Something serious - A very interesting article in the current issue of "Archaeology" magazine"

LEGACY OF THE CRUSADES

The ruins of castles on hillsides throughout the Middle East are mute reminders of a bloody chapter in medieval history.

See an excerpt here:
http://www.archaeology.org/magazine.php?page=0209/abstracts/crusades

and something fun in keeping with the "Crusader" theme, courtesy of "Smithsonion" magazine*-

A Crusader's wife slipped from the garrison
And had an affair with a Saracen
She was not over sexed,
or jealous, or vexed,
She just wanted to make a comparison

Gwen

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The hauberk and chausses are a mixture of flat solid rings and mig wire rings with the copper coating polished off. This will have to do until I can afford rivetted. This mail looks vastly different than the usual round butted stuff due to the flat rings. The hauberk has an intergral coif and a muffler for the right hand. I have lost my shield in these pics, the strap broke in the middle of the tourney ,so I dropped it.
Forgive the blue plastic tarps on the tent roofs in the background, that is not my camp.
The horse is Shadow, my 15hh Percheron/Australian Stock Horse Mare, the trapper is linen as is the surcoat. The saddle that you can barely see is my repro medieval saddle.

The sword, which again you can barely make out, is a Peter Lyon(Lord of the Rings) blade. This was one of the first post LOTR blades he did and is a beautiful piece of work. I will proudly state right here that Peter is well and truly up there with the best sword makers in the world.

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