Medieval Weapons

My new found passion for medieval times has led me to some interesting places, one of which was a supplier of medieval weapons and amour. Now that is a sentence I never thought I would hear myself say, let alone type. My interest in this area started when I first saw a full color picture of an elegant lady wearing a beautiful replica of a Tudor period dress. This is the sort of clothing unseen these days, outside of Royal families perhaps.

The intricacy of the embroidery, the richness of the colors and the delicate jewelry all combined to form what was more a piece of art than an item of clothing. Now I think about it, that is probably why artists like Lady Gaga are enjoying so much attention.

People do not just want to hear a song being performed, they want to watch a spectacle, where the eyes are just as nourished by the display as the ears are by the sounds. As this is a relatively new hobby for me, I has assumed, incorrectly, that it might be quite hard to find authentic medieval reproduction items, such as medieval weapons, for example. How naive I had been!

Plus Size Costumes

The plus size costume market has expanded substantially, with both online and offline stores increasing their numbers and variety. However, plus size wearers must select their outfits very carefully.

It is not just the quality of the material that one needs to scrutinize but also the kind of look one wants to don. The attire must be such that it suits the theme of the party, while complementing your personality.

Guidelines to Follow while Selecting a Plus Size Costume

Here are a few factors one must ensure while selecting a plus size costume:

* Comfort level - This is important because your comfort level in the attire will affect your attitude and how you carry yourself. Size is the determining factor in this case. If you plan to purchase a costume from an offline store, you must try the dress before buying.

In case you are buying from an online boutique, submit your current measurement details. Too tight a costume or a low cut one might cause great discomfort and also attract unwanted attention from onlookers. You can save yourself from embarrassment by making sure you buy a costume that fits you perfectly and accentuates the right contours.

Also, take the weather into consideration. If the costume is meant for Halloween, ensure that it provides you with enough warmth.

* Flattering wear - The costume that you select must flatter your shape. For example, emulating Marilyn Monroe who is famed for her hour glass figure or the fictitious Scarlett O'Hara who is known for her 19 inch waistline is not a good idea.

Stepping out of one's real character and role-playing an icon is fine as long as the costume you wear suits you. The right costume can make you look sexy. There are special plus size costumes that are designed for voluptuous women. Costumes such as that of a medieval serving wench or one of the queens of Alice in Wonderland would suit perfectly.

* Accessorize properly - Accessories are important features of a costume because they create the aura of the character you are imitating. They can make or break a look to a great extent. If you are dressed up as a Greek goddess, make sure that you wear a tiara and a pair of sandals to match the look. If you want to emulate the medieval figure of Death, make sure you are not wearing sneakers with traditional formal clothes.

For comfortable, flattering costumes of every size and material, visit http://www.sexywearavenue.com. SexyWearAvenue.com has an inventory of more than 450 styles of sexy plus size costumes to choose from.

Renaissance Costumes - Choose the Best Attire

The creative mind's re-invention of Renaissance Costumes is considered a delight to the senses and a gorgeous feast for the eyes. This is the reason why a lot of festivity hosts opt for a renaissance inspired gathering more than any other concept.

Creating a renaissance period atmosphere is a bit challenging especially if you don't have any idea how to provide a real Renaissance look. So, for those who want to know how to choose the best garb for a Renaissance feast, here are few tips to combine high fashion, elegance, and stunning design in one:

1. Search through various Renaissance Costumes found in books

This pertains to different periods and cultures that have a Renaissance touch. Many different books have pictures of various costumes that can be a great concept for your choice. The global zeitgeist reads something like this: take what's indigenous in a specific renaissance period/culture and put in individual and innovative elements to come up with your own vibrant, creative costume idea.

2. The service of a local couturier

You can only have the best garb if you likewise have the best designer to inject fun and flair and design innovation to traditional renaissance costumes. Having your own designer will allow you to choose preferred patterns and styles where you can also ask for a designer's fashion sense in terms of mix of colors, creative embellishments, and fancy details.

3. Consider online resources

With the latest technology thriving each day, it is indeed possible to come across renaissance costume patterns, elegant headwear, and period accessories with just a simple search. So, if you're having a difficult time choosing which renaissance costume will fit you best, the internet will never fail to give you accurate, artistic, and whimsical costume idea.

David L writes for ShopCompareCostumes.com and shares his interest in dressing up with internet readers. He's been writing for costume and Halloween blogs since August 2007 and has been a blog author since September 2005. He loves playing characters and his creative side is most active when he's sharing his ideas with others.

He shares his ideas and recommendations about Renaissance Costumes and other holidays at Shop Compare Costumes. Sign up to receive our free costume newsletter for exclusive discounts, coupon codes, and how-to articles!

Handmade Medieval Toys At Bristol Renaissance Faire 2009

Chicago families visiting the Bristol Renaissance Faire can shop for handmade medieval toys that encourage imaginative play about magic and times past.

Bristol Renaissance Faire imaginative play

Designed to help visitors imagine that they have time traveled back to Elizabethan England, the Bristol Renaissance Faire lives up to its slogan (Where Fantasy Rules) with themed buildings and rides, costumed actors, and creative entertainment and interactive activities.

