So, why medieval recreation? Why the SCA, RenFaires, Markland, Adrian Empire, etc? There's no "right" answer, of course, but it seems a fair one. The way I'd like to answer the question is with questions...

Why medieval recreation, one asks? To turn that back around, why act? That is, why would someone put on a costume and perform in a play? Why would you want to act in a musical? Why would you go to a live murder mystery party? Or even put on a general's hat and play a game of Risk? Why does anyone, for a short period of time, pretend they're somebody else? Lots of reasons, of course -- and all those reasons are the why one would become a part of the wide and wonderful world of medieval recreation -- why someone would join what we call The Great Game or the Dream.

At the very heart, that's precisely what it is all about -- a game, a collective game, that we play with other people. It is a set of collectively agreed upon frameworks within which we tell our own stories, us and our local friends and groups in other cities, other states, other countries. A game that can gather hundreds -- or thousands -- of people together within a common set of ideas and ideals. And the most important reason is contained in the idea itself: one comes to play the great game because the game is fun. Marvelously so. :-)

What the SCA, after 40 years of evolution, has become is a collective framework with a substantially wide range. Within the SCA, one can pursue anything that ever was -- anything before 1600 (1650?) is allowable, acceptable, and accepted, as long as it really happened, once upon a time. Italian renaissance courteasans mingle with Roman centurions, Japanese Samurai, Celtic chieftains, Mongol clansmen. The society as a whole doesn't seek to slavishly recreate a specific age or a specific culture; it instead incorporates everything into one big Dream, a living fantasy composed of pieces of history mixed into something grand, unique -- and, of course, fun. :-)

Medieval recreation -- and the groups which pursue it -- isn't any one thing. It's fighting, and fencing, it's dancing, and singing; it's calligraphy, and craftwork; it's blacksmiths and cooks, leatherworkers and song writers, storytellers and brewers and scholars; archers and catapult men and horsewomen and everything -- *anything* -- else you could ever imagine that ever was. There were a lot of things about the middle ages which sucked, of course -- plague, pogroms and prima nocte, for example -- but even in the abject squalor and misery that humanity endured, there were certainly many things of beauty and joy that were created. Medieval recreation is all about celebrating and recreating those things of beauty that shone out in a dark age. And there's something for everyone.

For more, practical introductory information about the SCA itself, see here; but perhaps more than factual information, the best way to get a taste is to read and hear stories. To ask a medievalist what they do and why. You'll get all kinds of memories and stories. A tiny collection of real-life stories from the SCA can be found here. But really, the best way is to ask. :-)