Florida: St. Petersburg Renaissance Faire returns next month with jousting, mead, and medieval fun

From stpeterising.com

Dust off your corsets, cloaks, and questionable British accents. The St. Petersburg Renaissance Faire is back.

The festivities return to England Brothers Park in Pinellas Park, running every weekend from April 4th through April 26th, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.

Opening ceremonies begin just before the gates open, setting the stage for a full day inside the immersive “Shire of Heyford,” a 10-acre village inspired by Elizabethan England.

The event brings together more than 100 costumed performances across nine stages, along with over 50 artisans and three pubs.

The result is a lively mix of theatre, music, and hands-on experiences designed to transport visitors to the year 1592, when Queen Elizabeth I is said to be visiting the countryside for a seasonal celebration.

Throughout the grounds, guests can expect a steady rotation of entertainment ranging from Shakespearean performances and Renaissance dance to sword fighting demonstrations, fire acts, acrobatics, and improv comedy. Street performers and roaming characters fill in the gaps between scheduled shows.

The St. Petersburg Renaissance Faire returns every weekend from April 4th through April 26th, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day | St. Petersburg Renaissance Faire

One of the biggest draws each year is the medieval tournament, where armoured knights on horseback compete in full-contact jousting matches. The high-energy spectacle blends historical re-enactment with theatrical storytelling, drawing large crowds throughout the day.

Beyond the performances, the faire offers a massive marketplace featuring handcrafted goods and specialty items.

Vendors sell everything from leatherwork and medieval clothing to jewellery, candles, crystals, and niche curiosities like taxidermy and cosplay accessories.

Live demonstrations, including blacksmithing and woodworking, give visitors a closer look at traditional crafts.

Food is another major highlight of the faire. Classic festival staples like turkey legs, kettle corn, and burgers are joined by more period-inspired offerings such as Scotch eggs, kebabs, and handcrafted mead.

Multiple pubs throughout the grounds serve beer and wine, though guests should note that food and beverage purchases are cash-only.

Street performers and roaming characters fill in the gaps between scheduled shows | St. Petersburg Renaissance Faire

The event is designed to appeal to all ages, with family-friendly programming that includes face painting, games, and interactive experiences.

A pirate encampment, sword-fighting challenges, and themed activity areas provide additional entertainment for kids and adults alike.

Opening weekend, April 4th and 5th, will feature an Easter-themed celebration, including an egg hunt for children.

During that weekend, kids under 15 can enter for free with a ticket.

Additional themed weekends throughout the run include pirate-focused “Swashbuckler Weekend,” a Roman-inspired “Bacchanal Weekend,” and a whimsical “Gnomecore Weekend” to close out the season.

Tickets typically range from $25 to $30 for adults and $18 for children ages 5 to 15, with free admission for children under 5.

Attendance is capped each day and guests are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance online.

Visit the St. Petersburg Renaissance Faire’s website for more information and tickets.

https://stpeterising.com/home/st-petersburg-renaissance-faire-returns-next-month-with-jousting-mead-and-medieval-fun

How to Make Medieval Mead: A 13th Century Recipe

From openculture.com

Read a story set in the Middle Ages, Beowulf or anything more recently written, and you’re likely to run across a reference to mead, which seems often to have been imbibed heartily in halls dedicated to that very activity. The same goes for medieval-themed plays, movies, and even video games. Take Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, described by Max Miller, host of Youtube channel Tasting History, as “a history-based game of, like, my favourite time period — Saxons and Vikings, you know, fightin’ it out — so I’m assuming that there’s going to be mead in there somewhere.” He uploaded the video, below, in the fall of 2020, just before that game’s release, but according to the Assassin’s Creed Wiki, he was right: there is, indeed, mead in there.

Perhaps throwing back a digital horn of mead in a video game has its satisfactions, but surely it would only make us curious to taste the real thing. Hence Miller’s episode project of “making medieval mead like a Viking,” which requires only three basic ingredients: water, honey, and ale dregs or dry ale yeast. (The set of required tools is a bit more complex, involving several different vessels and, ideally, a “bubbler” to let out the carbonation.)

In it he consults a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century manuscript (above) called the Tractatus de Magnetate et Operationibus eius, which includes not just a letter on the workings of magnets — and “a university handbook on the theory of numbers, proportions, and harmony” and “the seven signs of bad breeding; the seven signs of elegance” — but also “one of the oldest known surviving English mead recipes.”

Making Medieval Mead like a Viking

“When you think of Saxons and Vikings, yes, you think of mead,” Miller says, “but mead actually got its start way before that,” evidenced in the alcohol-and-honey residue found on Chinese pottery dating to 7000 BC and a written mention in the Indian Rigveda. “I have tasted the sweet drink of life, knowing that it inspires good thoughts and joyous expansiveness to the extreme, that all the gods and all mortals seek it together,” says that sacred text. Even if Miller’s mead doesn’t make you feel like a god, it does have the virtue of requiring only a few days’ fermentation, as opposed to the traditional period of months. Toward the video’s end, he mentions having set one bottle aside to ripen further, and possibly to feature in a later episode. That was nearly three years ago; today, Tasting History fans can only speculate as to what alcoholic Valhalla that brew has so far ascended.

