Medieval Weapon Art offers swords and variety of functional and decorative medieval weapons, knives, daggers, crossbows, helms, shields, war hammers at low affordable prices.

Medieval Weapon Art is a one stop shop for all your renaissance and medieval needs including giftware, jewelry and banners, as well as replicas from fiction stories and films such as 'The Lord of The Rings'.

It is thought that the Middle Ages in Europe constituted a period of absolute darkness in history, when religion permeated every aspect of life and citizens were oppressed by greedy landlords, fat priests and decadent authorities; witches and heretics were burnt at the stake and prisoners were being tortured in every way imaginable. Indeed, there are many things from the medieval times that we don't like today, but the almost-apocalyptic vision that we have from that period is wrong, and many of the cruelties and pains associated with those times are no worse and no better than similar things observed in other epochs.

For example, speaking about tortures, the prison of Abu-Ghraib was operated by both Saddam Hussein and the U.S. Armed Forces; both systematically tortured prisoners there in the twentieth and twenty first centuries, like what was common in a thirteenth century Sarracen prison. And if we talk about exploited people, let's remember that Karl Marx had his ideas because of what he saw in England a little more than a hundred an fifty years ago, and not in the Flemish eleventh century.

Regarding oppression, the ideologies and regimes of the twentieth century are quite clearly unsurpassed in this department. More people has been exterminated in these enlightened times than in any Middle Age burn-the-witch celebration, and that includes democratic countries and allegedly civilised nations; just remember what the British did during the Boer war.

Besides, now there is mind control too: it is a well documented fact that President Bush does not like to be asked much in front of TV cameras, and then, what about the WMDs in Iraq? Not very different from those old-fashioned dragon-hunting safaris, isn't it?And what would a medieval man or woman think of us? Many of our common practices today would seem horrible to them. Who would be right judging?

We should put each thing in its historical context before judging. The reality is that we know very little from the Middle Ages: just 11% of all medieval manuscripts have been studied so, with which basis are we saying that the Middle Ages were an obscure time? How can we be so sure if we have just scratched the surface?

Indeed, we would not enjoy the black death - but we have WMDs, right? -, the crusades and the muslim armies invading everything - well, now we have the self-styled crusaders from the north and the holy warriors from the east, so what changed? Probably the explosives, but little else -; however, there are many things from that period that we still treasure, even if we don't think much about the fact.

You just have to travel thorough Europe to see the castles, churches, cathedrals, monasteries and thousands of medieval art expressions. Literature and the tales of knighthood that we assume as part of our culture, were really born in medieval Europe.

And if you just see something like the Oseberg ship, found at a Viking burial site, you will conclude that at least in terms of art development, medievals had nothing to envy from us.And here we have an excellent example: we think of the Norse - better known as the Vikings - as a brutish, blood-thirsty horde with fancy ships, axes in their hands and helmets with horns in their heads.

Well, to start with, Vikings did not use horns in their helmets - a fact -, and did you know how many artistic styles were developed in the Nordic countries then? We tell you: the Broa or Oseberg style, the Borre, Jellinge, Mammen, Ringerike and Urnes.

Do you think that people who are capable of developing so many different styles of art are somewhere as primitive or brutish as thought?

Even a concept fundamentally related to the notion of justice - the super hero - was created then. Knights were meant to be that, and times when such ideals are born cannot be so dark as we believe they are or were, because if not, reality would not try to imitate art.

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