Month: November 2012

Mid Tudor Crisis: Part 2

Mid-Tudor Crisis: No There Was Not A Mid-Tudor Crisis

It is easy at first glance to see the obvious social and economic changes of the Mid-Tudor period and overstate the matter of a mid Tudor Crisis. However, the regular change of Monarch and even of religion had more impact on the nobility than on the common Englishman. The assumption of a Mid-Tudor Crisis is based on the factionalism and power struggles at Court[1] which led to divided loyalties, difficulty in instating and maintaining policy change and a greater interest for the Nobility in maintaining, or even increasing, their position than in aiding the Monarch with the running of the country. The religious, economic and power changes of that time are also seen as contributing directly to several rebellions.

Read more

Review of Vanguard 2012

This week, James Taylor has kindly offered to review Vanguard 2012. For context, Vanguard is an event we run every year, geared towards providing beginners with as much to do over a weekend as is humanly possible. This year, we have also introduced the concept of streams, the challenge stream and the regular stream. Both streams took part in the same classes, but the challenge stream additionally took part in various extra challenging activities throughout the weekend.

Read more

How to make a Scottish Broadsword Trainer

Hey,

So this week I have decided to write up how we in the AHA make broadsword trainers. They are not the greatest or prettiest but they have allowed hundreds of students to train in the Scottish broadsword and are still all in service except one. The baskets are disposable and cost £2.50 from B&Q if you live in the UK. The blade we designed in conjunction with Paul Bennett as the Corsair Broadsword blade and it allows us to easily turn the blade into an arming sword with another attachment we make from leather. We can provide the blade for a small charge if you don’t want to make one yourself, but this gives you all you need to make your own. You could also retro fit these for the Rawlings synthetic blades but this I have not tried yet as the goal of this project is to make things cheap as possible for a person to start training. The main benefit of these is that they allow you to train Scottish broadsword with something that resembles the weapons handling characteristics much more than the Rawlings synthetics manage at a fraction of the price. Will they last forever? No. Are they cheap, cheerful and suitable for early training? Very much.

Pictures are now fixed although the original pictures were lost sadly so these are redo’s I hope they help 🙂

Also this is Encased in Steel’s 100th post HOORAY 🙂

Read more

Mid Tudor Crisis: Part 1

Mid-Tudor Crisis: Yes there was a Mid-Tudor Crisis

The Mid-Tudor crisis is the name given to the time of political and social upheaval in England between the long reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. During this time period 1547-1558 the monarch changed twice, not counting the nine days allotted to Lady Jane Grey’s time of ruler ship.

The key problems during this reign were those of religion and politics, changing the shape of England in a very small space of time and causing much upheaval and confusion. Edward, Henry’s son was a staunch puritan, of much stricter protestant beliefs than his father, while in contrast, his sister, Mary Tudor, was a devout Catholic. The practice at this time of punishing those who did not follow the religion of the ruler for heresy and blasphemy meant that this situation was rife with political strain, as rebellions sprung up and European allies were determined by religious compatibility.
Read more

Chivalry according to Ramon Lull

Chivalry is a concept that has been much changed over time. When people often refer to chivalry today, they are often referring to a modern, watered down version of the romanticised Victorian idea of chivalry. I have often heard people use chivalry just to mean being polite to people, and holding open doors and things like that. In the medieval period, the conception of chivalry was very different. Many people today might say they still follow the ideals of chivalry, however to what extent is that possible, given the extent to which medieval and modern conceptions of chivalry differ? And then when people do discuss medieval chivalry, they may often make too much effort to downplay the ethical elements of chivalry. I’ve heard people claim that chivalry was entirely orientated around knight’s conduct towards other knights, and that the only point of it was to ensure that as a knight you were ransomed rather than killed. I’ve heard others take that train of thought even further, arguing that code of conduct only applied to other knights, and that peasants, being outside that code of conduct, could be treated however a knight wished, and that peasants were in fact seen by the knights as being almost subhuman. The medieval sources however give us a very different impression.

Read more