Hawkyns

No. The Gustav Rapiers are 1630ish. The thinner rapiers with heavy ring guards are acceptable, but the Elizabethan rapier was definitely a heavier, wider blade. Think of a broadsword blade with a rapier type hilt. That said, that would be an officers or gentleman's blade. The sailors would have used a shorter, heavier hanger- sort of a proto cutlass, but without the figure 8 guard or basket hilt. Soldiers would have used a broadsword type blade with guards similar to the ones Daniel posted. Long blades are right out. Elizabeth decreed in 1576 that blades should be no longer than 36 inches. If you read the period sword manuals, the English blades are shorter and heavier. The longer, thinner Italian and French blades are derided as 'bird spits', and looked on as beneath the honour of an Englishman. The English fighting style is a very in your face, brawling style, and the continetal blades won't stand up.

Excellent. I'll be there with the sutlery. God Save England and damnation to the dons! Hawkyns

It's a great pity. I was on her several times in the 80's when she was still on Lake Chataqua. Beautiful ship. Hawkyns

Anybody going? One of the biggest gatherings of period sutlers on the east coast. http://www.friendsoffortfrederick.info/market_fair.htm

I think the difference between the hanger and the cutlass would seem to be in the width and weight of blade, with the cutlass being bigger and heavier. There are references to cutlasses being used to clear lines and rigging during boarding actions, something that the hanger is ill designed for. I would support that with the other root of the word cutlass, that being curtal axe, from the middle French. That would indicate a heavier, chopping blade, more than just an infantry hanger. Hawkyns

Do they have a new webpage? I looked at their page under the Historic Florida Militia and couldn't find anything Hawkyns

I've got a horse hide on the shelf earmarked for one of these. As soon as I get through the backlog of cartridge box orders. Did you put the wooden stiffener between leather pieces to stiffen the ends? I've seen various takes on the encircling straps. One that seems to make sense is that they were also used to secure the portanteau to a saddle or to a pack saddle. Hawkyns

Any info yet? Dates, details? Hawkyns

Nah, I think we're both on the same page, Michael. I don't much care what you call it- organisation, council of captains, whatever. I come from a military reenactment background, so that's the way my mind thinks. The important thing is that we have a set of standards or guidelines and that we hold to them. That way, nobody feels uncomfortable when going to an event, knowing what's expected. Ransom, I would say that 70% of the events I go to have no battle, so that's not really a good example. No injuries? Gwen chopped her thumb half off splitting wood for the fire. I know two gunners who lost their arms in cannon accidents. A couple of years back at an F&I battle, someone forgot to remove their rammer and wound up pinning a native to a tree. I watched someone get pushed off a horse and dragged across the field when her foot didn't release from the stirrup. (She was back in the battle next day with a broken arm) Real weapons, combined with living the lifestyle, and people get hurt. The battles may not be real, the possibility of injury or death is still there. Hawkyns

I think that's rather the point, Mission. We're all looking for a different experience. I'm looking to experience, as much as possible, life around ships and the docks in the 1680's. The modern side of pyrate reenacting, the pub crawling, the wacky competitions, the extolling of the latest movie- none of that interests me. Can I fire a gun from a pitching deck? Can I hold my own in a cutlass fight? Can I live for a week or more without any electricity or other modern convenience? Me against the late 17th c. Can I survive? When I decide which festivals I'll go to, (For myself, not the sutlery) I base it on which will give me the best experience, same criteria that I would apply to an F&I event, a Rev War event, or an ECW muster. Will there be raucus, bawdy singing in the tavern or camp? Will I be able to wander down to the water and smoke a quiet pipe after dark and not see much of the mundane world. Will I be able to get the smells and stains of tar, seawater, wet wood, blackpowder smoke, strong tobacco on myself? Will we have a real battle, a scripted farbfest, or just weapons demos? It's all relative. Some have called this disgusting and icky. Slipping the bonds of time and experiencing the life is, to me, the best. Some people like the relaxed atmosphere. As long as I know that's what I'm going into, in time to plan for it or say no thanks, that's OK. In every reenactment, of all periods, there will be dillettants and the hard core, and a bunch in between. It is why I do think we need some kind of organisation, not to run things, but to set a series of standards, from streetfair farbe through to hard core stitch counters so that we can all understand what is expected and avoid the problems. Hawkyns

