This is an old thread, but a goody. Hope nobody minds if I breathe some life into it, because it's a worthwhile discussion.
I'm going through old threads sifting for folks who are interested in putting together faithful portrayals of civilian, clerical, or military dress and camp and coming to a private event in the western US in May to June 2007. I had sent a private message to Bill Reynolds, who pointed me here because of his picture, and I agree with a lot of the sentiments written in this thread. I have some strong opinions on the matter, which I'll explain by way of a story.
How did I get started "in this whole thing?" And by "this whole thing" I mean a pastime where I study history for the purpose of creating a portrayal so I can interpret history or conduct what really when you get down to it is CosPlay of a very refined nature, answering my inner call for play and a desire to transmit correct information.
It was D&D in 1982. And then, the Colorado Renaissance Faire in Larkspur and IFGS Live Action games in the mid to late eighties, romping about through the forests of Colorado west of Boulder, having fun. Now, in those days, I wasn't about accuracy. I was about costume. It was about putting hands on materials and making something, collecting up knives and swords, then displaying it publicly and having a good time. It was about trying to get into the girls' pants. I wish I had photographs of some of these kits that I and my friends bashed together, but I don't anymore. Lost them through the years. I am sure they are moldering in a hundred shoeboxes and landfills scattered from Durango to Loveland, Colorado, though.
In the early nineties I began to become interested in armor. Over a decade, from 1991 to 1999, this interest expressed itself solely through the SCA. Now, where was the onus for accuracy there? I could do whatever I wanted to do, pretty much, and nobody was going to say "Boo," but because I was interested in metal armor, which actually looked like armor, I slowly built a kit of steel harness of plate and mail. Really more by accident than anything else, by late 1999 I had a (rough, very rough, friends) analog of a mid 14th century transitional harness, which I displayed as part of the group "Brotherhood of the Gauntlet" at the Age of Chivalry Renaissance Faire in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, through all of this, my activities were about having fun, and if Clark County Parks and Rec made a dollar, no skin off my teeth--we got to put up our tents and wear armor around, drink, and play games late into the night with our fellow faire folk--heck, I met my wife at the faire, so I consider the initial purpose of putting together a kit accomplished! It was also there that I saw W.R. Reynolds and Jeff Hedgecock and their display "The Red Company." The quality of their display and the era portrayed was something I had never seen before, and it had a profound effect on my thoughts on accuracy in display.
It was at that time that I understood a higher calling inherent in this pastime. To that date, any accuracy in my portrayal was accidental, a product of a loose sense of aesthetic imparted to me by old D&D books, movies, and so forth. it was better than some, but not anything that I would consider useful now. I understood that we could have fun and look right. This was important, because it put the pastime of collecting arms and armor, and putting up camps and displays in the context of something meaningful. I remembered what had driven me in the first place to this strange vocation: the glorious violence and shiny harness of the John Boorman film
Excalibur. I had become increasingly aware that little children were looking at what I was wearing the same way I was looking at the harness in that film, and I felt pointedly aware of the deficiency of my kit. Convicted, really. "Is that a real sword, mister?" Indeed, was the United Cutlery wallhanger on my hip a real sword? No. It was not. Nor was anything else I was wearing. Busted.
So, over the next couple of years I worked on building a more accurate harness, starting with the sword. I got an Arms and Armor Henry V in 2003 and when I pulled it from the box at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (I was at the Combined Arms Staff school--did my decision matrix paper on Purchase of a suitable sword for living history), I whistled and said "Man, where have you been all my life?" as my wife smiled and looked on (she had brought it to me). From there the progress was steady, an Anshelm Arms klappvisor
bascinet, spaulders then arms harness then leg harness from Jeff Hedgecock. Sadly, The Red Company ran into differences with Clark County Parks and Recreation and stopped coming to the Age of Chivalry Renaissance Faire--but the seed had been planted: The Red Company had spread its thought virus to me, and to my friends in The Brotherhood of the Gauntlet. The desire to pursue a more refined calling, that of faithful portrayal while having fun, eventually caused an (amicable now but stressful at the time) split in that group's membership and we formed a new group called Compagniye du Chalis, which is dedicated to high fidelity portrayal of the retinue of a (unportrayed) minor historical figure, Sir John Strother.
So, where am I going with all this? Here: Yes, I do feel strongly about accuracy of portrayal. I feel that people who are in a position where, by their display of what they purport to be historical costume or clothing they transmit some information to the public, should look deeply into the matter. They should adopt an attitude that they're going to do it right. My youthful screwups and inaccuracies are done and over with, and to some extent they can be excused, because the flow and spread of information that we take for granted now was NOT a fact of life through the eighties and most of the nineties--hell, lots of us were bootstrapping from almost complete ignorance. Nowadays, anyone who shows up as a worker or interpreter at a Ren Faire or a Medieval Faire and botches it does so willfully. And that just ain't right, because it's planting weeds in childrens' minds where oaks ought to be planted.
That is why the organization I am in is putting together a private event where people who are interested in portraying faithful examples of military and civilian dress and activity in the era from 1300 to 1500 can come together, compare notes, and have a good time. And from this private retreat where iron sharpens iron, we can go out and execute more accurate portrayals.
John
Compagniye du Chalis: 1370-1420
www.mron.org
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