Medievalisms

Favourite Medievalisms Some don’t-miss medievalisms: ELIZABETH EMERY TALKS ABOUT THE MEDIEVAL TIMES RESTAURANT AND TOURNAMENT AND RENAISSANCE FAIRES. Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament consists of nine modern-built castles spread through the United States and Canada (a single location in Toronto) in which customers purchase seats to dinner and a theatrically staged tournament. Food is served by ‘wenches’ to ‘Lords and ladies’ decked in paper crowns who eat with their hands. Commercialization surrounds the event: swords, glasses, banners, and other objects are constantly proposed for consumption throughout the day’s or evening’s activities. The company was begun by Jose Montaner, who created a medieval-style attraction infl uenced by the fi lm El Cid to enhance his barbecue restaurant in Majorca. He exported the model to Spain and then to Kissimmee, Florida (near Disneyworld) in 1983. It was absolutely unique for its time and well-reviewed in newspapers, particularly for the staged tournaments featuring jousting and equestrian feats performed on beautiful Andalusian horses. It welcomed 183,272 visitors the fi rst year and 257,350 the following. In fi ve years the initial number had more than doubled. The original location near Disneyworld is a testament to Medieval Times’s family-oriented focus. Its web site caters to the fantasies of children (the voice-over on the site in 2012 featured a boy chanting: ‘I dreamed I was a prince, a mighty warrior’, followed by an adult voice: ‘The fantasy comes alive. Incredible jousting, thrilling combat’) and it offers steep discounts for children and school groups. The phenomenon is so well-known in the United States as to have been satirized in a recent children’s book (as ‘Medieval Days Family Restaurants’). The narrative arc of the Medieval Times performance changes every few years, but comes straight from Arthurian romance. The lord welcomes the guests to his castle to celebrate peace with a tournament (this includes explanation of medieval customs and clothing, demonstrations of falconry and weapons, and other information about medieval life). An interloper arrives to issue a challenge and a knight must leave the court. He is captured and ransomed. Other knights must fi ght for his rescue. The storyline is diffi cult to follow, particularly since it is accompanied MMedievaledieval - OOnline.indbnline.indb 1111 11/28/2015/28/2015 44:06:56:06:56 PPMM 12 MEDIEVAL AFTERLIVES IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE by booming microphones, swelling Hollywood-style music, and light shows, but it weaves the action sequences into what is a fairly informative and action-packed show about the Middle Ages in which the audience cheers for the knights representing their section of the arena. It is an inclusive setting, where all participate in the festivities (eating, cheering, receiving fl owers from the knights). This is a ‘fantasy’ of romance, adventure, and combat (as the voice on the web site proposes), but it also features impressive pageantry, from the horses themselves, to the costumes, banners, staged jousting, and horse tricks. Visitor Bill Taylor summed it up well in a 20 August 1993 Toronto Star article describing the recently opened site: ‘There’s an element of circus, a touch of rodeo, a huge chunk of all-in wrestling. You know the fi ghting is fake from start to fi nish— of course it is— but you’re still on the edge of your seat and wincing.’ In fact, if full-contact jousters criticize Medieval Times so sharply, it is probably because it is where many of them got their start (familiarity breeds contempt). Like many other children who bought into the dream of becoming a knight, Shane Adams became a theatrical jouster for the company: ‘I thought by working at a dinner show, my childhood dream of being a knight would be lived. But instead, I realized I wasn’t a true knight in shining armour. I was only a knight in shining polyester and tinsel.’ From the outside, Medieval Times seems shining and magical, but the courtly tournament, like the advertised ‘four-course meal fi t for royalty’ (a greasy chicken leg, fried potatoes, cornbread, and cookie) does not live up to the marketing. The same criticisms about authenticity are often made of the Renaissance Faires that have fl ourished throughout the summertime in North America since 1963. They are ‘partly a craft fair, partly historical reenactment and partly performance art,’ as the national organization’s web site puts it: People working at Faire dress in costumes (garb) typical of the late Elizabethan period. Booths sell crafts and food. Parades wind their way through the crowds. Jugglers, musicians, magicians, and other entertainers perform through the day. Your day is spent wandering about, examining wares, sampling foods, watching plays and performers, and of course drinking fyne English Ale’. ‘Some are Renaissance era, some Medieval, but all have a home for Pirates, Elves, Fairies, Vikings, Klingons and You.’ None of this is particularly authentic, nor is it particularly medieval, but Renaissance Faires have become an important part of what Americans think of as ‘medieval’: an eclectic amalgam of picturesque costumes, foods, and commercial activities through which one ‘wanders’ in order to forget the present. From Disney’s Epcot Center to Las Vegas casinos, Americans have long adopted elements of world culture, recreating them in miniature according to their own tastes. Excalibur and Luxor Casinos, Medieval Times, and Renaissance Faires all follow in this spirit of appropriation, recreation, and family entertainment, and it is at these venues that one is most likely to experience live jousting in North America. By Elizabeth Emery (see her essay, Medieval Times: Tournaments and Jousting in 21st century North America, in the book accompanying this website) MMedievaledieval - OOnline.indbnline.indb 1122 11/28/2015/28/2015 44:06:56:06:56 PPMM FAVOURITE MEDIEVALISMS 13 MAGGIE WILLIAMS AND LAUREN RAZZORE ASK WHAT IS THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY MEME? One of the best known medieval memes was designed sometime around 2002, by Bjorn Karnebogen and Gerd Jungbluth, two students at the Kunsthochschule für Medien (Academy of Media Arts) in Cologne, Germany. They created an interactive Flash application called The Historic Tale Construction Kit. Even though the original generator was eventually removed from the Internet, the site’s popularity inspired a replica that appears here: http://bayeux. datensalat.net. The designers expressed an interest in the interactive or participatory nature of their work, frequently referring to users as ‘authors’ who are ‘essential parts of the whole.’ The application allows users to drag and drop fi gures, animals, architectural structures and other images into a frame, where they can formulate their ‘own stories’ by dragging ‘images to the canvas to compose story panels.’ It is also possible to ‘click the canvas to enter text,’ which appears in a font that closely resembles the design of the embroidered letters in the original work of art. The background is rendered using Photoshop to resemble plain linen cloth, worn with age and sewn together in places. A sandy beige colour, the fi eld initially appears with the pale red silhouettes of two fi gures on horseback brandishing shields and spears. A sidebar at the left explains the activity, with a tool kit for editing your creation and a start button at the bottom. When you click the start button, the silhouetted fi gures disappear, leaving a blank space available for your work, and the tool kit is replaced with a selection of images that resemble bits of embroidered fabric. Five tabs offer a selection of ‘beasts,’ ‘misc,’ ‘brave,’ ‘folc,’ and ‘buildings.’ Once you have arranged a scene from these elements, you can mirror, enlarge, miniaturize, or rotate them to create a narrative. Text can also be typed into text boxes at any location. By engaging in the creative process in this way, you are reinventing the Bayeux Tapestry in a new context. Rather than passively receiving the imagery and/or information, you actively engage with the object, rearranging the composition, adding new text, and completely altering the meaning and function of the medieval work. Generating such medieval memes makes the Middle Ages present in the modern world, and it changes the way that contemporary people interact with medieval art. In fact, it is entirely possible that a visitor to the Bayeux Tapestry meme site has never encountered the original object before making her own rendition of it. Once completed, your design resembles a panel from the eleventh-century embroidery commonly known as the Bayeux Tapestry. The so-called Bayeux Tapestry is a 220-foot long embroidery depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066, probably made in England shortly after the historical events. A unique and fascinating work of medieval art, the textile has infl uenced generations of viewers in astounding ways. As Martin Foys, Karen Overbey, and Dan Terkla put it in the introduction to their recent collection of essays on the subject, the Bayeux Tapestry has long been a ‘visual and historical magnet, pulling on both the popular and academic imagination.’ The Historic Tale Construction Kit allowed users from across the globe to play with the embroidery in a direct way, creating their own variations on a medieval theme. Many of the resulting designs are humorous, often incorporating amusing messages in a quasi- Shakespearian ‘medieval-ese.’ For instance, one user offered a reference to the 2006 Samuel L. Jackson fi lm, Snakes on a Plane. (http://medievalsoap.ytmnd.com/) The image includes a MMedievaledieval - OOnline.indbnline.indb 1133 11/28/2015/28/2015 44:06:56:06:56 PPMM 14 MEDIEVAL AFTERLIVES IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE boat at the centre, with two shields artfully placed to resemble airplane wings.

Load more