

Cheers!
Gordon
Among the participants in the event were a number of folks who were total virgins to the reenactment, as opposed to “Ren Faire”, scene. I think that many were quite interested in the idea of actually keeping all of one’s period clothing on during the event, rather than just wearing wool and heavy layers during the heat of the day and then changing into cotton jeans and “T” shirts for the evening. Some (who I imagine didn’t show) were astonished at the concept I’m sure, but there it is. I guess the difference between Ren Faire and reenactment is that one is playing, one is portraying. I’m not sure exactly how the semantics would fall out on which is which, but there it is. One is occupied with a portrayal full time all weekend, the other is only while the paying public is in sight, and pretty much only for them.
I had concluded some time early in the planning stages that the idea of my Horse being lancers wasn’t exactly a great idea, since the maximum number I figured I could count on was three. So rather than bother with that sort of thing, I packed carbines and pistols into the truck for Bev and I to use while portraying Harquebusiers, rather than our usual “Launtiers” of the late-16th Century. One of the advantages of this was that we didn’t have to wear armour if we didn’t feel like it, and considering the humidity of the weekend, we didn’t. So instead, it was our buff coats and felt hats, rather than steel for us! I also decided to slum by wearing my “2nd Best Suit” and boots, rather than my nice ones. Mostly it was due to the fact that it was going to be hot, and I didn’t want to wear my hot heavy lined top boots when I had a pair of perfectly serviceable boots made out of much lighter, and unlined, leather laying about that could also be easily turned down for more comfort yet. Add my old leather jerkin and “viola!” I was a Harquebusier!
The carbines we carried were ones made by Dale Shinn of
The carbine Bev was carrying is of much later production, but also by Dale Shinn. He made it for me to give to my wife as a present, something she was less than impressed with I’m afraid, but Bev certainly likes it! It is very light, having a light 20-gauge barrel (as opposed to the heavy .50 rifled barrel of my wheellock), and the stock is configured so as to be quite handy to shoot one-handed. It has a very early style of flintlock on it, still retaining the “belly” of the wheellock. Both are of styles common in the early decades of the 17th Century, and both of the carbines are fitted with sling-bars and rings on the left sides, so are able to be carried by the swivel-snap on a carbine sling.
We also had my pair of Jacobean-lock pistols, plus our other wheellock pistols to boot. We were fairly well outfitted with firearms, for a change! And lucky for us, friend Rob/Raph showed up Saturday afternoon with his horses to play, so I outfitted him with a pistol, and he became our “horse-holder” for the event.
As noted above, we were ejected from the hayfield, so on Sunday of the event we had to make use of the woods instead. There were LOTS of nice trails through the woods, making for some rather interesting games. The basic plan was “we’ll see what transpires”. The pikes were tromping through the woods over trails, and we found them to be a most marvelous prey. There proved to be an old railroad levee cutting the edge of the property, which made a nifty “high road”, and we made the most of it by setting several “ambuscadoes” on it. Bev and I dismounted while Rob held the horses a few score yards up the road. Nice for the Foote to march by while we shot at them, I must say. Of course, they didn’t always notice (my pyrite wasn’t always properly contacting the wheel on my lock, thus several misfires), but we had fun dismounting, setting the ambuscado up, firing at the passing pikemen, then rushing off to mount and ride helter-skelter to the next spot. It was a hoot, and we got pretty wound up from it, but not as wound up as Bev’s horse Darshan. He REALLY got excited with the fun of running through the woods, up and over game trails, and chasing (and being chased) by the “Boggards” of the woods. When he got so excited that he started bucking, we figured it was about time for us to call it a day. Stinker. But it WAS his first real experience in doing woods work, where as my horse Woody and Gigi, Raph’s mare, were old hands at it. I guarantee that Darshan will get LOTS more experience of this nature!
We enjoyed the heck out of the “Forest Fight”, and gave me pause to consider the similarities with conflicts between “disciplined troops” and various forms of savages/irregular troops on the other hand. Setting ambushes, sneaking around and watching one’s foe come to you is exciting and interesting in a positive way, while marching into the unknown is exciting in a rather negative way. It was nice to be the irregular troops this time!
Another aspect was that we were finally doing “Light Horse” work. Usually at Elizabethan-era reenactments, when doing Horse, we portray much heavier gradations of the arm, usually in the form of Demi-Lancers, AKA cheveaux legér, who were well armoured and usually armed with a heavy lance. This time we got to be sans-armour, and with carbines rather than lances, and we dismounted to fight rather than charging into the mix. I suspect that the horses much preferred this idea, too. We definitely need to do more of this!
