2008 Kansas City Renaissance Festival

6/11/08 - week 2

History

Small Town Life or Village Life:

• Most people lived in the country, in close knit villages, about 90%
• People knew each other very well…. cradle to grave
• Lived in Thatched Huts with one or two rooms, a table, bed made of straw and stools instead of chairs. Animals could & would rest on the roof since it was most likely made of straw.
• They had fire for heating their home, candles for light and shutters for their windows.
• No formal education…just what you were taught by your mother or father. You wouldn’t be able to read unless you went to a monastery or a clergyman would assist you in writing or reading something.
• Toilets (or Privies) were usually a plank of wood with a hole cut out of it that was placed over a bucket or a hole in the ground…no privacy! You could wipe with leaves, moss or if you were lucky, soft wool.
• City Streets were filled with sewage, animal waste, human waste, rodents and pests.
• People didn’t form strong bonds in court, like the lower classes but more of alliances as they would politic their way to the top.
• Streets were narrow, crowded, the buildings blocked out the sun allowing bandits and thieves whom could easily steal from people and merchants.
• Most people couldn’t read so the shop owners hung pictures of their wares under the signs.
• Tradesmen or guild members of one trade would usually live on the same street (butchers and slaughterhouses)

Middle Class:

• Lived in town homes or wooden houses perhaps.
• Most of this class were merchants or members of a guild and lived on top of or in back of their shop.
• They might have had more comforts…a fireplace, a rug, a bed, chairs
• For education, they normally had tutors to teach them arithmetic, reading, Latin and French.

Nobility & Royals:

• Lived in manors, mansions, and castles made of brick, stone, trimmed in rich woods and had glass windows, tapestries, rugs, fireplaces and the like.
• Their privies emptied out into a moat nearby or around the structure.
• Many servants to wait on them and care for the household.
• Also had tutors or sent their children to different places altogether for studies or even to live! (His Majesty and Elizabeth)

The Guilds:

• Merchants, craftsmen and artisans became members of trade guilds which had an enormous amount of power.
• Membership being required for social, economic or political advancement.
• Some of the most important guilds had legal enforcement rights and could forbid traders or artisans to operate within their jurisdiction on penalty of confiscating their wares and tools.
• Several could search, by their own authority, to seize inferior goods.
• The Lord Mayor was elected from the ranks and was generally Master of one of them.
• It was common for the guilds to present gifts to the Lord Mayor and to the Sovereign on their patron saint’s day, a practice continued to this day by some companies.
• They were (and still) are very concerned with protection of trade secrets.
• Guild officers served a one year term, and were crowned in office with great pomp. All companies share the ceremony of passing a loving cup of wine or ale clockwise with the man who passed it standing to protect the drinker’s back. The ceremony of mutual protection remains unchanged from Saxon times, and is still performed among the London guilds.

A Typical Life:

• The average life span was 35 years!
• Childhood mortality rates were extremely high! It was estimated that 33-50% (depending on where you lived) would see the age of 16 years!
• The plague (Black Death) is usually to blame for our deaths.
• Customs are very strong in our daily routine!
• We are a segregated lot and suspect others whom are different or from other places.
• The clergymen are vital for teaching us things and spreading knowledge.
• The rich are judged in status by showing how hospitable they are: some go into debt as they host parties or other Nobles (like the King).
• The poor are given doles from the rich at the back gates of their estates…once again their reputation depends on it!
• All children must obey the 4^th Commandment: Honor Thy Mother And Father. They kneel at their parents feet and ask for blessings over many things.
• The parents are taught that "He who spareth the rod, hateth the child". Without question, the child is taught to do as they are told.
• Most children start helping their fathers and mothers around the age of 7: household chores, babysitting, cleaning, herding, and collecting firewood are just a few things they would do.
• Men and boys are valued more to society than women (although women would and could politic better than some men)
• The first born son was blessed with many things: lands, title, rank above his sisters and younger brothers. It would be his job to take over the fathers duties, if the father should die. Younger brothers would be given a job in a guild or sent to the monastery. Women were betrothed to other families to improve the families over all rank in the Chain.

