Freelance Academy Press and La Belle Companie demos at Kalamazoo, May 2013

Freelance Academy Press, which publishes the Deeds of Arms series that I edit, sponsored two sessions on Western medieval martial arts and historical combat at Kalamazoo's Congress of medieval studies earlier this month. One of them, a reenactment of a judicial duel in the Italian tradition was videoed and can be seen here. Likewise, La Belle Companie, which re-creates a late medieval retinue, presented a show and tell on how 14th and 15th century English men at arms armed themselves – or rather, were armed by other people. It too is here. I mentioned the prominent place that high-quality reenactment had at this year's conference, and now you can see what I meant.

Kalamazoo Medieval Congress, 2013

I really enjoyed myself.

What was most remarkable was the number of sessions based on re-enactment or experimental archaeology.

Activities  on site included:

Smelting

Drinking ale and mead brewed with historic methods

Dressing a person in armor starting with the underwear

A late medieval armor  fashion show

This doesn't include discussions of activities off site.

Peak moment: watching a re-enacted trial by combat while in the next room a pick-up choir learned plainchant -- and sang it very well indeed.

Fun times crossing the border

There haven't been a lot of fun times crossing the border in ten years, but on my way to Kalamazoo for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, I shared a light-hearted moment with a border guard.

He asked me where I was going and I replied that I was attending a conference on the Middle Ages.

He asked for more detail, and I said we studied the entire Middle ages.

"So," he said, "you're going to sit around and watch Game of Thrones."

I laughed and said, "That might be an idea, because I am an episode behind."

Straightfaced, he went on: "Because the Middle Ages were exactly like Game of Thrones."  And with a look he waved me on.

From Kalamazoo -- Miniature Manifestos

A new feature of the Kalamazoo conference this year -- the International Congress on Medieval Studies -- were some very short presentations by people talking about issues that really mattered to them.

Here's a piece from Historian on the Edge that spoke to me:

Item: History is not ‘relevant’
History does not tell us ‘how we got here’
History’s value lies in:
i. not believing what you’re told;
ii. understanding that the world didn’t – and doesn’t – have to be like this: there are other ways of doing things
                                       
iii. Ethical and political stances are implicit in both; to which we must be committed
History has no monopoly on these; what sets it apart from other arts, humanities and social sciences might uncontroversially be said to be its focus upon concrete situations and completed actions
And yet it is there that lies the aporia we must explore

Here's the whole thing.

And here's another.

Muhlberger speaks at Kalamazoo -- twice

The 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies is taking place at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo starting Wednesday May 9.  (The schedule is here.)  I will be speaking twice.

On Friday at 10 AM in Fetzer, Room 1045, I will be taking part in a session with the wonderful title High in Protean Content:  Chivalry and Its Transformations.  My own paper is called The Chivalric Warrior as a  Man of His Word, though for a while I was thinking  I should retitle it The Angry Champion: Literary Motif and Chivalric Reality.  Come see why, and also hear Michael Cramer talk about franchise among modern re-enactors. I am anxious to see how his paper and mine bounce off each other.

On Saturday at 1:30 PM in Valley 1, Room 105 I will be taking part in Medievalists and Teaching World History:  What's Important and Why?  You should be able to tell from the title whether you are interested.  Me, having been a medievalist teaching world history to first-year students, I think it will be fun.

Lots of other good stuff at Kalamazoo, like books, and books at conference prices, and still more books!

And with any luck at all, the surprise book should be there.

Dipping into Noel Fallows' Jousting...

I am unwinding on the last evening of the Kalamazoo conference and having a first look at Noel Fallows' new book on jousting in Iberia. This might be the most substantial treatment of jousting ever written -- based as it is on a plethora of texts that have been ignored by just about everyone as too difficult to interpret. And Fallows includes the texts and translations!

And I'm pleased to see that Fallows has not just seen my work but found it useful. Moments like this only come along occasionally for most of us scholars.

Note: The HOT weather here has turned COLD.