Most of the endeavor involved getting myself and my “props” (which constituted some score or more muskets, rifles, pistols and revolvers, several swords and four saddles complete with tack) from the environs of Seattle to downtown San Francisco. I certainly wasn’t about to haul all of this inventory via airline, so drive I did. Fairly long drive, but at least this time I wasn’t hauling horses cross-country, as I usually seem to find myself doing. I spent the night before the event at friend Nick’s house in
The presentation went fine, of course, entitled something like “Firearms of the Golden Age” or some catchy phrase like that which my host “Kalen Hughes” came up with. The room to which I was assigned was fairly small and packed full of rather attractive and, better yet, very attentive ladies. I can’t say that I was at all ill-disposed towards the situation. However, due to the exertions of getting everything set up, plus the poor air-conditioning (it was SF after all, they’re not used to heat) and that the room was full of bodies, I was sweating like a horse. I hope it didn’t show too much.
What I found most amusing was that, while I had gone well out of my way to ensure that I brought the coolest, most interesting and famous of the firearms I own to show off to these ladies, the one thing they were most interested in was of course the one that was the last minute “what the heck, I’ll throw it in” one. Amongst my wheellock horse-pistols, matchlock and flintlock muskets, Henry and that was so fashionable in the period. In a day and age where casual violence was in fact much greater than it is today (contrary to modern mythology), carrying a small, handy “equalizer” was a smart thing to do. And, obviously, my audience somewhat appreciated that fact, thus their interest. I found it quite agreeable to have been fortunate enough to hit upon “just the right thing” for their interest, even if it was completely by accident.
My other presentation, later in the day, was as a member of a panel of speakers on the subject of historical horsemanship. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I can’t recall the names of all of my other co-panelists (I recall that one is a Veterinarian who is also a historical romance writer), but the lady who pretty much lead the discussion was a fine lady by the pen name of Sophia Nash. All of my co-panelists were quite knowledgeable on horses and especially on women’s roles with horses in various periods of history. I brought the hardware (saddles and tack) and discussed military horsemanship during the past 400 or so years (briefly, as that’s a long time period to cover). Of course we went longer than the time allotted to the session, which was fine by me, as it gave me more license to pontificate, but alas, it eventually came to an end. I must admit that I enjoyed the limelight, even with the stresses of getting things set up, torn down, and packed away again.
After the end of THAT part of the conference, and after having to haul my stuff over hill and dale (well, actually just up and down various floors: that place is huge!) my eldest daughter Elizabeth arrived on the scene. She’s presently working at an internship in the City during the summer while awaiting the start of her last year of law school at
Another nice thing was seeing many old friends from the Renaissance Military Society, from when we used to be a part of St. Michael’s Guild at the old Northern Renaissance Faire. Kalen, who was running the “Beau Monde” show, was an old hand from the RMS and had arranged it all, so it was old home week. Even Eyore Danny stayed to socialize! I was astonished…and pleased, to be sure.
I ended up going in to the Ball Room for the big “Signing” session. When I walked in, the sound resembled high-caliber hail on a corrugated tin roof! Lord, but was it loud in there! The ball room wasn’t exactly designed to suppress THAT much noise, I guess. Anyway, I managed to find both Kalen and Sophia in the press, and also one of the ladies who had attended my first class, Monica McCarty, so I bought their books for my wife to enjoy. Eventually it was time to leave, though. I conned
I guess I could blame TV for one, since most men find it much easier to flop in front of a TV with a six-pack of horrid swill called “beer” (Joke: “Why is American beer like sex in a canoe? It’s $%^ing close to water!”), with all of the alcohol and calories, but none of the taste and substance of real beer and ale. They watch professional athletes do outrageous feats of prowess that can only be dreamed of by the watcher, since by now he’s 50-100 pounds over weight and totally out of shape. He can pretend, though, and claim that the team is his own, and that his opinions (rather than his money) matter. In the end, TV and professional sports are only a part of the issue, and are probably more a symptom rather than the disease.
Another thing I could (and will) blame is High Fructose Corn Sweetener. Nasty stuff, that; you’re far better off with sugar as it will only rot your teeth. HFCS is worse in so many ways, but one of the big evils is that it REALLY seems to be responsible for the fattening up of Americans. Drink a 32oz. soda, and you get enough calories to sink a battleship. I know some fellows who do that every day, several of them, and they wonder why they’re fat. Ugh
I could also rant about milk and all of the hormone additives that the Dairy Industry puts into them. Gee, it’s been pretty well established that the placenta isn’t a barrier, it’s a pathway for drugs, and so are the milk glands. Want to increase your intake of estrogen? Drink lots of milk, boys! That will get your “moobs” growing, and your muscles slackening! Gads…
On top of that, when was the last time you heard of a fight in school (that wasn’t an assault by members of one ethnic group against another, that is.)? Seems as though the old-time “boyhood rights of passage” like getting into a one-on-one after-school fight are strongly suppressed these days, too. Interesting how men seem to be neutered from one side by food and activities, and neutered on the other side by the Powers That Be.
