On October 7 of 2019, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art opened an exhibition called The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximillian I. This display is an ambitious undertaking, featuring more than 180 pieces from museums and collections throughout America, Europe and the Middle East. Maximillian’s passion for the trappings of […]
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Attending Chivalry Today’s Swords Of Chivalry weekly HEMA sessions is a great way to learn the art of historical fencing, but these formal group sessions are only one aspect of training. Independent practice, either solo or with a partner, is an important part of the learning process, and we do our best to provide students […]
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“If you frighten easily, do not bother to learn the art of sword fighting.” Or, at least, so advises the 15th century fighting master Johannes Lichtenauer. While the Italian master Fiore del Liberi says, “If you lack boldness of heart, you lack everything.” Writings on the practice of historical martial arts are filled with statements […]
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One of the challenges of studying history is to avoid looking into the past with a myopic view – to think that people of times past were somehow more simplistic, predictable, or uniform than we are today. When we study a historical period like the Middle Ages, we should strive to appreciate the depth and […]
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Valentine’s Day is upon us, and romance is in the air. For many fencing and HEMA programs, that means romance … and swords! Are fencing programs that transform a “date night” into a “sword fight” a good idea? Well, maybe …
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Whatever your standard for virtuous behavior – the code of chivalry, the Ten Commandments, the practice of good sportsmanship, or the Golden Rule – that fact is that the vast majority of us don’t manage to put those principles into practice each and every day of our lives. By the same token, most of us […]
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Somewhere between the “knight as saint” and “knight as sociopath” there lies a middle ground. Common sense would seem to indicate that not all knights were brutal, predatory thugs — if they had been, Western culture would never have survived the Middle Ages. Nor is it reasonable to believe knights were all iconic, transcendental models of virtue and chastity — human nature hasn’t changed that much in the course of the past millennium.
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If you are one of the many medieval enthusiasts who enjoy this show, and who studies (or perhaps even re-creates) famous battles, dueling, jousting, hunting, knighthood, and the ideals and literature of chivalry, then I’ll bet you have a “bucket list” of arms and armor exhibitions that you have visited, or want to visit in […]
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Serious scholars of history might once have scoffed at the notion of undertaking an arts and crafts project as a means of historical study. In recent years, however, dedicated efforts into living history and immersive historical experimentation have proved that bringing history to life can, in fact, achieve a different sort of understanding to research […]
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MAKE A DONATION ONLINE to help pay for the production of this podcast. Anyone who has read Christian Cameron’s historical adventure novels, such as the William Gold series, knows that creating a detailed medieval setting is one of his fortés. He is an author quite skilled at describing battles, armor, and fighting tactics, and at […]
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