Medieval Living

As I noted in my last post, my first Medieval structure was a single pole pavilion. There were no perimeter posts. Looking at the Medieval era illustrations of camps, none of the pavilions there had perimeter posts. What one can infer from the illustrations (see Making a Medieval Single-Pole Pavilion) is that pavilions used a hub and spoke configuration to support the walls of the tent. The fact that the walls were all splayed out at the bottom further indicated that there was no need for ropes to secure the pavilion. Indeed, my humble first effort confirmed that the design required no additional supports or ropes to secure it. In fact, my little hand-made pavilion survived some tremendous summer storms, both in New Mexico and in Wyoming. When “mundane” tents were snapping and ripping apart, that little single pole pavilion swayed gently like a sailboat on a breezy lake. So here’s to single pole, hub and spoke pavilions!!! I think our ancestors were rather smart folk . . . and should be given much more credit that the “Dark Ages” might suggest.