How We Approach History

In this blog, we'll give you more insight into how our blogs come together. We explain which peoples we use as our starting point, and how we approach their culture, religion, and mythology. We'll then show you the different ways there are to engage with history, and what choices we make when writing our blogs.

Our blogs versus our ancestors

Our historical blogs, whether they're outfit compilations (get the look) or informative texts, focus primarily on cultures that developed from the Indo-European culture. This is because almost all of our historical articles are based on objects from these cultures, whether that's the early bronze Age or the late medieval period. Sometimes our neolithic ancestors will also feature, who together with our Indo-European ancestors make up a large part of our European DNA. And occasionally we also reference food-forager-hunter-fishers, or cultures from other population groups.

We are aware of the cultures and movements that do not stem from Indo-European culture. Although these are equally interesting, that's not where our expertise lies. We also try to avoid as much as possible cultural appropriation of non-Indo-European expressions and traditions.

Indo-Europeans

People don't just pop up out of the ground like mushrooms. Through conquest and migration, population groups spread across the globe. With the help of DNA research, these movements can be mapped out. Especially in prehistory, DNA research is incredibly useful for studying migration and cultural development.

Very broadly speaking, humans have spread across Europe as follows:

1. About 400,000 years ago, Homo neanderthalensis appeared in Europe. They lived there for hundreds of thousands of years. Almost all Europeans carry a little bit, about 1-2%, of this Neanderthal (NEA) gene.
2. About 45,000 years ago, Homo sapiens probably migrated from Africa to Europe: the food-foragers / hunters / fishers. All Europeans have also inherited a bit of their DNA, which is abbreviated as WHG (Western Hunter Gatherer)
3. Between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago, the first Anatolian farmers settled in Europe. They are known as the Neolithic farmers (Early European Farmers or EEF). Virtually all Europeans are descended somewhat from them.
4. About 5,000 years ago, nomadic tribes migrated from the Russian and Ukrainian steppe toward Europe. These people, the Western Steppe Herders (WSH), were the ancestors of virtually all European cultures, such as the Greeks, Romans, Germans (Vikings), Slavs and Celts.

Because this last group spread across Europe from an archaeological 'horizon' of the Yamnaya and Corded Ware culture, their language, Proto-Indo-European, and culture also spread across Europe. Because of this shared ancestor, there are also parallels between the different cultures, which we'll regularly point out in our blogs.

Most of our blogs focus on European cultures from the Iron Age around 800 BCE onwards. As you can see above, the Indo-European peoples had already lived in Europe for about 2,500 years by then. So our blogs cover only a small part of human history.

Religion

Over the centuries, our ancestors have practiced different religions.

Between around 3,000 BCE and the early 11th century, and indirectly to this day, European paganism was widespread. European paganism is hierarchical and animistic and venerates the gods, ancestors, and spiritual forces in nature. European paganism is the religious tradition of the people who fill much of our framework.

From the late classical period onwards, Christianity emerges and gradually replaces paganism. From the perspective of our polytheistic European ancestors, the Christian god was initially 'just' an addition to the existing pantheon and then (probably unexpectedly) replaced all the gods. Monotheistic Christianity absorbed much from the old religion. That's why so many pre-Christian elements are present in both (early) medieval religion and later folklore. The population itself didn't change radically, only their religion did.

Mythology

A myth is a story that conveys truths or values to a group of people, culture, or nation, with which that group can identify and understand the world. A myth can be about gods, supernatural phenomena, or historical events. That's why myths must be treated with great respect.

In the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, mythological stories are placed in a historical timeline. In European paganism, this is not done. The timeline is therefore looser and more fluid. However, that doesn't mean this traditional expression shouldn't be taken seriously. Entire peoples and cultures derive much of their identity and social norms from these stories and traditions, and they've been passed down by our ancestors for thousands of years.

In our blogs, we strive to align mythological and religious expressions with the original stories and values, so we can keep historical traditions as intact as possible.