You can find the text of the medieval recipe below:

//ffor to make mede. Tak .i. galoun of fyne hony and to
þat .4. galouns of water and hete þat water til it be as
lengh þanne dissolue þe hony in þe water. thanne set hem
ouer þe fier & let hem boyle and ever scomme it as longe as
any filthe rysith þer on. and þanne tak it doun of þe fier
and let it kole in oþer vesselle til it be as kold as melk
whan it komith from þe koow. than tak drestis
of þe fynest ale or elles berme and kast in to þe water
& þe hony. and stere al wel to gedre but ferst loke er
þu put þy berme in. that þe water with þe hony be put
in a fayr stonde & þanne put in þy berme or elles þi
drestis for þat is best & stere wel to gedre/ and ley straw
or elles clothis a bowte þe vessel & a boue gif þe wedir
be kolde and so let it stande .3. dayes & .3. nygthis gif
þe wedir be kold And gif it be hoot wedir .i. day and
.1. nyght is a nogh at þe fulle But ever after .i. hour or
.2. at þe moste a say þer of and gif þu wilt have it swete
tak it þe sonere from þe drestis & gif þu wilt have it scharpe
let it stand þe lenger þer with. Thanne draw it from
þe drestis as cler as þu may in to an oþer vessel clene & let
it stonde .1. nyght or .2. & þanne draw it in to an
oþer clene vessel & serve it forth // And gif þu wilt 

make mede eglyn. tak sauge .ysope. rosmaryne. Egre-

moyne./ saxefrage. betayne./ centorye. lunarie/ hert-
is tonge./ Tyme./ marubium album. herbe jon./ of eche of
an handful gif þu make .12. galouns and gif þu mak lesse
tak þe less of herbis. and to .4. galouns of þi mater .i. galoun of
drestis.

https://www.openculture.com/2023/09/how-to-make-medieval-mead-a-13th-century-recipe.html

How to Make Medieval Mead: A 13th Century Recipe

From openculture.com

Read a story set in the Middle Ages, Beowulf or anything more recently written, and you’re likely to run across a reference to mead, which seems often to have been imbibed heartily in halls dedicated to that very activity. The same goes for medieval-themed plays, movies, and even video games. Take Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, described by Max Miller, host of Youtube channel Tasting History, as “a history-based game of, like, my favourite time period — Saxons and Vikings, you know, fightin’ it out — so I’m assuming that there’s going to be mead in there somewhere.” He uploaded the video, below, in the fall of 2020, just before that game’s release, but according to the Assassin’s Creed Wiki, he was right: there is, indeed, mead in there.

Perhaps throwing back a digital horn of mead in a video game has its satisfactions, but surely it would only make us curious to taste the real thing. Hence Miller’s episode project of “making medieval mead like a Viking,” which requires only three basic ingredients: water, honey, and ale dregs or dry ale yeast. (The set of required tools is a bit more complex, involving several different vessels and, ideally, a “bubbler” to let out the carbonation.)

In it he consults a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century manuscript (above) called the Tractatus de Magnetate et Operationibus eius, which includes not just a letter on the workings of magnets — and “a university handbook on the theory of numbers, proportions, and harmony” and “the seven signs of bad breeding; the seven signs of elegance” — but also “one of the oldest known surviving English mead recipes.”

“When you think of Saxons and Vikings, yes, you think of mead,” Miller says, “but mead actually got its start way before that,” evidenced in the alcohol-and-honey residue found on Chinese pottery dating to 7000 BC and a written mention in the Indian Rigveda. “I have tasted the sweet drink of life, knowing that it inspires good thoughts and joyous expansiveness to the extreme, that all the gods and all mortals seek it together,” says that sacred text. Even if Miller’s mead doesn’t make you feel like a god, it does have the virtue of requiring only a few days’ fermentation, as opposed to the traditional period of months. Toward the video’s end, he mentions having set one bottle aside to ripen further, and possibly to feature in a later episode. That was nearly three years ago; today, Tasting History fans can only speculate as to what alcoholic Valhalla that brew has so far ascended.

