Don't fuck with old man strength.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
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I misread "Medieval" as "Medical" at first and was REALLY confused until I re-read😄
So…LARPers?
If you have to wear chainmail to avoid injuries and getting hit hard enough to lose your footing, it's not LARP.
Teeeechnically if there's no roleplay, NPCs, and/or Magic then it's not a LARP.
This is a type of medieval combat sport.
We called ours that too, "medieval combat sport", but most people's eyes glaze over unless you say LARP.
My friend used to say, "you know the Renaissance festival? It's like that, except we participate and fight competitive mock battles with rules and shit. I'm paraphrasing.
It's historical European martial arts .
Like sparring in karate, it's full contact and not without injury. However the weapons are full and there's strict rules about where attacks are legal.
But it's not larping
The OP is from a (likely scripted) reenactment for entertainment. In other photos you can see one combatant throwing a tankard and the other spitting in the others' face both actions would get a DQ in most medieval martial arts competitions. Here's a list of other medieval fighting leagues.
Are they actually fighting? I'm curious if they treat itt like how wrestling does their matches.
I'm sure they're not actually trying to hurt each other, but they're probably having a good tussle, so somewhere in-between perhaps?
I agree. I wonder how much is coordinated though. Or are they really sizing each up?
I did some surface investigation so I could be wrong but -- this seems to come from an annual Battle of Shrewsbury reenactment. I think the photographer captured one of the splinter fights from the big push.
There's some older footage here (battle starts around 5:00) from someone who participated, that provides some context of the energy. It's not combat sports and it doesn't seem scripted. Mostly just dudes in a field putting on a show for their community. Some of these strikes I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of, but it all seems playful enough.
Worth mentioning for a reenactment to be historically accurate - someone's gotta lose, and they'll know to play the role appropriately. It is "scripted" in that sense.
That's what i was hoping, thank you