I guess it depends on a bunch of things. It's another part of why I started this thread. It all depends on what your tradition is in reenacting. I don't come out of the Ren world. I come out of more hardcore reenacting, WWII and Trekking were the first real reenactments I got involved with. WWII is insanely detail oriented by pyrate standards. Trekking is a combination of history and survival course. Yes, some of us do see hardcore reenactments as a trial to see how well we can deal with the hardships of history. Let me tell you about one of the treks I went on a few years back. Beginning of April and a fairly warm spring. A bunch of us met at a trailhead in the foothills of the Catskills. Gear was checked to see we had nothing modern except a pocket first aid kit, suitably hidden, and neccesary meds. My pack weighed about 30 pounds, plus musket and weapons belt. We hiked in about 10 miles or so, and rose in altitude quite a bit. By the time it was heading for dark, we were above the snowline and there were still piles of snow about. We, the 6 of us, set shelter- ground cloth, blanket, and small tarp over- and scouted for dry wood for the fire. We got a fire going, cooked a meal of rice, dried peas, and jerky with tea and some period chocolate. Asleep at dark and awake at first light, with occasional waking up to keep the fire fed. Breakfast was bacon and biscuit softened in the bacon grease, with more tea. We scouted the area through the day, including needing to wade through thigh deep snow runoff streams. Evening was the same thing, accompanied by a touch of rum from the flasks. Dawn we packed camp and back down the mountain. It was the best damn time. We survived, proved that we could, at least for a short time, deal with an 18th C environment. There are ACW groups that will park 10-15 miles from the reenactment and march in. Lots of 18th c rangers and natives that have camps that make Patrick's camp look like luxury accomodations. WWII people want to see production dates and manufacturors marks on kit that will never be seen by the public or even others in the unit. It all depends where you came from. Pyracy is a relative latecomer on the reenactment scene. Most of us have done this in other places, whether it is Faire, Hardcore, or Battle Reenactors, before we got involved in pyracy. We bring with us those attitudes. Unfortunately, they don't always mesh well. You see my style of reenactment as an ordeal. I see a pub crawl as a complete waste of time. (Not saying you are a pub crawler, just an example.) That's why I think it is so important that events are extremely clear in advance about what to expect. Hawkyns

Or, I'm a pirate/smuggler/privateer/reiver/soldier who dresses in funny clothes through the week to support my reality. Granted, being a fulltime sutler and craftsman makes that a bit easier. It just depends which reality you prefer to live in. Hawkyns

Hey Mission You asked about which definition of living history to use. That question really threw me, because to me it was obvious, but so ingrained that the question didn't make sense. The definition I use is the one used by the museums and living history sites- Plimoth Plantation, Jamestown, Old Sturbridge Village, places like that. Some are First person, some are third, but that is the standard that I've always used. Hawkyns

Smaller ships did have a galley. It was generally in the focsl and was commonly a brick box 3 feet or so on a side. Smoke was vented through a hatch over the box. Fires were kept as small as possible, and dosed during rough weather or any kind of action. The common cooking pot was a cauldron in which some kind of stew could be boiled. Salted meat frequently needed to be rinsed to get rid of the excess salt. One method was to put the meat in a bucket or barrel with holes in it. This could be towed behind the ship to rinse out the salt, the sea being less salty than the meat from the barrel. Hawkyns

Yup. If I am going to do it the way I want to do it, then you should get to it the way you want to do it. Just as it's not for Hawkyns to tell me I have to stay in a tent to call myself a good re-enactor, neither is it for me to tell Hawkyns he shouldn't swear or do a skit where he shoots a priest to call himself a good re-enactor. Nor is it anyone else's place to say "You're only a real pirate re-enactor if you..." For the most part, I think everyone has pretty much agreed with this in this thread at this point. Mission, I never said that or anything like it. All I was looking for was a better, more clear definition of what Living History is, what the participants can expect, and the ability to know it up front. And for the standards of the day to be enforced. I've NEVER said that people should not play at the level they are comfortable with. All I want to know is if it is advertised as a living history event, and I drag out the whole kit and live period for the weekend, I'm not going to be camped next to Jack Sparrow, expected to perform for the public in a non period way, or subjected to a wench walk. Hawkyns

