Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How did Renaissance fairs begin?

history.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 104 posts

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#41

Post by bluGill »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #36
Mistletoe wrote: post #3

What interests me is why humans crave this one time in history (medieval?). It’s old enough to be different than now but not old enough to be like caveman times? Lower technology than now but not no technology. Do people in other countries that aren’t western civilization have similar cravings for that era or an era like it?

first off, as a ren fest veteran, it's easier to just take "renaissance" to mean "basically any time between the collapse of rome and world war i, also with the possibility of time travellers and things that never existed in the first place and anachronisms like turkeys in pre-Colombian England" and take "Renaissance" with the capital "r" to mean "from the 1300s to roughly the discovery of the new world" Second, I th…

I love camping, sleeping in just a tent, cooking on a fire. But only for a week here and there, most of the time I'm glad to live in my house with HVAC, and cooking in a modern kitchen is much easier. However it is fun to do with less - intentionally - for a short time once in a while.

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#42

Post by chrisco255 »

Mistletoe wrote: post #3

What interests me is why humans crave this one time in history (medieval?). It’s old enough to be different than now but not old enough to be like caveman times? Lower technology than now but not no technology. Do people in other countries that aren’t western civilization have similar cravings for that era or an era like it?

I think it's just the huge corpus of fiction that centers around that time frame. Our modern culture is directly descendent of that. Concepts like master bedroom, inheritance, formal titles like sir, King James bible and its older English wording, Shakespeare, King Arthur, etc etc. There are massive stone works and cathedrals from that timeframe still around today in Europe. Many fairy tales and myths and legends were created in that time that colored fiction for the next 500-1000 years into modern day.

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#43

Post by chrisco255 »

kragen wrote: post #15
triceratops wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly why do people dress up as pirates and Vikings for Halloween? We're talking about gangs of armed robbers who engaged in rape, pillage, murder, and slaving.

The humans find narratives about those things very interesting, perhaps because listening to them has been a crucial survival trait since they evolved storytelling. But the question above is why there are Renaissance Faires rather than Middle and High Medieval Faires (Viking times) or Early Modern Faires (Treasure Island times).

In my experience, Ren Faires tend to run the whole range of early medieval to renaissance times.

In Florida, there is a permanent year round dinner entertainment show that includes horseback stunts called Medieval Times. In my local Ren Faire, it's really all meshed together, if someone wanted to have a viking event or attraction it would fit right in and no one would bat an eye.

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#44

Post by bill38 »

burkaman wrote: post #26
crazygringo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loads fine for me.

I'm guessing this is a complaint about a full-screen ad that history.com is running. I can't confirm because I have like 5 different layers of ad-blocking that I'm not going to turn off to check this, but here's what the page looks like from a Finnish server: https://pikwy.com/web/68dd4ace6c4fe212122bdfe2

It seems that history.com is geo-blocked. You can see it if you are in USA, not if you are in Europe or other countries.

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#45

Post by ratelimitsteve »

triceratops wrote: post #8
Mistletoe wrote: post #3

What interests me is why humans crave this one time in history (medieval?). It’s old enough to be different than now but not old enough to be like caveman times? Lower technology than now but not no technology. Do people in other countries that aren’t western civilization have similar cravings for that era or an era like it?

Similarly why do people dress up as pirates and Vikings for Halloween? We're talking about gangs of armed robbers who engaged in rape, pillage, murder, and slaving.

Sometimes people like to think about, and even roleplay, some pretty dark stuff. Especially on the day set aside for exactly this sort of thing.

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#46

Post by ratelimitsteve »

bluGill wrote: post #41
ratelimitsteve wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

first off, as a ren fest veteran, it's easier to just take "renaissance" to mean "basically any time between the collapse of rome and world war i, also with the possibility of time travellers and things that never existed in the first place and anachronisms like turkeys in pre-Colombian England" and take "Renaissance" with the capital "r" to mean "from the 1300s to roughly the discovery of the new world" Second, I th…

I love camping, sleeping in just a tent, cooking on a fire. But only for a week here and there, most of the time I'm glad to live in my house with HVAC, and cooking in a modern kitchen is much easier. However it is fun to do with less - intentionally - for a short time once in a while.

You know I'd never considered it but a lot of small to medium sized music festivals probably scratch the same Temporary Autonomous Zone itch as the ren fest. It's just a somewhere else to go for a bit where things are different because we're all pretty sick of how they are here.

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#47

Post by bill38 »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #5
Mistletoe wrote: post #3

What interests me is why humans crave this one time in history (medieval?). It’s old enough to be different than now but not old enough to be like caveman times? Lower technology than now but not no technology. Do people in other countries that aren’t western civilization have similar cravings for that era or an era like it?

China at least has the mythologized three kingdoms period and wuxia stuff, pretty relatable to arthurian style fables. Dynasty warriors is probably the biggest exposure the west has had to it off the top of my head

Does China have something equivalent to "renaissance fairs" ? = re-enactment of things that happened 5 or 6 centuries ago ?

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#48

Post by chrisco255 »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #36
Mistletoe wrote: post #3

What interests me is why humans crave this one time in history (medieval?). It’s old enough to be different than now but not old enough to be like caveman times? Lower technology than now but not no technology. Do people in other countries that aren’t western civilization have similar cravings for that era or an era like it?

first off, as a ren fest veteran, it's easier to just take "renaissance" to mean "basically any time between the collapse of rome and world war i, also with the possibility of time travellers and things that never existed in the first place and anachronisms like turkeys in pre-Colombian England" and take "Renaissance" with the capital "r" to mean "from the 1300s to roughly the discovery of the new world" Second, I th…

> Old West Fest

For sure, there are things like Cheyenne Frontier Days though not sure that it really goes as far as the cosplaying that is seen in ren faires. People do dress in western clothes, although they're not necessarily acting out a part. Rodeos and western wear though are still fairly common in modern day America though.

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#49

Post by burkaman »

bill38 wrote: post #44
burkaman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing this is a complaint about a full-screen ad that history.com is running. I can't confirm because I have like 5 different layers of ad-blocking that I'm not going to turn off to check this, but here's what the page looks like from a Finnish server: https://pikwy.com/web/68dd4ace6c4fe212122bdfe2

It seems that history.com is geo-blocked. You can see it if you are in USA, not if you are in Europe or other countries.

Oh that's crazy, you're right: https://support.history.com/hc/en-us/articles/4411049949079-...

I wish there was a way for The Internet to eminent domain this URL from the History Channel, they clearly don't deserve it.

Archive for anyone interested: https://archive.is/2xmAE

Re: How did Renaissance fairs begin?

#50

Post by 5555624 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #43
kragen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The humans find narratives about those things very interesting, perhaps because listening to them has been a crucial survival trait since they evolved storytelling. But the question above is why there are Renaissance Faires rather than Middle and High Medieval Faires (Viking times) or Early Modern Faires (Treasure Island times).

In my experience, Ren Faires tend to run the whole range of early medieval to renaissance times. In Florida, there is a permanent year round dinner entertainment show that includes horseback stunts called Medieval Times. In my local Ren Faire, it's really all meshed together, if someone wanted to have a viking event or attraction it would fit right in and no one would bat an eye.

Medieval Times has nine locations in the US and one in Canada.
Post reply on HN