Food For Our Times:

• What you ate depended upon your status.
• Peasants usually dined upon: soups, hares or rabbits (the only thing they could hunt), robins, turtles, onions, turnips, eggs, chickens and some veggies like cabbage. Their bread was made of rye and barley: grayish and hard. If you lived near water: fish was in your house too
• Merchants and on up ate the same things but if they could afford beef, venison, apples, cherries and grapes-they would have those in their diet too.
• Any exotic fruits like papaya, mangos, bananas, and kiwi are not known to us (gypsies might know though)
• We are NOT water drinking people unless we know it’s fresh! Most water is polluted do to waste in our streets which run into the rivers and streams we live by! We drink wine and light ales. (We drink fresh water at Canterbury!)

Tudor Entertainment

• People had to create their own form of entertainment
• They worked all day, 6 days a week- Sunday was day off!
• Watching plays became popular- acting troops traveled from town to town to perform in the streets or outside of inns.
• Masques or Balls were a favorite of His majesty.
• Singing
• Dancing
• Music
• His majesty was a keen musician and enjoyed music so much he composed ballads and church music- it’s been lost. When he died he left 5 bagpipes, 78 recorders, 78 flutes, and 1 mechanical Virginal- a type of key board or harpsichord’s predecessor

Tudor Sports

• Jousting
• Tennis (but they had three extra goals in the wall behind the players)
• Hunting
• Bear Baiting (Henry VIII built a ring at the grounds of Whitehall)
• Football (much like soccer except, the field goals were a mile apart, any number of people could play and there weren’t many rules! Still played today over a period of two days with thousands of players)
• Dice, Cards and Gambling

Crime & Punishment

• No police but if you broke the law, the punishments were severe. People believed that once you saw someone go through the punishment, it would make a person not do the crime.
• Executions:
  They were a public event, with vendors and people camping out for a good spot.
  70,000 people were executed in His Majesty’s reign alone.
  Involved: beheadings, hangings, burnings, being pressed (crushed) or boiled alive.
• Lesser Punishments were whipping (flogging), branding (M=murder, V=vagrant or T=thieves), the Pillory (standing), the Stocks (sitting), the dunking stool, having limbs cut off and The Drunkard’s Cloak.

• King Henry has divorced his first wife Kathryn of Aragon (and basically the Catholic church) and is to marry Queen Anne by the end of our festival day.
  a. Your character WOULD be impacted by this!
  b. New Queen, new religion: and this worries you or affects you
• King Oberon & Queen Tatiana are disputing over the Henry/Anne Marriage.
  a. You wouldn’t know this at face value, but if you speak to gypsies you would know.
• The Lord Mayors daughter (Hermia) is upset due to her marriage arrangement to Demetrius and wants to run away with Lysander while her friend (Helena) loves Demetrius instead.
• The traveling actor group (The Mechanicals) will be performing for their Majesties wedding and gets involved in the whole she-bang of the days events.
• The Lord Mayor is having the gypsies as part of the entertainment as well as, guarding their Majesties and keeping order in town-he’ll need the pub by night’s end.

A. Character Surveys

• I want everyone in this room to know of or know each other.
  a. Character wise but personal wise
  b. Better for team and better for all of us to watch out for one another.
  c. We’ll be doing interaction and games to get to know each other.
• The survey is one of the most important tools that you have.
  a. Records who, what, where, when, why & how
  b. You can write in history with other characters-please ask them before you do.
• Make it real-don’t be the baker claiming you know King Henry when he was a child-because you wouldn’t. However, you WOULD be in a tizzy because the King will be eating your bread at the feast.
• Make it as detailed as you would like-but remember, nothing of abuse!
  a. It’s used as your bible in finding gimmicks and schticks.
  b. It’s read by many people so keep the language friendly.
  c. There are examples of the character surveys on the entertainers website from last year.
• You have until June 18^th to get me your character survey, I will give them to Rnee.

Remember your costumes are due June 25 at the costume parade.

Important Dates & Things:

• Character Surveys due June 18^th : Email them or bring them to me!
• Costumes check up next week! Bring stuff in to check with Alice if you’d like.
• Costumes are due for the costume parade June 25th!
• Lenexa July 4^th parade is next BIG promo!

Next Week:  
BRING SURVEYS TO TURN IN- THEY ARE DUE!

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