How to Make a Medieval Town Come Alive – the Use of Volunteers in Living History

Abstract

For over 25 years The Medieval Centre / Middelaldercentret in Nykøbing F. Denmark has used volunteers to inhabit the reconstructed medieval town of Sundkøbing. To combine the use of volunteers and living history is not easy or something that happens spontaneously. It is hard work and requires patience, strength and firmness, but also empathy, people skills, and leadership. Many museums have asked us how we successfully employ the use of volunteers without the volunteers taking over, or huge conflicts emerging. Therefore, in this article we will present our method, which has worked very well for us for many years. A note must first be made, that while this method is a success at our institution, it does not mean that it can be implimented / transferred directly to another museum. The model must be adapted to fit the museum and its volunteers. However, the basics of the model are easily used and should be applied in all museums that have volunteers as part of their staff. The article is written very much as a manual with a step by step method approach that takes the reader through the many details of working with volunteers. It is therefore not written in a very academic manner, but more in a DIY way. We hope it proves useful.

Keywords

• management
• archaeological open-air museum
• living history
• late middle ages
• denmark