Yesterday I attended a community event at Monk Bretton Priory known as ‘Medieval Mayhem’. A combination of historical entertainment and educational information was present, with people showing us about making arrows, the use of archery in medieval warfare and medieval weaponry and armour. Medieval entertainment in the form of jesters and jugglers were present and there was the opportunity to have a go at diabolo, plate spinning, archery and axe throwing. It was great fun and historically very informative.
As someone who loves history, I greatly enjoyed the event, but it set me thinking about the differences in life between then and now.
We often feel we are living in a ‘different world’ nowadays. Clothing, entertainment, travel and warfare certainly look very different in the 21st century. But interestingly, all these things still exist. The form of these things may have changed, but the fact of these things remains.
Medieval sanitation and healthcare may leave us feeling blessed to live nowadays rather than in the 15th centruy, but I find that levels of gullibility and superstition have not really changed (even if the expression of these has). It’s still much easier to ‘go along with the crowd’ than it is to think independently and live by faith.
People who questioned official propaganda in medieval times were often tortured and executed; an ‘executioner’ was present at the show with instruments of torture for us to see. We may feel smug that such things no longer happen….until we watch an espionage film or until we reflect that vilification, slander, ‘cancelling’ and other methods of persecuting mavericks are just as prevalent nowadays as ever.
The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun. (Eccl 1:9) We can be grateful for every advancement and improvement to ordinary life that has happened since medieval times, but we can also see that the condition of the human heart has not fundamentally changed at all. Sin, superstition and prejudice still exist. Fear, anxiety, worry and dread are still present. Warfare is still ongoing. People still need a Saviour, now as then.