- Shawn Basey
- 23h
- 6 min read
For one weekend only, from May 30th to June 1st, the monumental Cinquantenaire Park takes everyone back to the medieval times with the Marche Medieval (medieval market). Neo-folk musicians, beer stands, amusement rides, tight rope walkers, HEMA sword fights, tons of food stalls, and more fill up the park. Come to think of it, there’s actually very little historical medieval about it, except the mood and décor, but whatever. Suspend your constant overanalyzing of everything for just a second and have a nice relax.
And even despite the ridiculous amount of inaccuracies, it’s one of my favorite festivals in Brussels. It’s where my son saw his first “knight fight” and stirred his excitement to go to Carcassonne and see the mother of all castles. It’s also another reason to drink outside and kind of ushers in the season.
Usually in May, the weather is okay and for a few hours you might even get some sunshine. But also rain. So, if you’re planning a trip to Brussels in May do bring a raincoat. Especially if you’re going to an outdoor festival, as I’ve been caught in the rain every year that I went.
The festival is free and has got plenty to do for the whole family.
For the adults
There are plenty of beer stands spread throughout the festival, this is Europe after all. But the best is a hut that’s usually placed at the hypotenuse of the fountain and the music stage. They have a two different flavors of beer: the standard Le Coque Sauvage (that’s the Wild Cock for you non-Francophones), and then another infused with smoke or some bullshit like that.
And then there’s the shows on stage, which set some mood music. It seems like every “medieval” performance is a recreation of Heilung’s Viking disco beats these days, but whatever. Still sounds like it could be medieval.
The food is… there are a lot of choices, but it ain’t cheap. It’s Brussels after all. The last time I ate there I had spent the entire day there drinking with my mates, and we went up to a stall, and in my drunken haze ordered a possibly triple serving—my French had completely abandoned me, and I was speaking a rather mixed jibber-jabber of Russian-Georgian-English so I had no idea what I was getting, but pretended to be fine with that even as I tapped out 30 euros on my phone.
That didn’t seem right.
But then my friend and I were looking at it as we sat back down with our food and beers and indeed, that did seem right. Crazy overpriced, but correctly charged.
For the kids
And I mentioned amusement rides! Which is something most people don’t think of when they think of the medieval times, unless you’re thinking of Tyrion with his hookers. But these things are like modern amusement rides that could have existed way back then (but didn’t).
For one thing, they’re giant wood contraptions and entirely powered by hand. There are a couple of varieties of carousels and a small Ferris wheel.
Let’s start with this huge spinning carousel. It takes three guys to start rotating the thing, and it winds up and up and up, with a rope winding around a pole like it’s May Day. Then they let it go and it unwinds. Simple, yet works quite well, getting quite some speed and dizziness up.
The small Ferris wheel has about six baskets with four children each. The two keepers just pull down on handles and set it spinning. Easy peasy.
See what I mean? These things could have existed in the medieval times, but they didn’t. Still, they’re fun for kids, and run 3 to 5 euro a ride each. And since it’s medieval times, they don’t take card. So parents, bring your cash.
They also have loads of little faire games, like crossbow shooting where you shoot dragons and ghosts, catapult launching where you try to knock down a castle with a miniature catapult, arrow shooting, rope climbing, and so on. Good times for all.
Medieval vs Renaissance Faire
The modern Renaissance/Medieval Faire in Europe has a rather circuitous route and isn’t at all original to Europe. It is, in fact, like most good things in life, an American invention.
Now I’m not saying that there aren’t festivals that have medieval styles. Not at all.
Ommegang here in Brussels has been going for half a millennium, using costumes from the original days. Rather, what I’m saying, a medieval faire for the sake of medieval faires wasn’t really a European thing.
It seems a bit silly. Especially when it’s not linked to a religious feast day, a King’s wedding, a stolen statue of Mary, or any of the other number of reasons to have festivals. It’s just literally a festival to have a festival.