During their visit to the Renaissance, parents and children can tour the merchants in the Bristol Faire Marketplace to shop for lovely handmade artistic items and crafts that can be used as toys for imaginative play.

Children's medieval role-play toys

Visitors to this Elizabethan-era festival are invited to arrive already dressed for the part or to rent costumes once there. Parents can also purchase kid-sized costumes and accessories to dress their children up as fantasy, medieval, and renaissance characters.

Read complete article in Examiner.com

Family Fun In A Medieval Mode

Slashing swords, chain-mail armor, flowing gowns, pageantry, gold crowns - these scenes will greet spectators to Saturday's Highland River Melees, a series of battles set by the creek that wanders through City Park in Hagerstown.

The event features armored combatants who belong to the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a national organization promoting the history and culture of the Middle Ages.

Spectators are welcome to the event, which takes place all day Saturday.

It's easy to be captivated by the flash and crash of battle. But for longtime SCA member Eric Knibb, the group is about more than fighting.

"In itself, going out and hitting people with swords, it's a lot of fun," said Knibb, a Williamsport resident. "But the primary focus of the SCA is to re-create the positive aspects of the Middle Ages."

Chivalry, for one thing. Knibb said if a combatant loses a weapon during battle, their opponent allows them to pick it up before continuing. Courtesy is one aspect of medieval culture.

SCA members also re-create medieval foods, music, costumes, children's toys, tents, and more.

Knibb makes chain mail.

Under his adopted medieval Scottish persona, Fergus, Knibb makes shirts, armor and other chain-mail items and sells them to other SCA members or to the public. His product line includes pouches, shirts, jewelry, chandeliers and, um, bikini tops.

"Bikini tops are not medieval whatsoever," Knibb said, with a laugh. "I make them because people buy them."

Knibb has been making chain mail for 20 years. He met and married his wife, Glynis, through the group. And though he has no children of his own, he knows other families who are involved.

Read complete article in Herald-Mail.com

At Port Gamble Medieval Faire, ‘A Thousand Years of History to Draw On'

By Josh Farley

jfarley@kitsapsun.com

@DATELINE:PORT GAMBLE

From stitching coifs to throwing spears, one thousand years of history came to life Saturday in Port Gamble.

The 27th annual Medieval Faire, which continues today, showcased the best of life in the middle ages, minus death, disease and other drawbacks of the millennium.

"We take the best aspects of the Middle Ages, but we avoid things like the Black Plague or the Spanish Inquisition," said Eric Bosley of Port Orchard, also known as Eric De Dragonslaier.

About 1,000 members of the Society for Creative Anachronism — including 300 or so from Kitsap — camped out for the weekend to give visitors an idea of life long ago.

"Instead of just reading about it, you recreate it," said Silverdale resident Tammie Dupuis, who goes by Laurellen in her medieval life.

Visitors could watch glass blowing or dueling knights, as well as equestrian jousting and archery competitions.

"We have 1,000 years of history to draw on," Bosley said.

SCA members aren't bashful about their passion for all things medieval.

"People here don't think you're weird for wanting to learn new things," said Rycheza, aka Laura Henson of Suquamish, a member for 22 years.

Read complete article in Kitsapsun.com

Medieval and Renaissance Forum presents Ensemble Chaconne

Ensemble Chaconne, with mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal, will join the 30th Annual Plymouth State University Medieval and Renaissance Forum for a single public performance Friday at 8:15 p.m. The concert will be performed at Heritage Hall in Hall Residence Hall on Highland Street in Plymouth.

Praised for "vitality and character … style and verve" by MusicWeb International, Ensemble Chaconne is celebrating its 23rd season. Members of the ensemble are Peter H. Bloom, Renaissance flute; Carol Lewis, viola da gamba and Olav Chris Henriksen, Renaissance lute.

Ensemble Chaconne will perform "Measure for Measure: The Music of Shakespeare's Plays" at PSU, a sampling of the music Shakespeare's audiences would have heard, written by the leading composers of his day.

Selections are tied directly to the plays and include music from "As You Like It," "Measure for Measure," "Twelfth Night," "Henry V," "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," "Hamlet," "Othello," "Macbeth" and other plays.

Ensemble Chaconne has garnered consistent critical acclaim for its vivid concerts of Renaissance music on period instruments. They have developed themed program for organizations including Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Peabody Essex Museum, and have performed in concert halls across the U.S.

Guest artist Pamela Dellal has toured the U.S., Europe, Australia and Japan and has recorded for Arabesque Records, Artona, BMG, and others.

Tickets for Ensemble Chaconne's Plymouth performance are $12 for adults, $9 for seniors and students. Contact Professor Karolyn Kinane at 535-2402 or send e-mail to kkinaneplymouth.edu.

Taken From Citizen.com

4 Interesting Facts About Renaissance Doctors and Medicine

Do you usually link Renaissance to advances in medicine? Typically, when we talk about the Renaissance period, we talk about an explosion of learning and creativity. From paintings to music, this was a tremendous time for the arts in particular.