A) Yes. I've worked as a gunner on the Providence, the Quinnipiac, and the Half Moon. Hauled lines, stood watches in the freezing dawn, fired broadsides. As an Idler, I don't have to go aloft, but beyond that, yes. Food- lived on bully beef and biscuit when I've been in the woods for a week or so. The head? Talk to the Coast Guard. they have rules about that. Yes. Been teaching swordplay for 20 plus years. Cutlass, broadsword, and rapier. No masks, no fancy armor, just blunted steel and bruises. and it is NOT choreographed. Working from period 16th/17th c manuals. C) Yes. Handgonne, wheellock, matchlock, flintlock. Fired them all, cleaned them all, stripped and done maintainance on them. With the matchlock, smoothbore, unpatched, I can get 5 inch groups on our 50 yard range. Won the shooting competition at St. Mary's Cittie a bunch of times. Does that count? D) Yes. I own 4 cannon. I've built carriages, both land and sea, for all of them. I've commanded land batteries of nine guns, and gundecks of 4 guns. Worked the orlop deck on the Half Moon on my knees, with the end of the rammer going under water as the ship heeled. Been artillery safety officer more times than I can count. E) Yes. Our swordplay instruction includes hand to hand, grappling, whatever is needed. Next? Hawkyns

Mission that's my whole point, that's why I started this thread. We are NOT being given full info about events. Things are being mislabled and it makes it difficult or impossible to know hat you are getting into in advance. If a site has a 'living history' camp, I would expect it and all participants to be juried. I would expect the participants to be knowledgeable about they are doing and to base their actions on their persona, not the crowd. I would expect that the participants are serious enough about this that they would not strip the garb and sit on a cooler driking Bud from a can just because the public gate is closed. It's not for everyone, I never claimed it is. But if I see an event labled as living history, I don't want to see Jack Sparrow, or stuffed parrots, or women in faire wench bodices. If that's what you are going for, fine. Call it a festival or a gathering. If you are looking for crowds of pirates, at least be straight with us and publish all the rules (or lack of)way up front. And if you want a living history event, be prepared to jury it, enforce the rules, expect a small group of dedicated people, and be prepared for people in the audience to be offended. Hawkyns

OK, Michael, why "after hours"? What is magic about the public leaving? I'll be honest, I haven't seen one pirate gathering/festival/reenactment yet that goes 24/7. And that disturbs me. We all talk about our personae, whether it be the purist or the fantasist, but we drop them like dirty socks when the public is gone. If we are so enamoured about what we do, why is it so hard to stay in that persona beyond the public time. Qhite honestly, from other periods that I do, it is after the public, with all its non period clothing and questions, goes home, that we can really get into being who we want to be. Some of the best times I've had have been sitting around the campfire, singing period songs till way past midnight, or arguing period politics until we fall over. And there's nothing like a good old fashioned protestant vs catholic argument in period to give you the feel of a Thirty Years War camp. A tankard of cider, a good pipe, and a good period discussion or song until you crawl off to sleep in your pile of straw is what makes the hobby. Hawkyns

There is, but that is not my point. We are not showing that wide variety at events that claim to be living history. We are showing a polite version of society, with perhaps a few evil caricatures. How do I put this? We are showing 21st century people acting as they think pirates lived. Maybe it's me, but when I do a living history event, for whatever period, I spend a couple of days getting my head into the right space. I want to think like a 1675 person, see the world as they did, react to society as a disgruntled and pissed off Royalist officer. We spend a lot of time talking about kit on this forum. We spend a lot of time talking about skills on other forums. But we spend very little time discussing where we fit into society, what we would see on a regular basis, and how society would see us. I do like the 1st person interpretation. In Blackwell's we did it all the time. But you need a lot of info to do it right, and the ability to forget what you know about the modern world. You also need the ability to give up modern comfort and convenience. These are the things that I see missing in living history as it pertains to pyracy. Hawkyns

Well, I suppose that depends on what you consider beyond the pale. I've been to events where there have been whorehouses set up. I've seen battles in which Native Americans 'scalped' whites, to the point of having a bloody hairpiece to waive about. I've seen events where there were gallows, the rack, and the wheel, all appropriately bloodied in a camp. Williamsburg did their slave auction a couple of years ago. I've seen 'victims' of rape reporting to the guard commander, with clothing and hair appropriately dissheveled. None of this caused any great amount of problem. This was all 10-15 years ago. We have digressed from that point to where doing that now would cause an unheard of uproar, unfortunately. This was all history. We know it, we can document it, and again, not in isolated incidents. Pyracy, no matter how we Disnify it, was a crime punishable by hanging. We can call ourselves mariners all we like. We can say that it was a move of desperation, or a very rare thing for most mariners, or justify it in any way possible, but the fact remains that it only took one proveable act (and proof was not nearly up to today's standard)and you got a quick trip to the gallows. Even the lower end of the legitimate sailors lived in a world far removed from what we normally see at an event. The dock areas of any city were filled with cheap taverns, whorehouses, pawnshops and the like. Bar fights, knifings, robbery nd rape were the standards of the time, and no police force to complain to. Life was, to quote a phrase, ugly, bruitish, and short. I'm not saying that this should be the only thing we do, please don't get that impression. My point is, if we are going to call ourselves, or an event, Living History, then we need to show all sides of the culture- good, bad and truly ugly, or we are fooling ourselves and the public.

