Understanding the past takes more forms than historiography. Since 2005, professional and amateur scholars have come together at the annual International Medieval Congress in Western Michigan University to discuss the role re-construction, re-enactment and re-creation can play in ‘breathing life into these dry bones’ to deepen our knowledge of the past. Under the sponsorship of the Higgins Armory Museum and the Oakeshott Institute, presenters have looked at subjects ranging from ore smelting to equitation to the use of recreation and reenactment in the classroom.

This volume brings together seven papers examining the depth and breadth in which experimental archaeology and textual analysis can come together to reveal the past. From glass beads to iron smelting, the profession of arms to the chivalric virtues of franchise and ‘doing what one said they would do’, this collection provides a unique insight into both the daily and intellectual life of medieval man. It will be of interest not only to professional historians, musicologists, literary scholars and art historians, but also to the vast army of impassioned and enthusiastic practitioners who endeavor, as a labor of love, to make the past come to life.