What a good knight we had today…
Our local library brought in a man who is something of a medieval expert (though he says it makes him feel old to be called An Expert) with his arms & armor.
JediBoy was in heaven.
The knight started out dressed simply, something like this.
Then he had one of the older boys come up from the audience to be his squire, and help him get dressed. The knight told lively stories and demonstrated things as he added each piece to his outfit. He explained all about how chain mail is made, and why they made it that way, and demonstrated how swords don’t cut or pierce it and regular arrows can’t pierce it either. As he brought out each piece of armor, helmet or weapon, he described it, explained how it came to be developed, and what it was good for. By the end, he was dressed like this.
He passed a chain mail shirt, three different helmets and a pair of gauntlets around the room as well as some late Roman era coins. He encouraged the kids to try the helmets on, with often hilarious results. Here’s JediBoy in one of the helmets.
He gave the kids a ton of information, more than I could possibly recreate here. He covered topics as diverse as social classes; lead poisoning; the roots of the sayings “wake” (at a funeral), “dead ringer,” and “upper crust”; Charlemagne; the Crusades; the use of last names; heraldry, genealogy and family crests; catapults and trebuchets; his own interest in medieval times; the Ren Faire; book research vs. internet misinformation; and so on. Unlike typical 45-60 minute library programs, he talked for more than an hour and a half, and we stayed and talked with him for 15 minutes after everyone else had left.
JediBoy was beside himself with happiness, and it got even better when the knight gave me his card and told me he would be available for our homeschool group, and that he even has his son’s old child-size set of chain mail that he could bring along. JediBoy is already relishing the sparring possibilities.
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