Introduction to The White Horse

            Growing up I had always had in an interest in the Elizabethan Era, largely due to the fact that my mother had always been very taken away with Queen Elizabeth. This quarter was an amazing journey through the era that I had heard and seen so much about but never fully immersed myself in.  Going to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire has always been fun for me but going in with the eye of Liberal Studies scholar gave me a new outlook on everything I had previously been exposed too. The Faire is an amazing place to go to experience handcrafted skills, great battles, royal courts, wonderful food, and just plain old fun. Mortimer said that the past was easily forgotten because “We concentrate on the historic event as something that has happened and in so doing we ignore it as a moment which, at the time, is happening” (Mortimer xv). The Renaissance Faire allows us to break past these events and step in to the moment of the Renaissance.

Dwain Linden Photography

Three experiences at the Faire that I enjoyed most was the evidence of commerce all around us at every moment, The Joust, and The Queen with her people.  I will take these events and further look into them from the Liberal Studies scholar point of view. Focusing on Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, and Mathematics turned out to be much more of an easier task then I thought it would be because all were very apparent in the people’s lives every day in this era. The White Horse Tavern was a place that scholars would go to debate things that the church would deem on the lines of heresy. I will use this White Horse to mull over the experience of the Faire as scholar of this era.