It is the summer of 1265. I am bottling leeches in an open-air apothecary as a medical apprentice of the church. Minstrels tune their musical instruments and soldiers sharpen their swords. Gloucester has just been captured by Prince Edward, and royal forces are growing in the west of England. The men come to me for yarrow to staunch their bleeding, comfrey to heal their injuries, and sulphur to soothe their sores. I smile at their faith in vinegar, a woman’s touch and prayer. But secretly I long to be a lowly foot soldier, fighting with the men in the mud.
Eventually, I summon the courage to pick up an axe and infiltrate their ranks. My presence on the battlefield is not as unlikely as it might sound. Some of us, such as Margaret of Beverley, fought. Only a little cross-dressing is required. I swap my ankle-length kirtle for a tunic, the wimple on my hair for a coif and helmet, and wrap my legs in woollen hose over large linen trousers. A knife hangs at my side. My femininity is hidden beneath a heavy protective gambeson or tunic. Its stitches are grubby and grey, as if the garment itself is sewn together with gristle. The thick padding absorbs the shock of a weapon, though sometimes a blade still slips through. At this point I drop my axe, clutch my chest and groan. The crowds, delighted by the spectacle of death, begin to cheer.
My first show as a historical re-enactor was organised by English Heritage and Conquest, the Anglo-Norman living history society, at Beeston Castle in Cheshire. I had recently been released from Covid-19 quarantine and was excited to let off steam firing slingshots and wielding spears, especially after escaping into a newfound love of history during lockdown. I had taken up metal detecting and found treasure in the fields around my home, and often fell asleep listening to the soothing tones of Tony Robinson on Time Team. I was also excited to have found a new way to exercise, one more sociable and enticing than the gym treadmill. There was something magical about the energy of a crowd too, experienced at last in person instead of through a screen. My billowy costume let me move lightly between the moss-licked flagstones. Sometimes children grasped my sleeves, which caught me off guard. But it had been such a lonely summer that I was happy to be pulled to and fro.
Re-enactors spread the word about their pastime through social media, trying in this digital age to keep history alive through performance, a concept that dates back at least to ancient Rome, when grand retellings of battles drew spectators to amphitheatres in their thousands. Yet performance is only half the tale. For me, historical re-enacting is a nourishing form of time-travel. Sometimes I flounce around my flat in a tunic and drink my coffee from an animal horn just for fun. I live history for history’s sake and do not require an audience at all.
I used to work as an editor in London before embracing a more earthy path, starting a PhD in nature poetry at Cambridge with Robert Macfarlane. Now, as a BBC New Generation Thinker 2024 (a group of 10 young arts and humanities researchers), I’m writing a book and a Radio 3 essay on ancient connections between soil and self. It is the chance to strengthen these fraying connections that draws me to re-enacting most of all.
I was born into a family of Yorkshire farmers and grew up with their muddied tales. My mother hated being sent into the slaughterhouse or into the charred black night to fetch coal. But she loved stamping potato sacks, picking carrots or racing caterpillars up the stable door. These stories are seeded into my mind, even if they are not my own – the farm was sold before I was born. Still I feel a deep nostalgia for the fertile touch of soil, which I nourish through field and forest campouts. Re-enacting is my way of reclaiming a stolen birthright; a connection to earthy heritage that all humans share.
I love the feeling as my feet push through muddy depths of time itself. Something in my brain shifts back a gear.
Sometimes, I just want to chop wood and forage and sleep beneath the stars; this hobby lets me do this and more. Other re-enactors such as Gavin, a softly spoken lab technician from Soham in Cambridgeshire, are driven more by social connection. He used to be shy before gaining confidence, and friends by clinking horns around a hearth. Our group enjoys a raucous mead-fuelled feast each year.
My friend Ben, a Yorkshire cabinet-maker who part-owns Nidhoggr Mead, a Viking honey wine company, believes the lure also lies in escapism. “The large numbers of people at events are good for battles but not so good for the immersive side,” he says. “I just want to play in the woods or a longhouse and pretend to live in a different time period.”
