The Appeal of Living a More Medieval Life - My first SCA Meeting
September 13th, 2007Here is a video of a massive battle of Armored Soldiers at the Yearly Pennslyvania meeting of the Society of Creative Anachronism.
Last night I attended my first meeting of the local chapter of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and it was a real blast.
If you aren’t familiar with the SCA they are an organization that studies all aspects of medieval life during the middle ages. At the top of this post is a video of a two groups of knights engaging in battle and it’s pretty cool but you have to understand that fighting in armor is just one small aspect of what the SCA is about. They are all about everything in the middle ages and they have a very active schedule in a lot of things including Study and Reproduction of Sieges, warfare, Fencing, Brewing, Fiber Arts, Blacksmithing, Tailoring and well everything.
So if there is a particular aspect of Medieval Life that you are interested in the SCA will have something for you.
About the Appeal of experiencing Medieval Life
I have given some serious thought to why I like Medieval things and at the meeting last night I asked other people the same question and I think it comes down to two very simple things.
Simplicity and Richness
We live in very complex times. Everything is piped into us at the speed of light and there isn’t a person in this world that doesn’t want things to slow down a bit. This is where the allure of the middle ages comes in. I think it was a simpler time but simpler isn’t a negative. It is a big positive because it came with a richness. The Middle ages weren’t a time where people spend all their time lounging around underneath trees and hanging out in pubs. There was a richness to life in those times and this richness came from the variety of things they did from arts, crafts, tailoring, blacksmithing, combat, architecture, food and so much more.
It was simple and rich. For me there is a deep enrichment in taking my time and brewing some mead, building some armor, telling stories around a campfire, and many other simple but rich things.
I really think that the experiences within the SCA bring people closer to what we all as human beings are supposed to experience in life. Seriously! Is it better as a human being to play a pixellated knight in a video game or to actually pick up a wooden sword and actually face off against somebody?
If you want to learn more about the SCA or find a chapter local to you check out their website: http://www.sca.org
Tags: By Will Kalif, community, Forum, Historical, MedievalPopularity: 34% [?]