Once upon a time
in a far western kingdom...

Verily, there amble amongst us ladies and gentlemen who live in the Current Middle Ages.

In the The Kingdom of An Tir, in The Northern Region, may be found The Barony of Lions Gate.

Lord William MacAndrew hath spoke, "Once upon a time in the Current Middle Ages, there was among the lands of the Kingdom of the West, the Principality of An Tir. There, in the most northern rain forests, dwelt a band of hardy Vikings and Cossacks, and the feared Monboggian Horde.

"It happened that in the ninth year of the founding of the Kingdoms (AD 1975), these folk gave allegiance to the Kingdom of the West."

It is a polite, re-creational world graced by squires and heralds, seneschals and pages, and clangorous fields of brave fighters.

Life in the Current Middle Ages is decidedly something more than crazies hopping about in retro-gear, wenching, drinking and whacking each other with long sticks. Rather, weekends and special gatherings are for dancing, archery competition, arts activities and contests, revels, feasting, bardic exhortations, melees and sundry other pleasantries.

The Society for Creative Anachronism Inc. (SCA) publishes a primer on life in the Current Middle Ages. The Known World Handboke introduces mundane modern types to a world of possible pursuits, everything from articles on Feasting Etiquette to advice on The Art of Writing Forsoothly and Waggonloading for the Compleat Idiot.

The Barony of Lions Gate will celebrate its 25th anniversary in June. In contemporary terms, the barony is a branch of the SCA. The local SCA branch encompasses the Lower Mainland.

The SCA started innocently enough in the 1960s with a backyard May Day celebration in Berkeley, California. It has grown to include many kingdoms throughout the Known World.

Those who participate in the Current Middle Ages move between the mundane and medieval with ease by choosing personae that might have breathed God's good air sometime between 476 and 1650 AD.

Since its inception, the Barony of Lions Gate has been represented by Their Excellencies Gerhard Kendal of Westmoreland and Baroness Amanda Kendal of Westmoreland.

His Excellency Gerhard's mundane counterpart is Gerry Stevens, 64; Her Excellency Amanda, is his wife, Nancy Stevens, age 61. Gerry works in the film business and Nancy, a former preschool teacher, is a nanny. Come any weekend, they slip easily into their other honourable skins.

It is so written that Gerhard and Amanda have guided the Barony with wisdom, wit and honour. They represent the Barony to the Throne and represent the Throne to the Barony. In fact, the Barony of Lions Gate has the distinction of being home ground to the longest sitting Baron and Baroness in the history of the Current Middle Ages.

Gerry started small. He used to be a war gamer. He did courageous battle with little one-inch tall figures. One day in 1975 he learned of an SCA event at UBC. He told Nancy about it and they went along with their two children (then seven and 10). They were told that they had to be in medieval costume.

Says The Baron, "There was a lot of scrambling around and she was able to come up with enough things from around the house that the four of us could get dressed. We had a great time."

The colour, costumes, and to a certain extent, the fighting all fired Gerry's imagination.

For Nancy, a venerable way of being presented itself when she attended that first SCA event. "I had been reading about Henry the Eighth and his wives for 10 years prior to that first event. It meant that I could make the same kinds of things that those Tudor queens had worn and I could wear them too. That's what interested me at first.

"As we got more involved we discovered that it was a big family organization. We were very welcomed and we got reinforcement for the kind of values we espoused — courtesy, chivalry and service," she says.

The Baron notes that modern society tends to boorishness. This is not the case in the Current Middle Ages. "I like to think that my word is my bond. That's a very medieval concept. The society, in pretty much all its doings, tends to be pretty up front.

"You open yourself to people and you are very vulnerable because of that. There you are at an event and you are wearing a medieval costume, so of course because they look different from 20th century clothing, you are open to ridicule. You may have a strange name you've adopted and so forth. Nobody points, nobody laughs."

It is not uncommon to find people giving service freely without anticipated payback in the Current Middle Ages. Says Nancy, "You have children running errands, helping prepare banquets, serving at banquets and for no expected reward. We recognize what they do of course, but they don't expect it.

