I don't think it's strange that on a year without any big medieval events, I feel the need to dream about getting my own tent and living a happy recreated medieval life. I am fortunate that I have friends that have let me borrow their older tent, but I feel like it would be nice to have my own tent. As such I've spent the last few days trying to find information about what different tents there are out there, and of course the cost of them.
Just like when I made my guide to buying a lightsabre I will say that I have yet not bought any tent myself. I have a limited experience about erecting or living in a tent, mostly based on my friends' tents that I stayed in last year. I have also no expereience with buying such big things from the sellars that I will link though. These are mainly my ramblings and what I'm thinking about.
A word about size as well. I am very bad when it comes to imagining the size of a tent, just from reading the measurements. I've tried to look at websites where they have people beside their tents, in order to get a feeling for them, I'm still unsure just how much space I will actually get in a certain tent. Also since I live in a small flat with limited storage capacity, I will need to think carefully about how big of a tent I can store between events, which after all is most of the time. For myself I'm only looking at the smaller end of tent size, those that are said to be suitable for 1-2 persons, or possibly 2-4 persons.
About colours and decorations on tents and choice of materials. Looking at medieval manuscripts and images most tents were done in different colours and/or with a lot of decorations. This makes the sea of white that you see on many medieval camping grounds a bit unhstorical, but adding colours and decorations usually costs at lot more. The same goes for the material of the tent itself. Wool and linen would have been used, and a few sellers offer tents in those materials, but cotton is a lot cheaper. The cheapest tents usually also have metallic poles or beams instead of wood. I will definitely choose an impregnated cotton, that can stand up to moist and molds, whatever model I choose.
Manufacturers and sellers. Now that I've spent some time looking at differnet sites selling tents it's obvious that a lot of sites use the same photos, so they buy them from the same manufacturer. This makes it worthwhile to compare prices. Also one needs to think about where you want to buy the tent from. There are Swedish shops selling tents, but you can find similar tents cheaper from Polish sites. Here it is a question of judging the risk of a longer freight, compared to the higher price of a more local seller. Several sites that come up when searching in Swedish are also obviously autotranslated, or if you look around their contact info show that they are based in Denmark or Germany. It is important to read the descriptions well since not all sites include the poles or frames for the tent, just the canvasses themselves.
Now with that being said here are some options, from smaller to bigger.
The smallest (and cheapest) tents are either conical tents or wedge tents.
The name of the tent can be "Valborg", "Walburg" "enmasttält" "conical tent" "centertält".
The cheapest I've found starts at 1800 SEK - It's said to be big enough for 2 persons and their packing. The construction is very simple, just a pole in the middle. This also means that it has the smallest weight and storage space. Downside is of course that the slanted walls make it hard to use the full space, other than as storage for bags and things like this. For me personally this is the tent that I for a long time planned to buy, and basically only use it as a sleeping space. The cost and the size it would take in storage were big factors in this.
The next option up is a "wedge tent", or "A-tent", or "kiltält". It has two standing poles and beam between them to give the tent a triangular shape.
The cheapest I've found, with poles included, is €301. For a tent like this you have a bit more standing space than with just the center pole, but you still loose a lot of floor space due to the slanted walls. Still it's small and looks to be simple to put up as well.
A version of the wedge tent is the "viking tent", "Oseberg tent" or "A-ramstält", based on the Norwegian burial find in Oseberg. Instead of poles there are woodden beams anchoring the construction. They are very sturdy, but also a bit heavier than just poles. Also that kind of tent is only suitable if you are recreating the Viking Age, and not for general medieval purposes.
Another version of this tent is called "Saxon tent", "Saxiskt tält", "Anglo-Saxon tent" and the most common - "geteld". It's similar to the wedge tent, but here the center beam is in a pocked on the top and outside of the main tent. I have not checked prices for this, since I'm not really interested in tihs style of tent. I did read up on some blogs about tents where people claimed that it's a very good style of tent since it's easy to put up and very sturdy.
A third version is called a "soldiers tent" and is dated to the 15th century and onwards. It's a wedge tent, but with a door on the side wall and not just an opening at the gable of the tent. These can be found in sizes from "mini" to pretty large.
This was the tent that I borrowed from my friends last summer. Ive seen it referred to as a "ryttartält" and "double pole tent". It's very similar to the geteld, but instead of a horizontal beam holding up the roof there are two poles in the centre. The tent is definitely roomy, there was no problem for us to sleep thee persons in the tent and have our packing there. Still though the slanting walls make it loose a lot of space at the sides of the floor area. The tent is sewn in one piece, which I think makes it quite complicated to fold when it's time to pack the tent down. It's a lot of space for the price,
8900 SEK at Gripheim.se, but I feel that it's both too big and too small at the same time for me. If you are prepared to pay that kind of money for a tent it might be worth checking out a pavillion or a round tent instead.
The round tents and pavillions have straight walls and are then connected to a slanted roof on top of the walls. Pavillions can be both square and oval and are simply big, too big for me who's only interested in a small tent.
This is us outside of Monica and Niklas' pavillion last spring in Leksand. The floor space isn't much bigger than their double tent that I borrowed, but inside it's basically three rooms and a lot of space. Its way too big for just me, but there are smaller round tents with the same principle of straight walls and just a slanted roof.
This is called an umbrella tent or spoke tent. It's held up by a centre pole, but then attached to the centre pole there are spokes holding out the walls. The smallest version of this tent that I could find has a diameter of 3 m and costs around €640, but that is made from non-treated fabric and if you want to add impregnated fabric you have to add another €130. This tent on the photo is held up with a lot of ropes, but the thing with this kind of tent is that you shouldn't need too many ropes. It seems as if the walls and roof is usually separate, so not just one huge piece of fabric that you need to take care of.
Another version of this that looks very much the same from the outside is called a Basel tent, the difference is that it doesn't have the spoke system inside, so it's only held in shape by ropes on the outside. This makes it take up less space in storage and it's easier to pack without the spokes, but I like the idea of having spokes inside that you can use to hang stuff from inside the tent. The Basel tent also seems to be sewn in just one piece of fabric, not with separate walls and roof.
This is the inside of an umbrella tent.
So where am I right now when it comes to thinking about my own personal tent. Well I'm very partial to the smallest available umbrella tent. That would feel like a really luxurious tent it's also the most common shape of tent that you see in medieval illumniations. The price and problem of transporting and storing it though makes me hesitant if it's worth it, or if I should just go for a simple tent where I can basically just sleep and keep my things. Since I have the possibility to borrow my friends' tent I don't feel like I need to rush my decision.
