Battle Reenactments

Joust Do It!

by Chad Ison

Publication Date: May 2001

On June 2 and 3, the Glasgow Highland Games will host the sixteenth year of Scottish/Celtic celebration at Barren River Lake State Resort Park. Extremz Magazine has attended the games in prior years and viewed the numerous contests the event is noted for - the caber, clachneart, hammer, and weight toss. Each event is spectacular to watch, and the excitement of the games is to be found everywhere. This year the Games will also host The Glenmorangie Scottish Heavy Athletics International Challenge Cup as part of the Highland Games.

Another part of the event sometimes overlooked is the battle reenactment. It is usually held in a remote area of the park and can be missed by visitors not familiar with the setting. For those that have the time, I highly recommend taking a moment and attending.

My first time for viewing a reenactment, I came to the event expecting to see a perfectly staged and chor-eographed battle. I assumed it would be similar to a group of pro-wrestlers dressed in armor - I'll hit you there, you strike me here, we dance around a little, and then you drop to the ground and act dead. I was proven wrong.

What I viewed was a group of athletes dressed in full or partial armor and fighting, yes, actually fighting each other to the finish. These were not choreographed scenes or staged battles. These modern-day knights were fighting each other for the honor of winning. Following the battle, we had an opportunity to talk with a few of the athletes and learned a little about the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and what it stands for.

The purpose of the SCA is the study and recreation of the European Middle Ages - its crafts, sciences, arts, traditions, literature, etc. The SCA "period" is defined to be Western civilization before 1600 AD, concentrating on the Western European High Middle Ages. Under the aegis of the SCA, members study dance, calligraphy, martial arts, cooking, metalwork, stained glass, costuming and literature... and they do it exactly as it was done in the past. As you can probably guess, the thing that separates the SCA from a Humanities 101 class is the active participation in the learning process. To learn costuming, you design and build costumes. To learn SCA infantry fighting, you make armor, weapons, shields, etc., and put them on and go learn how it feels to wear them when somebody is swinging a (rattan) sword at you. To learn brewing, you make (and sample!) your own wines, meads and beers.

Fighting in the SCA evolved from what happened when two armed knights were unhorsed and had to fight on the ground. It resembles nothing so much as medieval foot tournaments. There are two basic types of SCA fights: single combat, and group or team battles, known as melees. SCA fighting does have rules. The first, and most important rule, is that each and every fighter on the field has honor. The fighter keeps faith with his honor by accepting blows that would be killing or wounding.

The second basic principle is like the first; a fighter keeps faith with his brother fighters by acknowledging his opponent's word - if he says a blow was too light to cause injury, then it was light. Since they prefer that no one gets hurt, SCA fighting is done with real armor (made with leather, metal, padding, kydex, etc) and rattan swords. Rattan is that bamboo-y stuff, only with a solid core, from which furniture is made. Rattan, surprisingly, is springy enough to absorb some of the force of the blow (although blows are real solid) and light enough to approximate a real steel sword. Swords are made by wrapping rattan staffs with strapping tape, covering them with duct tape for aesthetic reasons, and attaching some sort of crosspiece or guard.

Armor is much more complex - some armor, being made of steel, rivets, leather, etc, can take more than 40 hours per piece of armor to make (for example, a gauntlet, or armored glove, with moving fingers and joints can take upwards of 75 hours to complete). There are several essential and required pieces of armor - a helm, and protection for the neck, cervical vertebrae, elbows, knees, kidneys, hands, and groin. In addition, most SCA fighters wear chest, leg, arm and forearm, and foot protection.

Before being allowed to participate in combat without close supervision, each fighter is trained by senior fighters, known as "marshals." This training aims at ensuring that the fighter is safe to himself or herself and to others, and typically lasts a few months. As part of this training, the novice fighter is taught how to recognize a "good" blow. Each fighter judges whether blows received in combat strike hard enough to do injury through armor. If the blow is "good" to an arm or leg, the fighter will give up use of that limb; if the blow is good to the head or body, the fighter is "dead" and falls to the ground, signaling that his opponent is victorious.

You needn't join the SCA to attend and participate (although if you decide to be with them regularly, you may wish to join). The only requirement to come to an event is that you make some attempt at pre-1600 costume. Most groups have "loaner" costumes for people who want to come to their first event. Each SCA participant remembers the day he or she started, and most people are happy to help out a newcomer.

If you want to learn more about SCA groups near you, you can check out their web page at: www.sca.org/

For more info on the Glasgow Highland Games, visit their website at: www.glasgowhighlandgames.com