One of the wonderful things about medievalists is their tents. People spend a huge amount of time, money, and creativity building medieval-style pavilions. They pore over old manuscripts, looking at the details of the canopies in the background. Do they have guy lines? Poles? Awnings? The results are beautiful. Here are some tents that are for sale by various tent makers.
This one is from Panther Primatives.
And, this one is from Tentsmiths.
This illustration is a detail of "Saint Martin Renouncing the Sword" by the 14th Century Italian painter, Simone Martini (1283-1344). I was particularly struck by the maze of tent ropes that he included in his painting. If the artist leaves them out, it is hard to tell whether there really were no ropes or whether the artist chose to omit them. But, when they are drawn in such detail, there is no doubt that these 14th Century Italian pavilions used ropes aplenty!
