Middle Age…s.
Why the fascination with the Middle Ages?
It’s a question I was asked today and it’s something I’ve wondered about as well.
I think it began in secondary school. I fell in love with historical fiction the minute I had my own library card. At the same time, the beginning of the 60’s, TV had just begun in Australia and so I was beguiled by the black and white historical cinema of the time. I’ve just found a copious list of 300 movies online www.erasofelegance.com/entertainment/medievalmovies.html and went through to find the ones I remembered from my youth:
The New year introduces some changes to the Big Red Chair on Mesmered. Rather than limiting it to just indie writers, I have decided to extend it to people I meet in real life and virtually who fascinate me, in the belief that something of their choices and their activities will interest you as well.
Très Riches Heures by the Limbourg Brothers for the Duc de Berry.
Whilst staying at my mother’s cottage by the sea this week, I was leafing through her bookshelves and found a delightful children’s version of Robin Hood from the 1930’s. It had been awarded to my father for a Sunday School prize. That was a surprise in itself, because he’d never mentioned anything about going to church in his youth, let alone Sunday School. He had apparently score 85% for something or other. Knowing Dad, that’s no surprise as he was something of a high-achieving intellectual, finishing his life with a qualification in Mandarin Chinese, both written and spoken!
