be back again with another article soon, in which I'll be taking a look at some research I've been doing on 12th century wax seals. Until then, thank you for reading, and I hope you found it interesting.
Christopher N
And that's it, a year of re-enactment concluded, and a new one just begun. I'll be back again with another article soon, in which I'll be taking a look at some research I've been doing on 12th century wax seals. Until then, thank you for reading, and I hope you found it interesting.
Christopher N