As posted on the AHA weekly blog, Encased in Steel:
It has been a busy week in the aftermath of the conference. We have had to write up reports for our funders, draw up accounts and reconcile them with our budgets, we had to collate and study all the feedback and then hold a debriefing session. The majority of the work has been complete with just a little left to go, and now I am happy to present my review of the event from the point of view of being one of the organisers.
The week before the conference was a long and busy week for me and my two colleagues, Ben Kerr and Dr Ralph Moffat. We had so much to sort, so much to arrange, and so much to prepare. Time seemed very much against us! Nevertheless, even as our speakers started to arrive in Glasgow in the days preceding the conference, we managed to pull everything together and by Tuesday morning we were pretty much ready to go!
On Tuesday afternoon a group of delegates arrived at the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre in Nitshill for a tour around Pod 10. A little known fact of the Glasgow Museums is that the Resource Centre is divided into pods, where each pod contains all the items to do with a particular subject. Pod 10 contains the European arms and armour held by the Glasgow Museums. Anyone, at any time, can arrange a visit to the Resource Centre and be shown around by the curator or allowed to handle the items. If this sort of thing interests you and you are in or near Glasgow, perhaps try and arrange a visit to the Resource Centre and see what amazing things you can find in the pod.
The afternoon began by looking at some of the manuals and manuscripts from the library collection, including a copies of both Thibault’s work and Heredia’s beautiful manual. Then the group progressed into Pod 10 itself, where a couple of hours were spent in blissful joy examining and handling some of the artefacts held in the Resource Centre. It was a very interesting experience to have so many western martial artists and historians with such a wide range of knowledge and experience coming together to examine these objects – certainly very educational!
On Tuesday evening Ben and I ran the Scotstoun Broadsword Club as usual, introducing our understanding of how one might fight when armed with the Scottish broadsword and targe. It was an enjoyable class, becoming even more so when we were joined a little later in the evening by John Clements and John Farthing along with some of the other ARMA delegates and then Fabrice Cognot from De Taille et d’Estoc.
Once the training session was finished, many of our Broadsword Club members went to the local pub, along with our ARMA and de Taille et d’Estoc friends. There we were joined by Dierk Hagedorn of Hammaborg, Daniel Jaquet of of GaGschola and Bart Walczak of FEDER. The evening went well, lots of drinking was done, and much diplomacy happened!
On Wednesday morning we all assembled at the Kelvingrove Museum ready to start the conference. We had a minor hiccough with the name badges – the supplier had been supposed to deliver them the week before, but instead they only managed to arrive on the Tuesday. So we were frantically trying to put together the name badges as the conference delegates were arriving and signing in; through sheer perseverance (and a bit of bloody-mindedness: we bought the name badges, dammit, everyone was going to have one!) we managed to write and put together a name badge for everyone before the presentations began.
As everyone filed into the lecture theatre to find seats, there was a visitor already standing in the corner of the room. This visitor was several hundred years old and rather prestigious: the Avant armour itself was in the corner, ready to listen to the first pair of speakers!
The morning panel was opened by Robert Woosnam-Savage, who provided an engaging insight into the life of RL Scott and how he went about amassing his collection. Fabrice Cognot gave the second presentation in the panel, talking about the poleaxe (or pollaxe – the different terminology and spellings were discussed in the talk!) and its symbolism in medieval artwork. Unfortunately our third speaker in the panel was unable to attend the conference, so we took an early lunch.
As part of our outreach efforts, we had planned to put on some demonstrations of historical fencing for the public at the museum. We had invited the various Scottish HEMA groups to put forward a couple of demonstrators and a few people volunteered to help. On the Wednesday, Mark Wilkie and James Burn from the Academy of Historical Arts in Dundee put on a longsword demonstration, followed by a broadsword and targe demonstration by Ben Kerr and Ian Buchanan from the Academy of Historical Arts in Glasgow. The two demonstrations were short and sweet, to the point, and quite visually entertaining!
After lunch, the afternoon panel began with a presentation by Steve Hick about the montante, discussing Eudemio’s dilemma. The next speaker was John Clements with an account of his recent visit to Korea in his capacity as the HEMA representative in the World of Martial Arts Union. Finally, Professor Matthew Strickland from the University of Glasgow gave a very insightful presentation on the symbolism of the sword in medieval chivalric culture.
For me, one of the most valuable things that any of the speakers said during the day was an assertion by Professor Strickland that we often see swords by themselves in museums and collections and suchlike, and that they often feel “denuded”. Without their scabbards and belts, the swords (especially the early medieval swords) lose quite a lot of their cultural and social context. I had never really thought about this before and have often falling into the trap of focussing on the steel swords to the exclusion of the important trappings that accompany the weapons. This is an element of historical context that I will do my best to bear in mind when studying swords from now on.
