PE - Spoked wheel design .... was Ropes or not to rope!

[Mira (Tanya Guptill)]

Noble friends,

My thoughts on the spoked wheel design currently in use being period:

--It does look like some round tents in history had an internal structure.  I know some paintings show guy lines and some do not, and we could argue artistic license on this, but do believe that some of the paintings show enough to show internal structure of some type (other than center pole) feasible.

--The tents I have seen in illustrations show a smooth, round exterior at the bottom of the roof.  The pavilino design is not smooth, and depending on number of spokes, may looks hexagonal or octagonal.  There was a beautiful pavilino set up in the vendors' area at Pennsic, and I reexamined it to try to make it correlate to what I've seen in paintings.  Over and over again one sees the round, sometimes taut, hoop-like line of the round tents in history--I don't see this
in the pavilino design.

--We do have documentation for hoops in period  (complaints about lack of willows for hoops, a royal pavilioner's list of hoops bought for a tourney).

--It is a beautiful tent, and appears to be very stable.

Since it is very possible that there was internal structure on some round pavilions, it looks feasible to me that spokes could've been used in conjunction with some sort of hoop, but until I see illustrations of octagonal/hexagonal/etc.. tents, I am unable to see an exact match between the pavilino design, and historical tents.

Mira Silverlock



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