Medieval Music

Medieval life had many facets and medieval castle life in particular conjurs up many vivid pictures in our imagination. Here is one such picture .... a medieval knight in his castle hosting medieval banquets on special occasions throughout the year with medieval jesters and medieval music for entertainment. What a colourful scene!

First of all, there's the food to consider. Vegetables and medieval herbs (such as rosemary and sage) grown in the castle's own medieval garden; meat from locally farmed cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens and fish from the local rivers running through the castle estate.

Secondly, the entertainment. A medieval jester was an all-rounder with a variety of skills - he had to be to survive!

Thirdly, the music. Nothing like what we know as musical entertainment today, medieval music was reliant upon the skills of the singer/player and in a musical troupe there would often be a fiddle and/or a horn player. Here are photographs of modern-day copies of what these 2 medieval instruments looked like.

Medieval Jester In Today's World

Having written about the medieval jester and medieval juggler recently, I became fascinated by the subject and came up with the idea of doing an interview with a modern day medieval jester. If only I could find one!

Then the idea came to me .... about a year ago, someone had contacted us with a polite request to use one of our copyright images for their own purposes.

In the communications that ensued I discovered that the request had come from a professional street entertainer - a highly skilled juggler called David Ford who sometimes peforms as a medieval jester and juggler.

That was it ... I checked out his website and sure enough, he was the ideal candidate for my interview.
However, I needed to make the interview interesting so before I compiled a list of suitable questions for Dave I did some reading up on the subject - everything from contact juggling to bounce juggling and juggling notation. It proved a fascinating 'journey' of discovery.

I'm delighted to say that Dave answered all my questions and even furnished some super photographs of him in performance for me to use in the page. Thank you Dave - I especially like the underwater juggling in defiance of the shark! David even does a medieval jester double act with talented performer Micky Bimble.

So sit back and enjoy reading about this highly skilled modern medieval jester and juggler.

Did The Medieval Jester Juggle?

Entertainment in medieval times is a subject that interests many people. Not surprising really when you think we are talking about a span of no less than 4 centuries - from the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 right through to the invention of the printing press.

Perhaps the most common notion in people's minds today of what typified medieval entertainment is the medieval jester. In fact a medieval jester was sometimes also a highly skilled juggler, yet there were also medieval jugglers who were not jesters! Confused? Well, we have a new page explaining the difference so you need be confused no more!

Read about the medieval jester and medieval juggler.