HIGGINS MUSEUM ESSAY
The Higgins Armory Museum is a museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was founded by John Higgins in 1929, when he finally moved his vast collection of arms and armor to one building and opened the higgins armor museum. This is a vast collection of thousands of peices of arms and armor from all different time periods. At the museum you can learn lots of stuff, like how jousting armour is different than normal armor, what a duel is, and why armor stopped being used as much.
There are three different types of armor: armor used in tournaments (jousting armor), armor used for battle, and armor used for celebrations or parties. The armour used in tournaments is very thick, and leaves you little or no room to move about. Armor used in battle usually protects you rather well, but sacrifices some protection for mobility. Finally, the celebration armor is armor made and used for one reason: to show off how rich and important you were. This armor was made overly decorative and impractical, and would be little help in a fight.
There were a number of weapons used back in medieval times, both for knights, and against knights. Weapons used against knights were designed to first get a knight off his horse, and then pierce his armor. A halberd, or a polearm was used to knock a knight off his horse, and was essentialy a club of metal with some spiked protrusions coming out of it. After the knight was on the ground, they would mob him with their spears. A knight used two main weapons, a lance, a long stick used in tournaments, and the sword, for close combat. The knight dominated the battlefield, and was worth a good deal more than the foot soldiers.
Knights had a strict code of honor that they had to uphold, and it was more important to them then their life. This included when if you denied a challenge, either a duel or a joust, you were considered a coward, and without honor. Attacking an opponent with no challenge, or striking and opponent from behind was considered cowardice, and against the code of honor. Knights had to be kind to ladies, polite at meals, respect their elders, and fight for their king. They had two main types of duels, a joust and a duel. A joust was when both knights, both with a lance, rushed at each other on their horses and tried to knock each other off. although not meant to be fatal, it often was. A duel was a knight fighting with his sword against another knight. Knights had a hard time of upholding honor while still staying alive.
To finish this off, a visit to the Higgins Armor Museum is an enlightening experience, for both a history buff, and the average layman. It will give you an eye-opening experience of what armor was like at the time, what weapons were used, what it would have been like to live back then, and even more. The museum is an interesting spectacle to see by itself, being in a post-modern factory building, with interesting rooms, such as the great hall, which is an accurate reproduction of what a great hall would have been in a castle back in the medieval times. All in all, the museum is an awesome spectacle, and in going there you will learn a very good deal of stuff.
Higgins Museum Essay
3 -- Outstanding 2 -- Ok, but could use some improvement 1-- Needed improvement 0 --- Missing
3 Gave the reader background and general information about the museum --- set the scene.
3 Transitions to the body of the essay. (Three things that can be learned by a visit to the museum)
3 Three topics were addressed, each with its own paragraph
2 Topics were clearly explained and used researched supporting details & vocabulary
2 Restated topic --- What can be learned at the museum?
2 Brought closure to essay (Summed up essay)
3 Essay format followed the directions for assignment
3 Capitalization (Used correct capitalization)
Comments: Godd overall format and organization of infromation in the essay. Good introduction & transition to the body. More research vocabulary would have added depth to the piece. The conclusion get off topic and brings in new information - never bring new info into your conclusion -- summarize only.