6 Medieval Activities You'll Want to Try

1. The Game of Repentance

Strictly speaking, this is entertainment. called Hot Cockles, "The Game of Hot Cockles". What do these creatures have to do with it, decide for yourself. The game was popular among the European nobility from the Middle Ages until the 18th century.

The point is the following. One participant, "repentant", blindfolded, puts his head on the knees of the referee - "confessor". The rest are in the back. On a signal, one of them hits the "repentant" on the back - while he could be innocently slapped and a good slap slapped. The poor fellow must guesswho hit him. If he succeeded, the one who did this becomes the new “penitent”.

And if not, the participant will continue to receive slaps in the face - until he guesses correctly.

Both children and adults played the game. The latter liked her, because an attractive girl could be assigned as a "repentant": painful spanking was a peculiar way to flirt with her. Such is the harsh medieval courtship.

2. Zhmurki

Medieval blind man's blind man's blind man's blind man's blind man's bluff or blind man's bluff And they were much less enjoyable than the modern version of the game.

Driver put on a hood on the head, covering the face and completely making it impossible to see, and twisted it around its axis several times to disorientate. Then the participants had to properly mock the "blind" - it was allowed to push him, pull his clothes, whip him with anything and even beat him with a sack rolled into a knot. The leader at this time had to catch his tormentors.

If he managed to grab someone, he became the next "blind", and the beatings went to him. Naturally, the previous sufferer tried most of all to take revenge on the new player for the torment caused.

3. Homemade acrobatics with chicken, water and candles

In 1801, the British engraver, writer and philanthropist Joseph Strutt published a book about the medieval pastimes of his country. In addition to the "hot shellfish" and battered blind man's bluffs mentioned, there were other, more extravagant games described.

As a source of information, Strutt used medieval manuscripts and paintings, and therefore he was not always able to accurately convey the rules of the game. For example, one of these entertainments was sitting with a lit candle on a pole over a tub of water.

Perhaps the player should have kept from falling as long as possible, maintaining balance and ignoring the hot wax dripping onto their hands.

In another version of the entertainment, it was necessary to do the same with a pole and a chicken sitting on it.

By words art historian Caleb Kieffer, medieval people often toiled from boredom and therefore came up with games that could be played at home alone. When you don’t have a smartphone, internet, and TV shows on streaming services, you have too much free time.

4. Knightly tournaments on wooden horses

We already toldthat real jousting is not at all such a noble and bloodless entertainment as it is described in fantasy novels and shown in movies.

The point is that the winner legal to take armor, weapons, a horse or an impressive cash bet from the loser, and not everyone could afford such losses. Therefore, the impoverished warriors could well begin to fight to the death in order to save the last property.

And since real tournaments with a live opponent on a warhorse and with a lance in their hands were difficult and dangerous, medieval knights invented a way to train without exposing their lives to unnecessary risk. Such games were called quinten or pavo (from lat. "fifth" and "peacock").

A rider with a pike on a horse had to hit a dummy on a long support or a special target. In some cases, the last settled down cunningly: at the top of a wooden pole, a vat of water was fixed, which, with an unsuccessful blow, overturned on an unlucky knight. Or a sandbag that hit him on the head and dropped him to the ground.

Sometimes, to make the quinten even more fun, the knights rode not on live horses, but on wooden, with wheels. And they were pulled by squires or peasants. The knight beat his servants on the back, forcing them to move, and, taking acceleration on his substitute horse, pierced spear target or wooden ring.

5. Sharivari Parade

Sharivari is translated from French as "cat's concert". It's entertainment reminded a masquerade, a musical parade and a drunken revelry along the street at the same time and was arranged during different holidays - most often weddings.

Its participants dressed up in different costumes, grabbed musical instruments, as well as pots, cauldrons and other rattling dishes, shouted, sang obscene songs, jumped wildly and imitated the voices of animals - mostly the cries of cats spring.

They went to weddings or to the home of newlyweds, sang rude serenades to the bride under the windows and forced the newlyweds to drink wine and do stupid things in front of the crowd. Sharivari participants were not always familiar with their victims and could easily drop in on strangers.

The revelers lagged behind the bride and groom only when they gave them money, which they immediately drank in the nearest tavern.

The reason for the Sharivari invasion at a wedding is usually became insufficient chastity of the bride. If a woman got married a second time, or, according to rumors, cuckolded the groom, revelers thus tried shame her. They also mocked men who, for example, allowed their betrothed to be beaten or tolerated her quarrelsome character.

You can say that it was probably some kind of vulgar entertainment for the peasants, but in fact, the aristocrats came up with sharivari. Even the kings used it. And not always drunk games ended well.

For example, January 28, 1393 Isabella of Bavaria decided to arrange a sharivari on the occasion of the wedding of her maid of honor Catherine de Fatavren with Count Etzel of Ortenburg. She was getting married a second time, and the queen decided to play a trick on her. She dressed five of her courtiers in the costumes of "wild men" and monkeys. Her husband, King Charles VI, joined in the entertainment with pleasure.

The maid of honor with her husband and other courtiers were quietly celebrating the wedding, when suddenly six monsters burst into the hall. The chroniclers described them like this: "Naked and hairy, like satyrs... danced in a diabolical frenzy." They began to shout, make terrible somersaults and insult of all those present, which frightened the bride a lot.

But at some point, one of the "savages" unsuccessfully crashed into the king's brother, Duke Louis of Orleans, who had a torch in his hands. Sharivari outfits were sewn from felt and smeared with wax.

All in all, four nobles were burned alive, and many other members were severely burned and died a few days later.

Charles VI survivedbecause his 15-year-old aunt, Duchess Jeanne of Berry, threw her dress over his head, put out the fire and saved the king. This historical event, by the way, inspired the story of Edgar Allan Poe "Jump-hop".

6. Catching apples

Against the backdrop of the previous harsh medieval ways to disperse boredom, this one seems quite harmless. It looked like this: we take apples and throw them into a bucket of water, and we make the participants pick up as many fruits as possible using only their mouths - no hands. Yes, this entertainment is very ancient and appeared in Medieval Europe.

Sometimes the name of a young man was carved on an apple if women played, or girls if men played. With those who came across, you could flirt or even arrange date. It was a kind of courtship in an era when personal life was severely limited by church prohibitions and Christian morality.

Another variant of the game is when the apple hung up on a rope, and the contestants tried to rip it off with their teeth. Whoever reached out first, he won.