Company of Saynt George

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Company of St. George
Founded	1988
Location	Europe, based in Switzerland
Period	1460-1490
Speciality	Daily life
Members	around 100
Alliances	none
Website	http://www.companie-of-st-george.ch

A camp of the Company of St. George in 2006

The Company of St. George is a living-history group portraying an artillery Company in the age of Charles the Bold (1467-1477). The group does events with a civil and military aspect and is well known for its vivid display of daily life in a medieval camp.

1 Name
2 Origins and History
3 Membership
4 Events
5 External links

[edit] Name

There is not a single correct spelling for the name of the company. The group uses multiple styles on its website: The Company of Saynte George, The Company of Saynt George, The Companie of Saynt George and The Compagnie of Saynte George. All variants seem to be equally correct.

[edit] Origins and History

The Company of St. George formed during the 1980s around Gerry Embleton and a group of English history enthusiasts living in Switzerland. Traditionally the Company has retained a close link to other groups in the United Kingdom. The Company of St. George has been made popular with the book "The Medieval Soldier", that has been written by Gerry Embleton and John Howe and features over one hundred colour photographs of people in historical costume. It has been translated to French, German and Italian. The book came out in 1994 and had big influence on living-history and reenactment. This is especially true on the European continent where it helped to make living-history a popular hobby and the second half of the 15th century one of the most popular periods for reenactment.

[edit] Membership

There are around one hundred people involved with the group and about sixty of them are considered active. The active members live in Switzerland, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark and Sweden. Tolkien illustrator John Howe and the historical illustrator Gerry Embleton are prominent members.

[edit] Events

The Company of St. George primarily works with museums and does living-history events in close cooperation with them. The ties with the Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg are particularly strong. There are private events too. The Company is known to do two to four events per year.