"We have people sitting gate, or marshalling or heralding in not very good weather, sometimes doing it for hours and hours. They do it because they love it and because they want to help the society survive." She sees the expression of such selfless values feeding back into their lives in the present time.

"In fact I've had comments from a number of parents and teachers that when there are young people that are part of the society, they see those values carrying over into the 20th century life. Our people tend to be more polite. They are considerate of other peoples' feelings. They use polite language. They hold doors for people, whether they are ladies or men, but they are a little more hesitant in the 20th century because sometimes they are laughed at for giving that kind of service," she says.

Gerry says life inside the SCA confirms to its participants that it really does feel good to help others. "In the 20th century if I see something like that, it's 'Oh, what was that?' In the society, I expect it," he says.

There's no arguing with the efficacy of the finer points of civility and empathy, however a real draw for many anachronists is the testosterone prospect of combat. It's all done in the spirit of cathartic fun, but like everything else about life in the Current Middle Ages there are clearly delineated rules of warfare, battlefield conduct and engagement.

Says The Baron, "Actually for the first couple of years I thought that the fighters were a little bit around the bend. When you think about it, you have to be a little bit crazy to let somebody take a three-foot stick of wood that weighs three, three and half pounds and hit you as hard as they can."

An annual war held in Clinton, B.C. is fought over an ugly banner. The loser takes the scrap home. The Clinton War attracts approximately 200 to 300 heavy fighters to the field. It's a realistic affair with rattan swords, armour, shields, siege engines, and archers armed with lightweight bows firing 1.25-inch padded blunt arrows.

"The fighting can be quite painful. In my case I have a suit, called a harness, of full-plate steel with a steel helmet. The whole thing weighs upwards of 60 pounds. We have people who work with modified hockey armor, heavy plastic, heavy leather, chain mail," says His Excellency.

Stringent safety and fighting rules and mandatory marshalling have ensured a clean battle survival record for the society as a whole. Says Gerhard, "We've never had a fatality and we've never had a really serious injury with combat. The worst injury was we had a chap who had a displaced vertebra in his neck."

But time does take its toll. Gerhard stopped fighting after 15 years. He had a double bypass. Says Her Excellency, "He was getting a little on in age and bones get a little more brittle. I said, no. I don't want to have to worry about it, so take up archery."

The Baron and Baroness wish to continue carrying on regally in the Current Middle Ages as long as they're still having fun.

Says Gerhard, "I'm no longer a fighter, but I do rapier combat (fencing), archery, jewelry work, I used to do a lot of calligraphy and illumination. These are things that the society has taught me. Every time I get a little bored with something, something else pops up.

Says Amanda, "With the society I can be a costume maker, a leather worker, a needle worker, a fighter, a dancer, a singer, a teacher."

The Baron and Baroness are busy people. Their next free weekend comes sometime in the fall. Their children, long grown up, still step into the Current Middle Ages.

Son Andre Lessard has two children and they've come to events. Daughter Melissa Kendal of Westmoreland married a fine fellow from the society.

In August the Baron and Baroness plan to attend the big daddy of wars, the Pennsic War, held in the Debatable Lands (Pittsburgh, PA). It's the largest SCA event held anywhere and has been raging for decades. It pits the Kingdom of the East against the Middle. Some 1,000 fighters per side do valorous battle. For three weeks, 10,000-plus camping anachronists send Coopers Campground into the Current Middle Ages.

Walking through that door to a parallel universe is escapism of a magnificent order, but have Gerhard and Amanda voted with their hearts and turned their backs on present-day life? Gerry sees it as a hobby, pure and simple.

"It gives us an escape from some of the attitudes of the 20th century, but it's certainly not a fantasy escape for me. It's a very real thing and I know sitting there after some weekend event, yup, Monday morning, crack of dawn, I'm back at work again. I like the idea of escaping to a politer place," he says.

And neither actually wish they had been born in earlier times. Forget about halogen track lighting. Say hello to bull rushes soaked in sheep's fat.

"Life back then was nasty, brutish and short," says Gerry.

"And dirty," Nancy adds without hesitation.

For information on The Barony of Lions Gate go to www.lionsgate.antir.sca.org.