Medieval Camp
Since 2002, the festival has been more than a small setup of stalls. It has grown to be a camp of up to 120 stalls, where life in medieval times is enacted by participants of the battle and their families. The beer tent is a regular fixture, and the stalls peddle herbs, sweets, and food. Entertainers, such as acrobats, fire-eaters, and jugglers, wander the area, performing their arts. Musicians and dancers also entertain visitors. Re-enactors demonstrate pottery, yarn spinning, and other medieval craft. These enthusiasts come from foreign countries, such as Belarus and Hungary. The German Mittelalter rock band Schelmish has performed several times at the festival. Short bouts of simulated duels are performed in the camp and a jousting tournament was also featured. The festival has attracted visitors from as far as New Zealand and the west coast of the United States; the local tabloid quoted an estimate of 25,000 visitors to the festival in 2003.
Read more about this topic: Tewkesbury Medieval Festival
Famous quotes containing the words medieval and/or camp:
“Our medieval historians who prefer to rely as much as possible on official documents because the chronicles are unreliable, fall thereby into an occasionally dangerous error. The documents tell us little about the difference in tone which separates us from those times; they let us forget the fervent pathos of medieval life.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The Indians invited us to lodge with them, but my companion inclined to go to the log camp on the carry. This camp was close and dirty, and had an ill smell, and I preferred to accept the Indians’ offer, if we did not make a camp for ourselves; for, though they were dirty, too, they were more in the open air, and were much more agreeable, and even refined company, than the lumberers.... So we went to the Indians’ camp or wigwam.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)