On Wednesday 10 February 8A went on a Medieval Europe excursion to The Abbey Museum in Caboolture. We witnessed many things from protective armour used by Medieval Knights to 14th century stained glass and a wide display of artefacts collected by the local religious community.

In regards to knights and their armours we learnt that the full metal body armour was not implemented in combat until the 14th century with amour prior to that consisting of chain mail (or simply mail), a coned metal helmet and padded leather under amour.  We also learnt that during the period of the Crusades, knights wore coloured tunics to indicate their geographical origins and national ties. We also learnt a lot of interesting facts about knights; one thing that stood out was that by our age, if we were training to be knights, we may already be on a battlefield! Another intriguing thing was that knights did not aim to kill other knights in battle, as knights’ families were extremely wealthy and they if they they tracked them down it wouldn't be good for that knight. The only time they would kill another knight was if the knight was too injured that it wasn't fair for them to continue suffering.

We were also provided the opportunity to explore a Medieval Church which was exported from Winchester in the 1970's. The church contained many reorganised fragments of stained glass which created large biblical pictures of figures such as Jesus Christ and many Anglican patron saints. Some of the glass was aged at over 1000 years having been made in the medieval era itself when Christianity, Catholicism and other Christ-based religions were at a period of great prominence. The stained glass windows contained many different coats of arms, which would show that two royal families had married. Priests would use the stained glass to help them, as people would be able to see stories and understand things from those stained glass images, as they couldn't read themselves a lot of the time. The stories contained in the stained glass helped them understand their religion.

The museum also contained a display centre with many hundreds of authentic artefacts from every various time period spanning from the dawn of man to the late Renaissance. One fascinating artefacts was a knight’s armour that had been used in battle, with an indentation in the arm, which demonstrates how it saved the knight’s life. Finally, we finished our day with archery, using bows and arrows, which was extremely enjoyable!

All in all we thoroughly enjoyed the day; it was hugely informative, periodically immersive and we would recommend the whole experience to anyone who wishes to immerse themselves in period that in this modern era has been largely forgotten.

Madison C and Bradley M, Year 8 Students