Medieval Combat in the 21st Century?
Medieval jousting in the 21st century? What’s that all about? Yes, groups of extreme athletes (check out the Armored Combat League) are bringing jousting and other medieval forms of combat to arenas around the world, as the TV show Full Metal Jousting can attest.
So what’s that all about? This fall’s Medieval and Early Modern Lecture explores that very question. Angela Jane Weisl, professor of English and director of Graduate Studies at Seton Hall University and author of The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative Adventures in Contemporary Culture, will present “The Most Dangerous Sport is About to Be Reborn: The Return of Jousting and Medieval Combat” at 4 p.m. on Thursday, October 20, in the Mountain View Room.
“Difficult as it might be to believe, jousting and other forms of medieval combat are enjoying a revival,” said Dr. Weisl. “The excitement, in-person engagement, and licensed violence they offer for the participants, and the spectacle of watching its combatants injuring each other for the audience seem to be at the heart of this return of ancient practices in the modern world. The gleeful fascination with destruction, paired with a set of values and ideals (some real, some imagined) seem to be at the heart of this new engagement, to which its participants look to achieve some kind of realness of pure possibility and pure power, unmitigated by social control. Together they create the past, not as the real Middle Ages, but as reflection of a set of desires for this past.”
This is no longer the stuff of Renaissance fairs and those Medieval-themed restaurants. These participants take this stuff seriously! Check out this tournament promo:
