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To understand the current trend for everything Renaissance, three questions must be answered: 1) Where did we come from? 2) Why are we here? 3) Where are we going?Prior to World War II, 75% of the U.S. population lived in small towns or on family farms. People worked together in a communal effort to bring in the harvest or solve problems. Due to the demands of industrialization for the War effort, the population shifted. By the end of the war, 75% of the population lived in large metropolitan areas.
Now our lives are specialized. No longer do we regularly speak to our next door neighbor. Our work involves assembling minute parts of the society we live in without fully understanding or appreciating the larger mechanized infrastructure we help to support. We are lost in the day-to-day details which make up our lives. We sit in front of televisions which broadcast the events going on around us.
To Californians, “old” means anything which has been around longer than ourselves. Not many of our cities have buildings more than sixty years old. In the city of Los Angeles, for example, there are only a handful of skyscrapers which are older than thirty years. Consequently, our personal connection to the past is limited. We cannot walk up to a structure our ancestors built and touch the walls.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a tale of a futuristic society where books were prohibited. Firemen burned the books in order to keep their culture and society pure. One day, one of the firemen picked up a banned book he was sent to destroy and hid it under his coat. He read the stories of the past and suddenly found his life was enriched by this knowledge. He met others who had discovered the power and joy found within the pages of their favorite literature. They memorized the books and became storytellers who recited their knowledge of the past to future generations.
For many years there has been a revitalization of our human spirit of “community” through fairs and festivals throughout the United States. During eight months of the year, there are several hundred of these events. Some are only a single day and others are held every weekend for a couple months. One particular type of faire is the European Renaissance Faire. Re-enactors and merchants come together to recreate a Renaissance Village. For some, this weekend community recaptures the essence of a time when everyone was an intricate and vital part of a small community. It is a way we can become connected to our past.
Individuals are free to choose their character from peasant to nobility, whether fictitious or an actual person from history. Costumes can be purchased, but some individuals research and create their own. The people involved in these faires range from struggling college students to actual European nobility. Every time we visit the various Renaissance Faires in California, we see old friends and rekindle cherished memories. In giving one another these cherished memories, we give a personal gift of our hearts and enrich each other’s lives-like the heroes Ray Bradbury’s book.
For the last five years, my wife and I have volunteered our time to teach arts-and-crafts. More recently, we have begun to research and teach various games of the Renaissance. Last spring, I was asked to recreate a French Ambassador at a local faire. My brother-in-law did some quick research and developed short biographies on four individuals from the French Renaissance. By a quirk of fate, I chose to personify Maximilien Béthune, Duke of Sully. After the faire ended, I continued my research of this man and learned that he not only helped shaped modern France, but modern global social economics. I also discovered that he is an intricate part of my ancestral past- we share a common direct ancestor in Guillaume IV de Béthune, Seigneur de Lokeren.
In America, the majority of the history which is taught in our schools is Anglo-American, which made it a challenge for me to assemble information on the French Renaissance. Currently, I am sharing my research notes and references on the Internet and allowing fellow lovers of the Renaissance a place to find and share information on various topics, such as art, music, cooking, chivalry, costumes, fencing, and games.
In the stories of King Arthur, Merlin would change Mort (a.k.a. “Arthur”) into various creatures to each him different lessons of life. On one occasion, Merlin changed Arthur into a hawk and allowed him to soar around the countryside. When Merlin changed him back into a man, he asked “What did you learn as a hawk which you didn’t know as a man?” Arthur looked deep into his soul then replied, “There are no boundaries!” As a hawk, he couldn’t see the manmade fences. Today, we live in a global community with very few boundaries. We are only limited our own imaginations.
We invite all those who desire to learn (or have knowledge you are willing to share) about French Renaissance culture to come visit our Web site. These are gifts of the past for the world.
Kirk Larsen
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