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Jan 23 05:54 UTC 1995 |
Life in the Current Middle Ages
Written by Mistress Siobhan Medhbh O'Roarke
Edited and revised with the author's permission, and posted at irregular
intervals by Arval Benicoeur (mittle@panix.com). This article may be
copied and re-published in SCA publications or used as an introductory
handout by any SCA participant.
This is not an official publication of the Society for Creative
Anachronism, Inc., and does not define official policy in any regard.
The SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism, which is a group
dedicated to researching and recreating the Middle Ages in the present.
Many groups meet weekly, and at these meetings we dance, talk, study,
learn, revel, and make plans. But first, let's get a little bit of info
about the SCA in general.
Where did the SCA come from?
The avowed purpose of the SCA is the study and recreation of the
European Middle Ages, its crafts, sciences, arts, traditions,
literature, etc. The SCA "period" is defined to be Western civilization
before 1600 AD, concentrating on the Western European High Middle Ages.
Under the aegis of the SCA we study dance, calligraphy, martial arts,
cooking, metalwork, stained glass, costuming, literature... well, if
they did it, somebody in the SCA does it (Except die of the Plague!).
As you can probably guess, the thing that separates the SCA from a
Humanities 101 class is the *active* participation in the learning
process. To learn costuming, you design and build costumes. To learn SCA
infantry fighting, you make armor, weapons, shields, etc., and put them
on and go learn how it feels to wear them when somebody is swinging a
(rattan) sword at you. To learn brewing, you make (and sample!) your own
wines, meads and beers.
You will frequently hear a SCA person describe the SCA as recreating the
Middle Ages "as they ought to have been." In some ways this is true --
we have few plagues, indoor plumbing, few peasants. In the dead of
winter we have other things to eat than King's venison, salt pork and
dried tubers. However, a better description is that we are *selectively*
recreating medieval culture, choosing elements of the culture that
interest and attract us.
The SCA was started in 1966 in Berkeley, California by a group of
science fiction and fantasy fans who wanted a theme party. Following
the party, a group got together to discuss the idea of a medieval
re-creation and re-enactment group (which has ended up being much like
the Civil War, Revolutionary War or Buckskinning re-enactment groups
that were beginning to form in the US). In Britain, medieval and British
Civil War recreation societies had existed for any number of years. The
Californians incorporated as a non-profit educational society, started
forming groups, and away they went.
Since 1966, the society has grown to include over 20,000 paying members
in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Italy,
Okinawa, New Zealand, Australia, Iceland, the Netherlands, Scotland,
Ireland, and Spain. Many of us guess that for every dues-paying member,
there are three or four other active participants.
How is the SCA Organized?
The SCA is a feudal society. The SCA "Knowne World" is divided into
thirteen Kingdoms, each with a King and Queen (who rule by right of
arms), a Prince and Princess (heirs to the throne), and a council or
Curia of Great Officers who handle the day to day business of running
the kingdom.
A feudal society takes its form from the idea of service and duty. A
noble owes duty of service to his lord, who might be a Baron or Knight.
In return, his lord owes protection from danger and food, money, etc.,
when times are bad. For his own part, the lord owes fealty (the word
that encompasses this idea of reciprocal responsibilities) to his own
overlord, and so on up the ladder to the King. In return for their
service as good stewards of the land and readily available warriors, the
King owes Knights, Barons, and other high nobles protection, honor, and
a return of money, food, etc., in times of hardship. It is something
like the idea of a Pyramid club, but the benefits are greater and the
ideas of personal honor and mutual responsibility, not profit, tie the
structure together (or at least it did in Europe for nearly a thousand
years).
In the SCA this structure underlies our Society, although not nearly as
rigidly as in the medieval days. Our King, the head of our Kingdom and
our liege lord, has fought in a Crown Tournament for the right to make
his Lady Queen and the right to wear the crown. <In the case of female
fighters, she has fought for the right to make her Lord King.> Royalty
are bound by the laws and customs of the kingdom and the Society as a
whole, but still wield significant power over their subjects. Of
course, four to six months later there is a new King, with different
ideas. Life can get interesting.
Fighting in the SCA, or Why are those people hitting each other?
Fighting in the SCA evolved from what happened when two armed knights
were unhorsed and had to fight on the ground. It resembles nothing so
much as medieval foot tournaments. There are two basic types of SCA
fights: single combat, and group or team battles, known as melees. SCA
fighting does have rules. The first, and most important rule, is that
each and every fighter on the field has honor. The fighter keeps faith
with his honor by accepting blows that would be killing or wounding
(more about this a little later).
The second basic principle is like the first; A fighter keeps faith with
his brother fighters by acknowledging his opponent's word -- if he says
a blow was too light to cause injury, then it was light. Since we
prefer that no one get hurt, SCA fighting is done with real armor (made
with leather, metal, padding, kydex, etc) and rattan swords. Rattan is
that bamboo-y stuff, only with a solid core, that furniture is made of.
Rattan, surprisingly enough, is springy enough to absorb some of the
force of the blow (although blows are *real solid*) and light enough to
approximate a real steel sword. Swords are made by wrapping rattan
staffs with strapping tape, covering them with duct tape for aesthetic
reasons, and attaching some sort of crosspiece or guard. Armor is much
more complex -- some armor, being made of steel, rivets, leather, etc,
can take more than 40 hours per piece of armor (for example, a gauntlet,
or armored glove, with moving fingers and joints can take upwards of 75
hours to complete).
There are several essential and required pieces of armor -- helm, neck
and cervical vertebrae protection, elbows and knees, kidneys, hands,
groin. After that, most SCA fighters wear chest, leg, arm and forearm,
and foot protection.