You can find the text of the medieval recipe below:

//ffor to make mede. Tak .i. galoun of fyne hony and to
þat .4. galouns of water and hete þat water til it be as
lengh þanne dissolue þe hony in þe water. thanne set hem
ouer þe fier & let hem boyle and ever scomme it as longe as
any filthe rysith þer on. and þanne tak it doun of þe fier
and let it kole in oþer vesselle til it be as kold as melk
whan it komith from þe koow. than tak drestis
of þe fynest ale or elles berme and kast in to þe water
& þe hony. and stere al wel to gedre but ferst loke er
þu put þy berme in. that þe water with þe hony be put
in a fayr stonde & þanne put in þy berme or elles þi
drestis for þat is best & stere wel to gedre/ and ley straw
or elles clothis a bowte þe vessel & a boue gif þe wedir
be kolde and so let it stande .3. dayes & .3. nygthis gif
þe wedir be kold And gif it be hoot wedir .i. day and
.1. nyght is a nogh at þe fulle But ever after .i. hour or
.2. at þe moste a say þer of and gif þu wilt have it swete
tak it þe sonere from þe drestis & gif þu wilt have it scharpe
let it stand þe lenger þer with. Thanne draw it from
þe drestis as cler as þu may in to an oþer vessel clene & let
it stonde .1. nyght or .2. & þanne draw it in to an
oþer clene vessel & serve it forth // And gif þu wilt
make mede eglyn. tak sauge .ysope. rosmaryne. Egre-
moyne./ saxefrage. betayne./ centorye. lunarie/ hert-
is tonge./ Tyme./ marubium album. herbe jon./ of eche of
an handful gif þu make .12. galouns and gif þu mak lesse
tak þe less of herbis. and to .4. galouns of þi mater .i. galoun of
drestis.

https://www.openculture.com/2023/09/how-to-make-medieval-mead-a-13th-century-recipe.html

History of Mead

From heritagedaily.com

Mead or “honey-wine” is a fermented honey drink with water that has been produced for thousands of years throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.

Mead – “fermented honey drink” – derives from the Old English meodu or medu, and Proto-Germanic, *meduz. The name has connections to Old Norse mjöðr, Middle Dutch mede, and Old High German metu, among others.

The earliest recorded evidence dates from 7000BC, where archaeologists discovered pottery vessels from the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province, China that contained the chemical signatures of honey, rice and compounds normally associated with the process of fermentation.

Mead became present in Europe between 2800 to 1800BC during the European Bronze Age. Throughout this period, the Bell Beaker culture or short Beaker culture was producing the “All Over Ornamented (AOO)” and the “Maritime Type” beaker pottery. The beakers are suggested to have been produced primarily for alcohol consumption, with some examples of these pottery forms containing chemical signatures for mead production.

         Bell Beakers from the Logabirumer Feld in Leer (East Frisia) – Credit : Hartmann Linge

During the Golden Age of Ancient Greece, mead “hydromeli” proceeded wine and was a stable beverage of Grecian culture. Hydromeli was even the preferred tipple of Aristotle, in which he discussed mead in his Meteorologica.

The German classical scholar, W. H. Roscher suggested that mead was even the nectar or ambrosia of the Gods. He compared ambrosia to honey, with their power of conferring immortality due to the supposed healing and cleansing powers of honey, which is in fact anti-septic, and because fermented honey (mead) preceded wine as an entheogen in the Aegean world; on some Minoan seals, goddesses were represented with bee faces (compare Merope and Melissa).

This is supported in the archaic versions of the stories of the gods. The Orphists preserve a tale about the cruel guile of Zeus who surprised his father Kronos when he was drunk on the honey of wild bees and castrated him.

Mead “aquamulsum” or just “mulsum” was also common during the Imperial Roman era and came in various forms. Mulsum was a freshly made mixture of wine and honey (called a pyment today) or simply honey left in water to ferment; and conditum was a mixture of wine, honey and spices made in advance and matured (arguably more a faux-mead).

The Hispanic-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in De re rustica, around 60 BCE.
“Take rainwater kept for several years, and mix a sextarius of this water with a [Roman] pound of honey. For a weaker mead, mix a sextarius of water with nine ounces of honey. The whole is exposed to the sun for 40 days, and then left on a shelf near the fire. If you have no rainwater, then boil spring water.”

Alcoholic drinks made from honey would become very popular within the Early Middle Ages and Medieval Europe. This was especially so among the Native Brythonic cultures, Anglo-Saxons, Germans, and Scandinavians. However, wines remained the preferred beverage in warmer climates in what is now Italy, Spain and France.

Anglo-Saxon literature such as Mabinogion, Beowulf and the Brythonic writings of the Welsh poet Taliesin (who wrote the Kanu y med or “Song of Mead ) describe mead as the drink of Kings and Thanes. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf set in Scandinavia, Beowulf comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel.

In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – The Miller’s Tale, mead is described as the draught of townsfolk and used to court a fair lady. Chaucer also makes mention of spiking his claret with honey.
“He sent her sweetened wine and well-spiced ale
And waffles piping hot out of the fire,
And, she being town-bred, mead for her desire
For some are won by means of money spent
And some by tricks and some by long descent.”

                                      Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – Public Domain

In later years, tax and regulation drove commercial mead out of popularity with beer and wine becoming the predominant alcoholic drinks. Some monasteries in England and Wales kept up the traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping but with the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century mead all but disappeared.

Finally, when West Indian sugar began to be imported in quantity (from the 17th century), there was less incentive to keep bees to sweeten foods and the essential honey to ferment mead became scarcer across Europe leading to its decline.

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/03/history-of-mead/126299