RyRy. (Offline)

Ah I'm glad to hear that, it's a wonderful place. I hope you come along! AAB was the offer I'd hazard a guess? I can't remember when offers came out for us but that sounds about right. First year is good fun, most of the work is just drawing artefacts which we get to play with, and the reenactment group trains twice a week so I'm getting my fix of that!

Hello old chap! How is life going? It's been bloody ages, I hope everything's well. I'm having a smashing time here at uni, it's a real laugh.

happy birthday!!!

Forgive my lack of reply, I've been indulging irresponsibly in folk metal and pubs.
Classical ones are quite uncommon, our passion and heritage here is mainly in the medieval era - there might be more Greek and Roman ones on the Continent.
I have done a few events at various castles around where I am based, but I don't remember seeing one at Warwick at any time, sadly. Although I did get chatting to the medieval chaps who operate the trebuchet, they were good fun. It's a damn good laugh!

Hail!
That is a pretty good representation of a reenactment battle - I actually fought in that one last year, and it was great fun!
That battle was slightly larger than the standard one at a big event, as they try to put together an uber-massive performance at Hastings every year that ends with 6. However at Tewkesbury last year we had around 1500 people on the field, it was wonderful!
The horses at Hastings are really used and are quite terrifying! I fought on the Saxon flank which broke ranks and chased the Normans down the hill, which meant that I ended up getting flanked by the cavalry which scared the life outta me! However they are virtually never used in any other large battles.
We use blunted swords and there are extremely extensive checks of everybody's kit before they go onto the field, to guarantee that every weapon is safe to use. The arrows used have rubber bungs on the end but they are still pretty painful if you get a direct hit! At Tewkesbury one archer got hit in the eye by one and lost it, poor chap. Injuries are pretty commonplace, but it is quite rare that anything as terrible as that happens. It is still quite a dangerous hobby though.
Usually you don't "die" until the "final push" of the battle, otherwise we would run out of reenactors far too quickly, so until then we just acknowledge each other's blows and back out of an engagement when we've been "killed". At the final push, you fall over and die, and if the enemy is marching forwards past you, sometimes people stand up and join in with them - traitors!
Battles last anywhere between 45 mins and 90, usually closer to 90. I usually do later medieval stuff, which means more armour (which means more bat **** crazy fighting!) so we get absolutely boiling. It feels like forever!

Ah, they are toughies. Grades for this one are ABB which is achievable!
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/...ngstudies.aspx
I am stupidly excited about this course.

I can't say I really found much when looking for courses, I didn't see many unis. I was only really interested in Nottingham and Cambridge, and I got an offer from one of them so I never paid much attention to the rest! Nottingham is absolutely wonderful, I would definitely check it out, although I'm not sure what the Classical history includes.
York is reportedly great, as is Sheffield. Excellent ale up there...
Birmingham was interesting, but if you weren't keen on Manchester then I don't know if it would be for you (I know there's a terrible southern ignorance in lumping the two cities together, but I'm sure to non-northerners they're pretty much the same).
I visited Exeter: their flexible/combined/joint hons. program looks quite good, the campus is lovely and the archaeology department is absolutely brilliant, but they came across as really disorganised and a little arrogant too, so I wasn't sure.
Other than that, I don't really have many ideas. There's plenty about for Classical stuff though!

Hello old bean! How are you? Made any more progress in uni decision-making?

Greetings!
As a medievalist, I would thoroughly reccomend that! I find that modern history doesn't really feel enough like history (as you will inevitably end up doing 20th C stuff which I find deadly dull, as do many others) and doesn't stir as much fascination as other areas do - it seems difficult to have a real passion for the modern period as it isn't quite different enough from our own. I would say Ancient history is better, but then again it can be a bit dry and tough going. Both, to my knowledge, are equally well regarded (but some areas of study might be more helpful for some jobs, it all depends). However if you want to differentiate yourself I would definitely go for the bit in the middle - aside from being a little different, it is far more fun! And it isn't any less highly regarded than either of the other two.