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Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

Theoretically it's Renaissance rather than Medieval. And English Renaissance at that, which is well after the Renaissance was well underway in Italy.

But most RenFests seem to cover a period of about 500 years, plus a fair bit of outright fantasy.

At least at my local one, there is a Court playing out a fictional version of a real event early in the reign of Henry VIII, a period right on the cusp which I would call medieval rather than Renaissance. The people involved in that project actually have a good understanding of the history and are trying for some sort of period accuracy. Everyone else...

Why is that period so fascinating? Pretty clothes, and just enough superstitious belief in magic to let you play fantasy stories. Plus the actual history really is cool, even if it's only obliquely referenced.

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> Why is that period so fascinating?

My guess is the invention of the printing press. Thanks to that, tons of stories and myths have been preserved and proliferated with origins in the Renaissance.

We also tend to group a lot of Medieval and Victorian era stuff in with the Renaissance, meaning it effectively spans a huge era of recorded human history.

The printing press definitely played a huge role.

The earliest equivalents of modern mass market paperbacks were fueled by existing legends like King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable which invented the whole medieval romanticism genre. I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the cosplay gear at renfaires reflects that 12-13th century era rather than the changes that amassed versus gun powder (although that might just be the ones I've been to).

Sadly not much of that literature survived because it was bottom of the market and it's hard for scholars to really study.

> At least at my local one, there is a Court playing out a fictional version of a real event early in the reign of Henry VIII, a period right on the cusp which I would call medieval rather than Renaissance.

Henry VIII was in the early-mid 16th century. Thats's pretty darn late to consider medevial. Dates vary considerably but most historians consider the medevial era to have ended sometimes in the 15th century. Conquest of Constantinpole (1453) is a pretty common, albeit arbitrary date.

The Renaissance era, was considered to have begun in Italy sometime in the mid 15th century. Of course it took some time to spread throughout Europe. But by ~1500 Europe was mostly considered to be in the Renaissance. Certainly by 1521 when Martin Luther appeared at the Diet of Worms which kicked off the Reformation

Maryland?

Yep. I gather it's one of the better ones. It's certainly insanely popular. It practically sells out its entire season before it even opens.

And I have never once been aware of the Court. I know about it only because I have friends in it. They put a lot of effort into that story line.

I just started going a few years back and I agree, it is really well done. One of my neighbors is the king’s main guard, so we get all sorts of behind the scenes anecdotes at the kids’ bus stop in the morning.

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