One week later, I’m rolling up my tunic sleeves and speeding down the dual carriageway to set up a Viking camp in Wykeham forest in North Yorkshire. There will be no public there to be satisfied, simply the pleasure of living a little more closely with the earth. My authentic leather turnshoes – tanned with vegetables – don’t have much grip and I’m so excited to reach the camp that I keep slipping on wet leaves. I slow down when I see my fellow campers. They’re pottering back through the centuries with more calm, proof if you needed it that re-enacting is an increasingly popular detox trend among burnt-out professionals.
Ben, our chieftain, is laying out a fur rug. His partner Lizzie, an A&E doctor, is peeling onions. A skateboarder called Corey is practising crossbow while Matt, a film studio owner, is sprawled out with a sore back.
My sense of time slows to match the mood. It meanders with the midges, a gentler kind of traffic than the morning rush. I loiter by the logs, nibbling discreetly on a piece of pizza hidden beneath my cloak. I know pizza is not authentic, but ambushes are hungry work. Soon I search for wood to fuel the fire. I peg down a tent, hang up a shield, and look for berries. We are too far into summer for my mission to be fruitful, but it’s a good excuse to chase the last rays of a dying sun.
The forest is dense. Twigs, leaves and insects tangle in my frizzy hair until I resemble a dreadful swamp creature. But I have meadow on my mind and foliage will not foil my plans. When I finally break through, fresh air fills my lungs. My heart is hushed by the long grass as I collapse to catch my breath. A tick hitches a ride on my naalbound socks, but otherwise I am delightfully alone. My senses tingle at the touch of soil.
The smell of the bubbling cauldron summons me back to camp. We wait for the vegetables to soften; snapping twigs, giggling and gambling tokens on 10th-century wooden board games, the rules for which have barely changed. As the cold cuts through my cloak, I decide this isn’t historical re-enacting at all. It’s an extreme form of forest-bathing that promises much more than bites and bruises. It alters my perspective, allowing me to appreciate simple things – sun, sky and soil.
Historical re-enacting is healing in other ways. I can shake the shackles of gender, race and class and slip into skins different to my own. It’s a reclamation of power, though not everyone agrees. There’s always debate about the authenticity of historical TV dramas and films. Look at the uproar that greeted Ridley Scott daring to “lob a few sharks” into the Colosseum in Gladiator II, and the mixed Black female actor Caroline Henderson playing a leader in Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla. As a mixed Black female re-enactor in a sea of men with beards, I’m not always fully authentic myself either. It’s a struggle to squeeze my afro hair beneath a coif, wimple or helmet, unless I tame the fuzzy strands into tiny plaits first. The costumes are not always made for people like me. But the groups I’m part of encourage me to explore a range of roles. We are 21st-century organisations based on modern values.
One authenticity officer assures me that “history belongs to everyone” and is more diverse than people realise. While some ethnic groups were excluded from certain roles, the bustling trade routes between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East encourage us to explore the possible, if not always documented, wealth of interactions and cultural exchanges that might have taken place. It is widely accepted that Vikings reached North Africa in about 859, for example; a largely forgotten chapter in history that inspired the historical novel I’m writing about what it was like to be dark in the dark ages and where early enslaved people found light. More than 100,000 Islamic silver coins have been found in Viking-age Scandinavia along with rings and clothes that some historians believe bear inscriptions to Allah. Even on our own shores, Black historical figures such as Saint Hadrian of Canterbury have played a pivotal role.
While bending history too far is problematic, especially for entertainment, my love of re-enacting is rooted in keeping history alive. This might be surprising given that I dropped history at school and did not sit an exam in the subject. The greatest lesson I learned came many years later, while practising my axe-fighting skills in a field with my new Viking friends. Despite what teachers say, no textbook can bring history to life as simply living it can.
