> At 10:16 AM -0400 8/19/02, JCWisc at aol.com wrote:
> >>Are we done with the lack of airplanes already?
> >
> >God, I hope so. Airplanes? Forget airplanes. How about steel
> >plowshares, reapers, drill presses, lathes, transistor radios,
> >sewing machines, tractors, vaccines, clocks?
>
> It seems some individuals enjoy "re-living the 13th century" -- _if_
> the experience is offered in a "non-profit" theme park.
>
> ***** Reliving the 1200's With Sweat, Muscle and No-Tech Tools
>
> By CHRISTOPHER HALL
>
> REIGNY, France
>
> IN a forest clearing near this remote village in Burgundy, three
> dozen men and women - myself included - are hard at work on an
> overcast July morning in the year 1231. (etc.)
Yup. This sort of thing is hugely popular. People are very interested in how they did things before the advent of machine tools, electricity, and so on. In the 1960s in Denmark, there was a site called, I think, Lejre, where they tried to re-enact the 13th century BCE--the "iron age," if you please. They chipped stone to form arrow points, in an effort to figure out how people did it 20 centuries ago.
I think this popular interest in history is a good thing. A lot of folks seem to be genuinely interested in how society has evolved, from pre-industrial times to the present. They often start from simple curiosity about the material details of life in former times, but then start asking deeper questions. OK, this is how the stonecutters worked, and these are the tools they used, but what was the relationship between the stonecutter and the person for whom the castle was being built? What was it LIKE to be a medieval stonecutter? What were your thoughts and feelings, and what was it like when you went home from your job? How were people in the 13th century like us, and how were they different? Those are some of the questions that I think some of the people who visit sites like the one described in this article are trying to understand. I hope most of them come to understand that you'd have to be nuts to want to go back in time...
Jacob Conrad