or two-and-a-half-weeks in June 1520, two of Renaissance Europe’s greatest monarchs—England’s Henry VIII and France’s Francis I—convened for a celebration of unmatched proportions. Named after the gold-embellished fabric used to craft the tents, costumes and decorations, the Field of Cloth of Gold cost the modern equivalent of some £15 million pounds, or almost $19 million. Ostensibly organized as an affirmation of the young kings’ friendship, the summit also afforded each ruler the chance “to outdo the other in splendor and military prowess,” says historian Tracy Borman.
Both men answered this appeal to vanity in full force. From June 7 to 24, around 12,000 royals, nobles, attendants and servants gathered in fields on the northern tip of modern-day France, between English-held Guînes and French-held Ardres, where they enjoyed nights of revelry in enormous temporary palaces of brick, timber, canvas and glass. Guests dined on such delicacies as 29,000 fish, 98,000 eggs, 6,475 birds, 2,200 sheep and 216,000 gallons of wine; competed in jousts, wrestling matches and other tests of athletic prowess; and performed in elaborate masques. Even the most lavish modern Renaissance fair would pale in comparison with this unmitigated display of wealth.
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