Why is Pipe Smoking Associated With Medieval Themed Books/Movies/Events?

[seldom]

I find it highly unlikely that all of these ancient (pre-dating the European colonization of the Americas) cultures were ritualistically using and smoking e.g. cannabis, and they were mentioned to varying degrees by scholars of antiquity, traded extensively with Europeans, and were in

That you find it unlikely is conjecture. I'd be more swayed by evidence. My understanding (which may be wrong) is that Europe was by and large insular leading up to the so-called Age of Discovery. Yes there were the crusades, which certainly changed Europe. Also there was the Silk Road. Is there evidence of smoking being imported to Europe from this? The "mentions by scholars of antiquity" would be interesting to read! Can you reference them?
Getting back to the original point. Would you suggest that a depiction of a pipe smoking European from the medieval era is historically accurate or likely?

 

[judcole]

That is what they are now. In the early '60's when I attended as a kid, the goal was to provide an historically accurate experience. I remember seeing the caged dwarfs, suspended from tree branches that framed the entrance, yelling jesting insults at the attendees.

Once the Faire was transformed from a fundraiser to a commercial business, the rules changed as well.

Thanks for that interesting piece of info, Sable.

And as someone pointed out, if these are Elizabethan England, a small clay pipe would not be inappropriate.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yes, late Elizabethan period, they were keepin' it smokey.

There is an herb called uppowoc, which sows itself. In the West Indies it has several names, according to the different places where it grows and is used, but the Spaniards generally call it tobacco. Its leaves are dried, made into powder, and then smoked by being sucked through clay pipes into the stomach and head. The fumes purge superfluous phlegm and gross humors from the body by opening all the pores and passages. Thus its use not only preserves the body, but if there are any obstructions it breaks them up. By this means the natives keep in excellent health, without many of the grievous diseases which often afflict us in England.

– Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588)

However, her successor, Jimmie, first in the Stuart line,

1603 1625

James I

Stuart

Had the following to say about tobacco. What a pill!

Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

– James I of England, A Counterblaste to Tobacco (1604)

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Throughout the Germanic Countries, there were laws that allowed people to beat pipesmokers with sticks, and occasionally, the governments would allow smokers to be put to death.

 

[Elric]

Throughout the Germanic Countries, there were laws that allowed people to beat pipesmokers with sticks, and occasionally, the governments would allow smokers to be put to death.

Everything old is new again.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Everything old is new again.

Well, I've yet to hear of any of our members getting put to death... but, maybe one or two have wives that put their money where their stick is... so to speak.

 

[Elric]

Well, I've yet to hear of any of our members getting put to death... but, maybe one or two have wives that put their money where their stick is... so to speak.

Yes, but that has statistical clustering written all over it!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

statistical clustering

I love clusters. If it has nuts, I'm in!

 

[lawdawg]

Reading over the thread, it looks like there is evidence that there was some smoking in Europe or by Europeans before the introduction of tobacco, but that this smoking would not have been at all wide spread.

Being a lifelong fan of Lord of Rings and the Hobbit (which my dad introduced me to as a young child with the very excellent Bass and Rankin cartoon rendition of the Hobbit from the 70's), I've thought about this issue before and came to a similar conclusion as @haparnold - that Tolkien was so influential in the creation of the fantasy literary genre that his inclusion of pipes became standard / common practice.

Tolkien included pipe smoking in his books not just because he liked smoking pipes, but because the Hobbits were essentially a reflection of himself and his own preferences based on the changes that took place in his time, from growing up in an idyllic rural agrarian village to seeing industrialization, the supremacy of mechanization over craftsman style production, and the brutalities of World War I which was perhaps the first "modern" war and which Tolkien called "The War of the Machines." Tolkien even once said that he was, in all but size, a Hobbit.

 

[Jef]

A lesser known fact is that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a historically accurate account of a pipe club trying to get to the last stock of McLelland Tobacco. The Frenchmen is a metaphor for the gougers getting there just before the pipe club and the police as the ATF ruining all the fun.

LMAO!!!

 

[judcole]

Yes, late Elizabethan period, they were keepin' it smokey.



However, her successor, Jimmie, first in the Stuart line,

1603 1625

James I

Stuart

Had the following to say about tobacco. What a pill!

First Stuart King of England. He was James VI of Scotland, And,yeah, he was a PITA.

 

[haparnold]

One might even say a Royal PITA