The conference finished for the day at half past three in the afternoon so that delegates could return to their accommodation or go for dinner, or otherwise to prepare for the evening ahead. Glasgow City Council had kindly offered to provide us with a civic reception in the City Chambers, and so we all met at this incredible building ready for the reception to start. For more information about this building please have a look at these two websites:
- http://local.stv.tv/glasgow/magazine/11 ... f-glasgow/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_City_Chambers
Bailie Jonathan Findlay made an appearance on behalf of the Lord Provost to welcome us all to the city, and Professor Sydney Anglo made a formal response to the welcome. Once the speeches were finished everyone spent an hour mingling in the picture gallery with glasses of wine. It was a very spectacular location indeed!
All good things must come to an end however, so once our reception time was up we had to vacate the City Chambers. The evening was still young and so Ben led the part over to Waxy O’Conner’s. This is an unusual pub that has several bars spread across several different levels and floors. It is another very grand building and was a very pleasant place to spend a few hours drinking and rounding off the evening.
On the Thursday morning everyone assembled at the Kelvingrove museum again and the morning panel began nice and swiftly. Dr Tobias Capwell opened the panel by talking about the recent exhibition at the Wallace Collection and making reference to historical fashions in the renaissance and also discussing different ways by which a museum or collection can engage with the public. Peter Johnsson had the second slot in the panel and his presentation about the geometry of swords was an eye-opener; his talk blew everyone away! This was by far the most popular presentation of the event and there have been calls for Peter to return to do more events with us at the Glasgow Museums. We shall certainly do what we can to make this happen! Professor Sydney Anglo concluded the panel with an interesting discussion of R.L. Scott’s collecting habits and why these habits evolved as they did throughout Scott’s life. Between the presentations given by Professor Anglo and Robert Woosnam-Savage, the life and collection of R.L. Scott was celebrated and respected, and one of the goals of the conference was achieved.
Just before lunch there was another HEMA demonstration, this time by the Black Boar swordsmanship school. By all accounts they put on an excellent demonstration of smallsword, comparing the Scottish and French methods with reference to the Scottish texts contained in the library of the Glasgow Museums. Unfortunately Ben and I had to miss seeing this demonstration as there were some administrative matters needing our attention – it is a shame that being the organiser for an event often means missing some of the interesting and entertaining activities!
In the afternoon we had our final panel of the event. Daniel Jaquet opened by discussing his current PhD project which is a multidisciplinary approach to studying the physiological effects of wearing and fighting in armour. Dierk Hagedorn continued in the armoured vein, discussing some of the common myths about armour and looking at some of the interesting ways in which armour is shown in various historical manuals, paying attention in particular to the copies of Talhoffer’s works that are held by the museum. Finally, Bart Walczak gave an introduction to how the historical sources discuss mounted combat, showcasing one of the less practiced and less studied historical disciplines.
The conference concluded with tea, coffee and biscuits in the museum’s cafeteria. Everyone seemed to be very happy and positive about the day’s panels and there was a smile on every face. Several people said to us that there really should be another such conference in Glasgow and that they look forward to coming back to participate once again!
In the evening some of the delegates came together for a drink and for a final opportunity to socialise before heading back home the following morning. It was a pleasant way to spend the evening and everyone seemed to be in top spirits about the success of the event.
Organising and running this conference has been a huge learning opportunity for me, and it has also been a wonderful opportunity to meet several renowned individuals in the field of the study and practice of historical arms and armour.
One of the goals of the conference was to bring together leading figures in the field who approach their studies from different points of view. To this end, for our list of speakers we invited museum curators, academic professors, a professional swordsmith, some PhD candidates, transcribers/translators, HEMA practitioners and teachers. Unfortunately it is often the case that while we are all often working with the same subject material and trying to reach the same sort of end goal, the methods are so different between the approaches that people keep to themselves and there is not as much co-operation between people as would be ideal. This conference has demonstrated that all people involved in the field of the study and practice of historical arms and armour, who approach the subject from different angles and with different methods, can come together and show that all the different approaches have merit.
Next time we run the conference we will try and expand our invitations even further and will try to broaden the range of speakers. For example, it has been suggested that we contact a master armourer, or an expert in early modern firearms, as these are two types of items that were collected by R.L. Scott that merit discussion and study.
One of the other goals of the conference was to better establish Glasgow as a destination and location for the study and practice of historical arms and armour. The Glasgow Museums are a wonderful resource for the city and our own Academy of Historical Arts provides plenty of opportunities in the city for people to practice historical fencing. I think we have succeeded with this goal and I look forward to Glasgow taking a more important position on the international map with regard to this field of study.
To draw together this review I would like to write a couple of concluding remarks. It was truly a pleasure and an honour to meet so many wonderful and knowledgeable people at the conference, and it was amazing to see such a huge turnout to support the event. More than 80 people registered to attend the conference and we were pretty much at capacity. I believe next time we will see well over 100 delegates and we will need to find ourselves a bigger venue!
There will not be an R.L. Scott conference next year; however, early next year, we will begin planning for the R.L. Scott conference in 2014. The current idea is that it will take place in October 2014 and that it will be even better than this time. Dr Moffat, Ben and I have now learned what we need to know in order to make an event like this a success, and we know what we need to improve for next time.
Thank you to everyone who came to support the event. A huge thank you to our excellent speakers and demonstrators. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and I look forward to seeing you all in Glasgow again!
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