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.

Well it sure has been a while since I posted – school started and life got very busy! Anyway . . . So I’ve talked about Medieval structures – mainly castles and timber-frame houses, but what about pavilions? One of the first Medieval structures I ever made was single pole, spoke and hub, pavilion. It was 11 feet square and the walls were 7 feet high. Center post was 12 feet high, so there was plenty of ceiling height. I did a fair amount of research before building it, reviewing numerous sites and many pictures from Medieval texts. One site that has an extensive amount of information and references is The History of Tents. Information covers from the 1st Century to the 18th Century. A good place to start researching that Medieval pavilion you want to build!

Welcome back! Oh wait – I was the one who was gone. Sorry for the length of time since my last post, but I had to visit family while I had the opportunity. I wish I could have timed the visit differently . . . like maybe in mid-august. Two reasons for that: my family holds a reunion during the third weekend in August, so I would have been home for that; and that is also the time when SCAdians gather in western Pennsylvania for some little event known as Pensic. Little . . . maybe 10,000 people or so . . . hmmm not sure what the numbers have been lately, but I know that it is no small event!
I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on Pensic – I was a non-SCAdian and happened to be living in Butler, PA, which is very near to the Pensic site. “What are all those crazy people doing? And where do they get all of those medieval tents???” Well, a few years later and, sadly, long after I had moved back to New Mexico, I got my answer! Now I am one of those crazy people!!! And I have made one pavillion and two yurts ( gers, for those Mongolian purists).
Where does one find plans for such things? Well one of the most wonderful resources I ever came upon was an SCAdian-run site called Medieval Pavillion Resources. It contains links to numerous sites that show how to construct pavillions, yurts, roman tents, viking tents, middle-eastern tents, and bell wedges, just to name a few. Lots of great information!!!
So . . . if you’ve ever wondered yourself how to build a Medieval-ish tent, here you go!!!