When interpreting pagan myths, it's often not our goal to create a historical reconstruction, but to make an epic portrayal while keeping as many details and elements traditional as possible. For example: what is Thor without his hammer?

Folklore and fantasy

Our ancestors knew no boundary between the natural and the supernatural. Everything was interconnected according to a lawful cosmic order. There was a rich folklore that explained inexplicable phenomena. Characters like dwarves and elves also emerged from this worldview.

Sometimes we draw parallels between historical fantasy (folklore) and modern fantasy, such as Lord of the Rings and role-playing games like LARP and Dungeons & Dragons. Here too, we try like with mythology to keep the pattern around it as representative as possible.

Our historical outfits

When creating historical outfit compilations, we spend just as much time on the outfit as we do on the cultural and historical context in which we place it. In our view, both are equally important because the reconstruction represents a culture and traditions, which is why we treat them with respect. This also means that we sometimes try to approach objectively views that we as modern people don't agree with. According to this interpretation, we try to express their traditions.

Our starting point is that history is about the culture in question, the traditions that emerge from it, and the way people lived back then. The outfit and objects express that. How accurate a setting needs to be depends entirely on the (personal) objective.

When creating historical outfits, we use products that we ourselves sell. Our enormous assortment gives us a big advantage in that. But compared to all objects from European history, the range is limited. For example, many of our garments are made of cotton. All the clothing we sell has a certain production run per year, and we don't make clothes that don't sell.

That's why our historical outfits are an approximation, and we don't claim that the outfits are 100% historically accurate. For instance, we have a limited range of 16th-17th century clothing, and Etruscan culture is underrepresented. In cases like that, we choose to create an outfit that's as accessible as possible and as representative an approximation of the historical original as we can manage.

If you want to wear a 100% museum-quality historically accurate outfit, it's better to make the clothing yourself (with hand-woven fabrics) and supplement it with accessories, such as belts, buckles, and footwear, from our assortment.

We're aware of all the work and effort that living historians put into creating an outfit that's as representative as possible. We ourselves have been (living) historians and (experimental) archaeologists for many years and have a lot of experience with this. With our blogs, we're trying to bridge the gap between representative reconstruction and accessibility for a broad audience.

Different approaches to history

The goal of living history and re-enactment is to create as accurate an approximation as possible of a historical person and setting, but 100% accuracy is never possible. Even if your clothing, weapons, and accessories are 100% correct, you might not have the right age, build, or body weight. Plus, you have a different way of thinking, because you were born in modern times. It's admirable to come as close as possible to historical reality, but we must also acknowledge that as modern people we'll never fully understand it, and there are limits to what we can achieve.

The academic world tries to research history as precisely as possible, but they too continually deal with biases that come from, for example, examining historical texts and sources. The limitation here is that we read all historical sources through the filter of our modern brains. Our view of history is largely an interpretation we make from our modern world. No one will ever know completely objectively what it was like to live in that time, unless you were born and lived in it. And even then, every person in that time had a different experience depending on their region, social class, gender, mental and physical condition, etc.

Outside the academic world, living history, and re-enactment, there's a large group of people with a deep passion for history. They don't necessarily strive to approach history 100% historically accurately; they primarily enrich their lives with (elements of) history and walk in the footsteps of old traditions and their ancestors. An example of this is, for instance, Viking culture at festivals like Castlefest. People have a certain historical interest in Vikings and want to incorporate (aspects of) Viking culture into their own lives. This is also a historical phenomenon. Throughout history, cultures have learned from other cultures and adopted and applied elements in their own culture, or looked back to their ancestors. It's an approach to history that's different from re-enactment and living history, but not 'less' or 'wrong'.

So it's important to realize that from a shared passion and interest, there are multiple approaches to history, where it's not everyone's goal to present a completely historically accurate Viking in linen clothing. We believe all these approaches to history are important, and we should treat each other with respect. Even if someone else's approach to and interpretation of history is different from yours.