World War II
A lot of things came to the United States with the GI’s coming home from World Wars, and I’m not just talking Syphilis, crappers, and Irish coffee. Our soldiers got enamored with all the burning German castles and cute French villages with the Norman and Belgian ladies tossing themselves into the arms of our heroes. And with all that, they were like, “Hey Joe, this medieval shit is cool, isn’t it?” “Oy mate, innit?” the other GI replies, trying to sound European himself.
The soldiers brought back this love of medieval stuff, exchanging their cowboy hats for coifs, that the Renaissance picked up. An LA history teacher, Phyllis Patterson, decided to hold one in her backyard, and this soon transformed into the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Her idea was to stress some level of “authenticity”; everyone would have to wear beltless trousers, speak in British accents, and drink wine with their pinkies up, as they did.
The thing is though, before the age of the Internet, Americans didn’t really have an effing clue what was going on in medieval times in Europe. We basically only knew about knights, princesses, castles, dragons, elves, fairies, and all that other wild, crazy stuff going on in Europe. And so, that’s what our Renaissance faires looked like (most of us didn’t really realize “Renaissance” was well out of “Medieval Times” anyway, but we’d still have a restaurant chain happily blending the eras).
I grew up in love with the medieval world, going to every Renaissance Faire that I could (my favorite was just south of Denver, where they had built a fairly decent-looking and legit castle—I say legit because it’s just as legit as something like Neuschwanstein, which was wholly built to cater to Ludwig II’s gay orgies; I’m not sure what the difference is here, except I guess his parties were more fun).
A quest for identity
And now we come back to the Brussels Medieval Market. This isn’t your old-fashioned feast day faire or flea market (Brussels has plenty of those too). This is all the stereotype and virtuosity and suspense of belief as the medieval Americaine has, full of wizards, elves, and burly Germans showing off their man-tits.
For me though, having grown up in a world pre-Internet, where even the prospect of watching a jousting match in friggin’ Tulsa, Oklahoma was a mind-blowing explosion of awesome, it was interesting to see the European versions of medieval festivals. Even the fighting, HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), found a rebirth in the US before being re-imported back into Europe. John Clements was an American pioneer in reconstructing medieval and Renaissance fighting techniques.
Before HEMA was reimported, most “traditional” styles revolved around foil fighting in sports clubs. This of course, looks legit, but when it comes down to it, fighting with a foil and a rope tied to your back is a far cry from half-swording and jabbing blades between armor gaps.
But it makes sense that these things were American. You have lots of Americans who know they generally come from Europe, might only have a vague idea of which country, certainly not know the language, and are mostly just gravy-fed history about it. And so there are questions. “Where are we from?” “What should my traditions be?” and so on.
The quest for Black identity, which asks those same questions, but for the reason of them being ripped from their roots, is very much mirrored by White identity, since most Whites don’t know where the heck they came from either (and for the last time, you’re not from Ireland, even if you are drinking a Guinness on St. Patty’s).
So with this struggle to find who they are, the thirst to really dig into history and "identity" is much stronger for Americans, I think. Europeans, by and large, know who they are and where they stand. They’ve known that for centuries.
So is it a real surprise that we’re all excited about Tolkien and elves and knights and that kind of thing? And since that stuff is actually all good fun, is it any surprise that Euros were like, “Well, why not have an elf join us for a beer?”
Cinquantenaire Fun
This weekend will mark the 30th anniversary of the Etterbeek Medieval Marche, which is why, I suppose, they made it a bit later in the month. 30th anniversary on the 30th day, something like that. Or maybe they figured it was less likely to rain, who knows?
But the Cinquantenaire Park was made for festivals like this. And those big, Roman-looking arches really set the atmosphere for medieval fun.
At the end of the day, everyone is looking to find out who they are, where they belong, and what makes them who they are. And this is all just a part of that. So enjoy a Savage Cock and give me a toast.
