Castles

I love medieval history, and I love the idea of being there and experiencing it. I'm the kind of person who, if I'm going to know about something, I want that to be a real, physical thing to me - partially because I learn best through muscle memory, I suppose. And that seems really hard to do when it comes to history, but there are tons of pieces from the middle ages that you can easily go and find, and touch, and become intimately familiar with. Paintings, weapons, armors, tapestries. Most of those are stuck behind chains and glass, sure. But then you can go and find still standing medieval castles and cities. And that's where history can really come alive.

I just got home from being out in Prague, where I spent a lot of time in medieval castles and villages, though this was not the first time I have done this. I absolutely love being in places like this. Feeling the uneven stone streets beneath my feet, running my fingers along the walls and feeling the roughness of their world. Seeing how weak and poor their architectural structure appears to be, and yet remembering that it's been standing there for hundreds of years against the test of time. And so often in these places, the people and stores that remain have embraced their history. They remain small, focused, and quiet. You can walk up and down the streets, the only sound being that of other people walking around, the sounds of cars and the modern world left outside the city walls.

These were the things that I missed out on in history classes in school. We'd see small little pictures of things every once in a while, but that doesn't really give you a feeling for what things were like. But you go to an old cathedral or castle, and you look at the way they constructed things, where they put artwork and what kinds of art they put up. The amount of detail they put into their work. The craftsmanship they put into their weapons - both good and bad. It all says stuff about what people thought, what they valued, how they lived.

It amazed me the first time that I visited a castle, and I felt like I had been transported backwards in time to the days of old - to the time that I had always been fascinated by and wanted to be a part of. I wanted to know why we didn't actually talk about these kinds of things, and why history class was always a boring string of shifting borders and essays - both our own, and those of the time. Yes, they helped define our world in the long run. They should be studied. But why completely ignore the life that had been at the time? I don't want to be remembered by the actions of people hundreds of miles away who have nothing to do with me. I want to be remembered by what is here, what I interact with, how I live. It's not like that becomes irrelevant because someone signed a piece of paper.