Interesting. I guess my focus is on the persona part of this. Roderic Hawkyns exists over 200 years. From one of Drake's gunners, to a late 16th c Border Reiver, to a Royalist captain, to a Restoration highwayman/pyrate, to a colonial privateer/smuggler/gunner, the clothes change and the story changes a bit, but the persona is still the same. A man who has no use for a settled life, a abhorance of the church and it's moral strictures, a real problem with authority, and an honour code that is his own and likely not shared by most. Hmmm, not much dif between the persona and the me. For what I do in terms of GAoP, I feel at home in the earliest years, 1670-80's. A Royalist officer who was not treated well by the Parliamentary Inquisition, nor by the return to normalcy. I've taken to the road as a highwayman, and to the sea as a smuggler and pyrate, depending on circumstances and expedience. Over the years I've done a number of things in persona that have pissed the crowd off. Like shooting down a party under flag of truce. Or putting a minister against a tree and executing him. Singing anti Catholic songs in camp. Refusing quarter to captured enemies. Just to name a few, but all of these things I can document, and not just as isolated incidents. People tend to view history through modern spectacles, Disneyfied as someone said. The reality was that life was not as valued back then, especially in the lower echelons of society, and the concept of political correctness would make our ancestors laugh till they collapsed. But for all that, for all that our unit was known as a hard fighting crew, as black as they come and socially on the edge, we won a lot of awards and always had a camp full of spectators. So I don't accept the premise that being true to the time is going to be rejected by a modern audience. Certainly there will be some who are offended, but that's life. There is no right to not be offended. I am definitely in the immersion camp. I don't see myself as an actor, but as someone who is trying their best to experience life as it was, as much as may be in these modern days. Discomfort is part and parcel of this, as is a willingness to be shunned by many. So be it. I do this for me, not for the public, and I can enjoy myself just as much in an empty camp as in a full one. If I start tailoring what I do to the perceptions of the site, or to the entertainment of the great unwashed, then I am neither being true to the history, nor to myself. Hawkyns

Who are we? Are we jolly rogues like Jack Sparrow and Robert Newton's Silver or are we hard characters like Charlton Heston's Silver or Will Plunket from "Plunket and MacLeane"? Do we wnat to be liked by the people who see us or do we want to show a more accurate portrayal of the black underbelly of society? Do we need the public as an audience or is the mere portrayal for ourselves enough? In all cases, I would answer the latter. It's a question I've asked on other 18th century boards. There seems to be a general attitude of putting our forbears on some sort of pedestal and refusing to acknowledge the reality. Pirates were jolly folk who only fought and killed when neccesary. The early colonials were all upstanding people. There were no murderers, horse thieves, highwaymen, town drunks, conmen and whores. All of this is demonstrably untrue as the slightest cracking of any history book will tell you. But when do you see this in a living history camp? When do we see the ragged, the punished, the sick, and all the other unpleasant realities of the 17th and 18th centuries? Maybe its me with my cynical view of the world, but I've always thought that we do a disservice to the public if we call ourselves living historians and ignore the ugly while portraying only the fun? Having lit the fuse on this granadoe, I await your opinions. Hawkyns

Replied off line. Hawkyns

I'm firmly with Hurricane on this one. Living History without weapons? Pirates without weapons? This event will not be showing up on my schedule. I don't carry plastic weapons, to do so would be to ignore the reality and a slap in the face to all serious living history people. And I don't let other people store my weapons. I don't understand the comment about Maryland. No weapons are banned at Fort Frederick for the Market Fair or other events. I go armed to the teeth at St. Mary's Cittie, including walking around the college. There were no issues about Lock House. Seems it is just more of a renfaire attitude of no weapons or peace tied, neither of which is correct. Hawkyns (and yes, I know this will piss some people off)

OK, I'll bite. What do you need to do to 'convert' a muzzleloader to fire blank? All you need to do is not put the ball in. Hawkyns