So what is it? Was the result of World Wars I and II so horrific that the Illuminati decided to “do something” to reduce the combativeness of young Western men? (and that presents the next question, being “How the hell would they do that?”) Is it just a result of affluence and decadence? It certainly seems as though Suburban Males are the chief victims of this trend, since inner-city “youths” seem to have sufficient testosterone to merrily engage in plenty of warfare of their own, and rural lads seem to be still working hard enough on the farm (though that of course is an ever-shrinking minority) to stay pretty fit and engage in bar fights on their night off, while Suburban men and boys are stuck in front of the TV or computer screen pretending that they’re doing wild and wooly things.
I’m not suggesting that getting into fights is necessarily a good thing, but it does seem to be something that was engaged in a LOT in the past, and now it’s restricted pretty much to Gangsta’s killing one another over turf or being “dissed”, or the occasional bar-room brawl in a Cowboy bar in the sticks over some girl. It used to happen A LOT, be it gentlemen having a very formal duel or neighbors duking it out over the fence-line, but now any of that sort of thing in polite society gets you arrested. It’s weird how effeminate we’ve become. I suppose it’s all a part and parcel of the trend towards “metro-sexual”, where one is neither male nor female, but rather a “sexual being”. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t see how that works, myself. In any case, so be it. I’m not ranting on the politics of that presently, just on why Men are no longer Men in our society. Then again, neither are women “women” any more, which is the odd part. Women are more masculine than they were, men are more feminine than they were, and the West thinks that’s just fine. Other cultures (read “Islam”) don’t think that way at all, and is full of hard men full of fight. I hope that this quest to keep us from killing one another doesn’t result in our becoming the sheep for the Barbarian Hordes to come in and rule.
Gordon
I have worn armour fairly regularly for many years, this being probably the third or fourth suit of armour that I’ve owned in my lifetime. It’s not terribly heavy, but it is fairly complete (for the upper half at least, thus it’s really only a “Half-Suit”). The whole is made of mild steel, rather than spring steel, as Bev’s armour is. Of course her armour is a fine rendition of late-15th Century Milanese Export armour, which was made to defend against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but not bullets. My armour is more of the weight of late-16th Century armours which indeed were designed to protect the wearer (at least a little bit) from bullets fired from the arquebuses and pistols in use during that day. So when we were marching in the parade, I made note of the fact that it began to really hurt my left arm and shoulder to lift it up. My right arm wasn’t so bad, but the left was definitely feeling the “pinch” of the armour weighing upon my neck and shoulders. By the time we reached our trailer to dismount, my left arm was starting to really smart, and it was painful to rein my horse. Ouch.
Which got me to pondering some of the comments made by 16th Century writers concerning armour of the day. One of them, Francois de la Noue, pointed out that in his youth, he had known older gentlemen well into their 60’s who could wear their armour all day without fatigue, while “in these modern days” a man of 35 could hardly wear the full armour considered necessary for more than a few hours. I could relate! He further noted that in response to firearms, men “sheathed themselves in stithes” (anvils) for protection against bullets, but to little effect.
Another military writer, Sir Roger Williams, noted that while the breast and back plates, as well as the helmet and perhaps the first few lames of the tassets (the pieces below the breastplate which covers the abdomen) should be “pistol proof at the least”, the rest of the armour, be it pauldrons and vambraces (covering the shoulders and arms) or the cuisses (covering the thighs) should “be as light as possible”. Pretty much just enough to defend against a pike or a sword, but not enough to deflect a pistol ball, let alone a musket ball. But the price of wearing armour that was proof against such bullets was too high in the form of weight, as he further pointed out that a horse would have enough work carrying a man encumbered by the weight of armour he suggested for 10 hours, let alone armour sufficiently heavy to be proof all around.
At any rate, all of this got me to pondering things, and what I plan to do in the future with my armour. For now I will of course keep my heavy pauldrons and vambraces, for they are rather expensive to replace. But when I do get around to replacing things in my armour, I fully intend to go with spring steel. Not only much lighter, but stronger and less likely to dent under the forces of an oncoming lance. The down side of course is that spring is somewhat more expensive. Alas! So for now I’m sticking with my mild steel pauldrons, vambraces and gauntlets, but for the future, Spring Steel!
Cheers,
Gordon