Visiting the Frazier

[fbhjr]

Our first day in Louisville, my wife and I went to see The Frazier Museum.


We had heard a lot about the Frazier for a while, and really wanted to see it.
So, once we got our rental car, we headed right there.
Sadly, due to the highway of “Bam!”, we missed their first sword demonstration.

I understand that it started as a museum dedicated to fire arms. But, a few years ago they made an alliance with The Royal Armories. So, the third floor of the museum is an official part of the Royal Armories.


We’ve been to lots of museums that have arms and armor. My wife and I used to spend a lot of our time at one of those museums a few miles from our house. My wife still does historical sword demos for that museum.
So, we’re a bit jaded for that kind of collection.
But, despite that, we were both VERY impressed with the Frazier’s exhibit.

One of the things that I liked best about the exhibit was the basic layout of it. Most museums we’ve been to group items that are similar together. Swords are together, even if separated by centuries. Armor from different countries and different periods are next to each other because they look similar.

The Frazier’s 3rd floor is laid out by time, not by form. Granted, as part of the British Royal Armories, it is focused on English arms and armor as well as those that came across to America. But, seeing it laid out by time made a lot more sense to me.

If there was any downside, it was that all the display cases are still fairly new. That makes them very reflective and difficult for photos. I took quite a few, but I’m only going to show (for me) a small number because of that.

As we walked through the exhibit in the historical order, my photos should be pretty close to that as well.

It started in the bronze age. It included some types of swords I don’t associate with the bronze age.


They had some very nice examples of the kind of dagger a lot of our manuals discuss.



I think this may be the finest mesh maile I’ve ever seen.


I particularly liked this diorama.


I’ve known a lot of people who don’t seem to realize that America was taken over by Europeans while armor and swords were still very much in use. I’m not saying guns weren’t used, they were. But, guns existed with swords and armor for centuries before the gun won the battlefield.

There were some very nice examples of some swords we use in our historical show.


And, some swords we hope to start using soon.


They don’t ignore guns. They have some very interesting examples, put in the case with other things of the same time frame.


They had some nice examples from the late 1500’s when a lot of our sword manuals were written.


After looking through the exhibit we decided to go for lunch, then come back for the afternoon demonstrations.
(Probably the hardest part of the visit to the museum was getting a recommendation for lunch out of the man at the front desk. After hearing the list of everything in the area I finally said “look, where would you go?” He sent us to Another Place, which was very good.)

After lunch we came back and saw the afternoon demonstrations.

The first was “A day in the life of a cowboy”:

His show had a summer camp of fairly young kids to deal with. He used them for his “stampede” demonstration.
When he was done I was checking things on my iPad. He came over and spent as much time looking at it and what it could do as we had spent watching his show. I’m glad it was between shows.

The next show we saw was the “Free Frank” show about a slave who managed to earn enough money during the war of 1812 to buy his freedom and his wife’s.

The man doing this show was very good and did a good job separating his interpretation of the historical character from the modern man telling us about it.

Finally, we got to see the sword demo.

First of all, I have to say how much I envy their demo space.

At the Higgins, we had to carry over the benches in the gallery to make our own ring. We had to spend a fair bit of care to make sure guests don’t stray into the demo area.

And, I envy their supplies.

At the Higgins, most of the demo swords are swords Mark donated from his personal collection that are kept in the basement. To do the demo, you’ve got to lug them up the 3 floors to the main hall.
This locked sword closet right in the demo area? That is so nice.
The weapons on that wall look like the table of contents for Keith Ducklin & John Waller’s book.
But, since they are (or were) the interpreters for the Royal Armories in Leeds, I guess that isn’t a surprise.
(Looking up the link for that book I find it is now on Kindle, and I have bought yet another copy of it that now resides on my iPad...)

They did a good job with the demo, following a pretty standard formula.
Tell the people about the sword:

Show some of the basic stances:

Then do the sword fight:


They did a very good demo with a nice “strung together move” fight at the end.

The only thing that did make me wonder was the source material they used. They said it was a combination of Talhoffer and Ringeck, both German masters from the 1400’s. The Ringeck manual is pretty complete with a lot of detail. The Talhoffer is more just images that you’ve got to put together yourself.
Both, as earlier manuals, have some very nasty moves. (Talhoffer has the “cut his hand off, when he bends over to pick it up, hit him in the head with your sword” move that I quote so often in our “we don’t use this in our show” talk.)
So, I was surprised they didn’t use any of the more distinctive moves, or at least reference them.

So, after the show was over when they asked for questions, I did ask them about how they chose the material they used. Without trying to be “that guy who tells you how to do your show” that always annoys me, I tried to ask them about how they picked which sword moves they did.
But, my wife says I was scaring them when I started comparing different manuals, so I stopped and we let them put their stuff away. (I like to talk about the manuals. Sorry.)

It is a VERY nice museum and a GREAT collection. I do very much recommend it to anyone who happens to be out that way. While the things are nice, what I liked most was the thought put into the display of them and the great staff who really do a great job of bringing the history to the visitors.

Comments

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

I would SO love to go with you and Malterre if that could happen.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Don't feel the need to wait for us. Go get on a plane!

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

(Probably the hardest part of the visit to the museum was getting a recommendation for lunch out of the man at the front desk. After hearing the list of everything in the area I finally said “look, where would you go?” He sent us to Another Place, which was very good.)

Jan and Michael Stern, my favorite foodier writers (See RoadFood) say that this is the best way to get restaurant recommendations. People tend to send tourists to the tourist spots. What you want to do is ask where the locals eat.