I was exposed at an impressionable age to Cariadoc's writings on authenticity, in which he pointed out that one of the most inauthentic things we can do at an event is discuss authenticity. A 15th-century person might conceivably have consumed cacao, or danced a dance that we've only documented to the 16th century... but we can be sure that a 15th-century person did not discuss whether a 15th-century person could have done these things. Accordingly, that sort of discussion breaks the atmosphere, the willing suspension of disbelief, much more than the cacao or the dance itself does.
Of course he (and I, and probably you) has also spent lots of hours outside events trying to figure out How They Did It, for at least three reasons: because he's curious, because period solutions to period problems tend to work, and because he wants to enhance everybody else's experience at events.
no subject
Nicely put.
I was exposed at an impressionable age to Cariadoc's writings on authenticity, in which he pointed out that one of the most inauthentic things we can do at an event is discuss authenticity. A 15th-century person might conceivably have consumed cacao, or danced a dance that we've only documented to the 16th century... but we can be sure that a 15th-century person did not discuss whether a 15th-century person could have done these things. Accordingly, that sort of discussion breaks the atmosphere, the willing suspension of disbelief, much more than the cacao or the dance itself does.
Of course he (and I, and probably you) has also spent lots of hours outside events trying to figure out How They Did It, for at least three reasons: because he's curious, because period solutions to period problems tend to work, and because he wants to enhance everybody else's experience at events.