Symposium 7

[fbhjr]

Each April the University of Massachusetts Renaissance Center has a conference on historical swordsmanship.
It was started by our friend Jeff Lord in memory of his father and has continued on now for seven years.


This year the first talk was from the curator of the arms and armor exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I’ve been fond of their arms and armor collection for decades, so it was very nice to be given a guided view of it. He knew his audience and spent a lot of time talking about weight and balance of the swords in his presentation.
It was one of my favorite talks over the seven years. (Dr. Snook’s is still my favorite.)

Mark, who runs the study group my wife goes to each week, also gave a talk.


It was nice to see him and Jeff working together again.


This year I didn’t get my act together enough to do a historical presentation. So, some of the Phoenix Swords folks helped and we did some demos at lunch.
It was very rainy and muddy out.

So, instead of sword fighting on the damp lawn, as we have before, we went to their converted carriage house/stage area.




One of my favorite parts of these symposiums is when they let us in the basement.


While the press is nice, I really like the old books.



This year they were able to answer the question about which is their oldest book.


It is a copy of Euripides from 1504. A 507 year old book is pretty cool.
Of course, they have other very impressive books.


After lunch the ARMS people made a presentation on Meyer’s long sword.



The last presentation of the day was from Mark Donnelly.

It was a presentation on the historical fencing revival of the late 1800’s early 1900’s.
While I found it very interesting, there was literally some snoring.


Then, it was back out to the “stage” for practical applications of the self defense developed for gentry a little over 100 years ago.



Next week we’ll be back there for their ren faire. I’m a bit worried about the scaffolding.

I’m worried that if they don’t like the show they’ll hang us. Hopefully not.

The place we wanted to have dinner had more than an hour wait. So, most folks headed home.
My wife and I found a restaurant we hadn’t tried before. It was very good. I liked it because we could look right into the kitchen from where we sat.

Comments

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Sorry I missed it. But I had to make a choice and saw a rare Roman exhibit at Boston College, featuring items very rarely seen outside of textbooks and photos now.

I'd have really enjoyed the MET talk.

And of course, pawing the printing press.

I love the photo of Mark animatedly lecturing. He does know how to dress sharp :D

Despite the weather, I'm glad it was a good event for you.

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

Neat!