I am hoping to bring to Normandy an English French group. Our aims would be to bring together people with an interest in history. In the process of us enjoying ourselves it’s to try to look at the past learning how different daily chores would have been done.
This will be a mixed batch of people, men, women, French and English.
If you have never thought about joining a group of strangely dressed people trying to work out a problem that could easily be solved by ovens, microwaves and modern day machinery, here’s your chance.
We are not into re-enactment of past conflicts such as the hundred year’s war, but to educate ourselves and the public and to re-enact the way of life of the past resoving day to day problems of life in the Middle Ages.
| Bread ovens | Pottery kilns |
| Buildings | Medieval garden |
| Medieval cooking | Singing |
| Mead | Tapestry |
| Clothing | Medieval feast night |
| Leather work | Jewellery |
| Musical instruments | Cosmetics |
| Medieval herbs for medicine | Calligraphy |
| Medieval hair and decoration | Candle making |
| Horseback archery | |
| Horse bards and tack (Caparison: An ornamental covering for a horse) | |
And anything else you would like to discuss and try out.
I hope this gives you a rough idea of what we are trying to do and as this club is new we hope that interest will grow with everyone’s participation. But the main aim is to enjoy and have fun.
We have not begun to advertise for our club and I was very surprised at the interest I have got so far. Though it will depend on you and others to make this group a happy and interesting one, we have to start somewhere.
If you are interested to come along to a meeting or perhaps would like to join for something completely different please email us your details including name, address and telephone number of anyone wishing to participate.
We hope to bring together French and English, men and women though is does look from the above discussions a female agenda, but please be assured there are men involved too.
We will be forwarding news letters, updates of meetings by post and email.
Of course if your French is not up to a full blown conversation, don’t worry we have medieval dictionaries at hand and very handy children. But of course if you are French and worried about the thought of our group being all in English we also have the same medieval dictionaries at hand and those very handy children.
Please feel free to email us with any questions you might have.
Many thanks.
Juliet and James holywood [2006]