About Us

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Authenticity & Accountability

Camlann Medieval Association recognizes our role and responsibility in shaping public perception of the lived experiences of peoples in the late medieval period, specifically in late fourteenth-century England. As a living history museum, Camlann Medieval Village offers a interpreter-first historical recreation that necessarily engages in facets of medieval life that are to varying degrees historically attested, historically inferred, and/or historically inspired. Even with the best archaeological and textual sources, no interpretation will capture the full reality of medieval peoples’ experiences.

Our responsibility to educate the public about the realities of medieval life demands a commitment to communicate to what degree of historical attestation, inference, or inspiration different aspects of our Village Life and educational programming reflect. Our interpreters always strive for historical authenticity in their interpretation, but also operate in a spirit of intellectual accountability, that is, a willingness to acknowledge the theoretical and practical limitations of approaching an “authentic” medieval experience.

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Engagement & Interactivity

We curate exhibits, events, and activities that encourage community connections based on a shared interest in medieval material culture and intangible heritage. To this end, Camlann Medieval Association acknowledges its place on a spectrum of institutions public and private, formal and informal, that engage deeply in a form of participatory medievalism (Kline 2016; Pugh & Weisl 2013). We therefore offer medieval cultural programming that meets guests at a variety of knowledge, interest, and ability levels.

Camlann Medieval Association aims for every guest encounter with a Village interpreter to be interactive. This is the ethos of a living history museum: guests engage with a living person who is embodying a historical persona, not a textbook or documentary. And guests are, at every opportunity, invited to work with and apply medieval tools and methods under the direct supervision of our experienced interpreters. In this way we hope to meet and challenge guests’ expectations not only about medieval people, but about themselves.

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Curiosity

There is always more to learn about the medieval period. Deep study of another time and place opens one to “other ways of worldmaking… [of] knowing, doing, [and] being” (Dinshaw 2012: 170).

Camlann Medieval Association believes that historical reenactment and reconstruction can produce new knowledge about the past. We are always working to execute experimental archaeology projects related to rural life in medieval England, including but not limited to fourteenth-century construction, food production and preparation, fibre arts, and blacksmithing, as well as interpretive performances of medieval music and storytelling traditions, legal procedure, religious ritual, and daily social practices.

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