However, the era of the Renaissance, which lasted from the middle 1400s until the 1700s, also featured major developments in European medicine. Here are some of the important facts surrounding the Renaissance period and medicine:

1. New knowledge and inventions improved medicine

A flurry of new knowledge and inventions helped to advance medicine quickly, during the Renaissance. There were no instruments yet to observe bacteria, and thus create a need for cheap urbane scrubs.

However, diagrams of the human body and the printing press both had a huge influence on the world of medicine. Thus, doctors had a better comprehension of how the human body functioned, than during any previous era in Europe's history.

2. Galen was no longer king

During the previous Middle Ages, the medical world considered Galen's writings to be infallible. Galen was an ancient Greek living in Rome, who had developed the concepts of Hippocrates, "The Father of Medicine."

However, during the Renaissance, doctors took a more practical and academic approach to training in their profession. Medical students studied from books with realistic diagrams of humans.

In addition to better books, doctors-in-training also had access to more of them, thanks to the invention of the printing press. In fact, universities even permitted students to dissect humans, towards the end of the Renaissance. This practice had previously been limited to animals.

3. Science began to supersede spirituality

During the Renaissance, people still held to some spiritual reasoning regarding diseases. For instance, people were unaware that bacteria existed, and could spread from person-to-person. However, logic became king, due to a new wealth of knowledge available, and an efficient way to distribute it faster-the printing press.

In addition, the training for surgical procedures greatly improved. Apprentices would learn surgical techniques, from an active surgeon. Interestingly, universities themselves failed to supply doctors-in-training with these skills. Nevertheless, the improvements in textbooks about human anatomy significantly boosted the complexity of the surgeries that doctors did.

4. Many did not embrace advances in medicine

While the Renaissance ushered in a new era of medical knowledge and skills, not everyone was impressed. During the Renaissance, home remedies remained a vital aspect of medical treatment, for many people.

In fact, some people still sought treatments from local shaman who lacked formal training in the medical profession. Also, many "old-school" doctors and the Catholic Church still adhered to the teachings of Galen. However, within time, medical advances during the Renaissance would revolutionize the whole professional.

The Renaissance was clearly an era of enlightenment and developments. Besides the fantastic output in the arts, the medical profession flourished as well. While doctors were yet unaware of bacteria or the need to wear scrubs during surgeries, they were nonetheless learning. Essentially starting with the Renaissance, spiritual doctors were becoming scientific doctors!

Brent McNutt enjoys talking about cheap urbane scrubs and cheap landau scrubs as well as networking with healthcare professionals online.

Medieval Medicine: Ways of the Old

Within the history of medicine timeline, medieval medicine is a particularly interesting aspect to investigate, as at this time medicine was still based on some fairly archaic ideas, but by the end of the era new theories were beginning to emerge which would one day revolutionize medicine.

The timeline of medicine begins much earlier than medieval times--in fact, medicine's history extends back to the prehistoric era--but it was during the medieval age that certain medical advances were made which would prove to be particularly important in the future.

The Medieval System of Medicine

The most well-respected physician during the medieval era was Galen of Pergamum, a Greek who had lived in the second century B.C. During the time in which he lived, his work had added a great deal of important information to the store of medical knowledge--including study on inflammation, infectious diseases, and pharmacology.

At this time, qualifying as a Doctor of Medicine involved ten years' worth of study, and because of this there were relatively few doctors. Women were did not train as doctors, but many medical practitioners actually were women, until the increasing regulation of the profession began to exclude people who had not trained from practicing.

The Medieval Theory: Four Humors

During the medieval era, the prevailing medical theory was the theory of humours, which was pioneered by Hippocrates and further developed by Galen of Pergamum. The theory of humours ended up being very long-lived--it was not until the nineteenth century that it began to fall out of use.

According to the theory, the body was made up of four principal humours--fluids--called yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm. All diseases were caused by imbalances in the body's proportion of the various humours.

For example, too much phlegm in the body would cause lung diseases, and would cause the lungs to cough up the excess phlegm in an attempt to restore the balance between the four humours. Each of the four humours was also associated with particular organs, climate types, elements, and even personality types.

Treating various diseases often involved the application of herbs, which were supposed to help restore the balance between the humors. Using herbs lent itself to the Christian "Doctrine of Signatures," which stated that God had provided a world in which the cure for every ailment existed, and that each cure had on it some sort of sign which proclaimed its purpose. For example, Lungwort, which was used to treat tuberculosis, had an appearance similar to that of diseased lungs.

The High Medieval Era

It wasn't until the end of the medieval era that some of those important advances were made. During this era, for example, Theodoric Borgognoni pioneered the introduction of one of the most important concepts in modern medicine: the use of antiseptic practices.

Other physicians contributed immensely to the store of knowledge, including Realdo Colombo and Michael Servetus, both of whom discovered important knowledge about the circulatory system.

Emeka Ezidiegwu is Webmaster and Internet marketer who owns and operate several web properties. Emeka has written articles on many different topics for some of his web properties like: http://www.onlinemedicineinfo.com/medieval-medicine.html