BY DARRELL HALEN
When Michael Masone was caught using bad table manners, a wizard cast a spell on him and transformed him into a frog. Michael, dressed as a medieval tax collector, wore an inflatable frog around his waist.
It was all part of the fun of a medieval banquet held at Windham Middle School.
For part of a school day, seventh-graders donned costumes to become lords and ladies, knights, jesters, monks, nuns and common folk.
The event is a tradition at the school, when the students wrap up their study of the Middle Ages.
“It’s pretty fun – all the costumes and activities we’re doing,” said Colin Reed, who was dressed as a jester.
An interdisciplinary unit in social studies and language arts, the study focuses on several aspects of the period, including castles, feudal society, religious life, art and music, weaponry and the plague.
The banquet, held Wednesday, March 21, followed a grand march and dance in the gymnasium before an audience of parents and visiting elementary school students. Following the banquet, the students test their agility, skills and strength in a friendly tournament.
For the meal, the school’s cafeteria is transformed into the Great Hall of Midwin Castle. The banquet is festive and colorful, filled with music and dance.
The food is blessed by the Pope and royal tasters attest to its safety. The students ate without utensils and many of them drank from goblets and steins.
Overseeing the festivities is the queen – physical education teacher Erin Shirley – and the king, played by teacher Andrew Bairstow.
“I think it’s hands-on learning,” Bairstow said. “To put (the students) into these roles certainly helps them. They can live what they’ve learned.”
Each classroom is a manor led by a lord and a lady and featuring its own coat of arms.
Entertainment included riddles posed by jesters and others, a maypole dance and a performance by garland dancers in celebration of spring.
Those who misbehaved were banished to the dungeon or received some other form of punishment.
When A.J. Frisone, a jester, was caught using bad table manners, he was forced to kneel and serenade the crowd with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”