Before being allowed to participate in combat without close supervision,
each fighter is trained by senior fighters, and must be judged safe by
an officer called a "marshal." This training aims at ensuring that the
fighter is safe to himself or herself and to other, and typically lasts
a few months. As part of this training, the novice fighter is taught
how to recognize a "good" blow. Each fighter judges whether blows
received in combat strike hard enough to do injury through armor. If
the blow is "good" to an arm or leg, the fighter will give up use of
that limb; if the blow is good to the head or body, the fighter is
"dead," and falls to the ground, signaling that his opponent is
victorious. At the end of training, each fighter must prove to a panel
of marshals that he is competent to fight on his own. If the panel
decides the fighter is safe (not good, you understand, but unlikely to
hurt him or herself or an opponent) they authorize him or her to fight
in tournaments. This process (from starting to fight to being
authorized) can take from a couple of months to a year or more.
We also have unofficially added a form of dueling, which simulates the
honorable combat found toward the end of our period. We use collegiate
fencing masks and blades, primarily, but we fence in the round and use
weapons or blocking implements in both hands. As with sword and shield
combat, we require authorization for safety reasons. In period dueling
would have been done in street dress: we require padded jackets and
other safety gear, but often it is decorated to appear as street
clothes. It has become quite popular in the last five years.
Our other official combat sport is archery. We offer both target
shooting, and in some places we allow light weight bows and very special
arrows to be used in simulations of combat archery. Again, we are
extremely concerned with safety.
Why Do you all have such funny names?
Every person in the SCA picks a name to use in the Society choosing a
name appropriate to some time and place within the historical scope of
the Society. It could be something simple and familiar (John of
Wardcliff) or something elaborate and exotic (Oisin Dubh mac Lochlainn).
Some SCA participants try to create a "persona" which could have lived
in some time and place within the scope of the SCA, and fit their garb
and activities to that persona; some people try to live at events as if
they were their personae. Other folk simply pick a name and go ahead
with life in the "Current Middle Ages."
Even our towns have medieval names. Lansing, MI, is Northwoods, Toronto
is Eoforwic, Boston is Carolingia, the San Francisco bay area is the
Principality of the Mists, etc.
The SCA has its own College of Arms, which assists participants in
choosing their SCA names and heraldic devices. The College of Arms
assists participants in their research to ensure that their names and
devices are appropriate to the medieval world we try to create.
Rank in the SCA, or How Come She is Wearing a Crown?
The SCA has an elaborate system of rank, awards, and honors, which are
granted to individual participants by the royalty in return for various
kinds of service to the Society. SCA rank is earned, not inherited:
Everyone is presumed to be minor nobility to start, but any noble titles
or honors used in the SCA must be earned in the SCA. Many new
participants (and lots of long-time participants!) find the SCA's system
of rank to be rather peculiar, in that it differs rather radically from
medieval practice. Like many of the SCA's institutions, our system of
rank wasn't so much planned as growed. It seems to serve our needs most
of the time, but don't be surprised to hear people discussing how it
could be improved.
There are two sorts of peers in the SCA; Royal Peers and Awarded Peers.
Royal Peers are folk who have ruled a Kingdom or Principality at least
once. Ex-Princes are Viscounts, Ex-Princesses Viscountesses, and from
there it gets complex. Those who have been King or Queen once are
Counts/Countesses. Those who have been King or Queen twice are
Dukes/Duchesses. Those who have been King or Queen more than that are
generally considered masochistic! (Small in-joke!) There are many who
have reigned at least three times, and in the West there is a legendary
Duke who has been King eight times.
Other sorts of Peers are folk who, by dint of talent, hard work, and
long effort, have earned recognition for their contributions and skills.
There are three awarded peerage orders, all of which have the same
basic requirements: new companions must be honorable and courteous,
familiar with the basic gentle arts of a medieval court, and should have
proven their dedication to the Society and its ideals. These orders
rank equally. The oldest of the peerage orders is the Chivalry. The
chivalry, who include the Knights, are fighters who have achieved great
skill at arms, and who are considered by the other members of the
Chivalry to be models of prowess, chivalry, and honor. The knight is
considered by many to be the central figure in our medieval mythos.
Second oldest is Order of the Laurel, which is awards to craftsmen and
artists recognized for their research in medieval crafts, their
willingness to teach their skills, and their skill at their arts. The
laurel wreath was anciently used to crown victors at Greek games, great
poets, etc., and has always been a mark of achievement and skill.
Finally, there is the Order of the Pelican, given to those whose work in
service to the SCA has made a great difference. Companions of the
Pelican are often skilled bureaucrats -- somebody *has* to do the hard
paperwork of running a Kingdom of 3000 people, and some people keep
working at this sort of task for years. The Pelican was thought in
medieval times to be the most self-sacrificing animal: It was thought a
Pelican would pierce her beast to allow her heart's blood to drip into
the mouths of her offspring when food was short. Peers are created by
the desire of the King and Queen in accordance with the recommendations
of the companions of the order.
Feasting, Dancing and Merrymaking
One of the most interesting parts of the SCA is "events", our word for
the times when we put on our medieval clothing, go out and dance those
dances we've been practicing, flirt, eat, talk, and generally have a
good time. Events are held almost every weekend of the year somewhere;
some weekends there may be as many as a couple dozen events scattered
around the SCA. Most groups hold at least one event per year; some
larger groups will hold two or more. At events there are often
tournaments, art exhibits or competitions, classes on all manner of
medieval skills, workshops, and, later in the evening, a medieval feast,
Royal or Baronial Court, and dancing. There are many different kinds of
events, and the common pattern varies from place to place and season to
season. The events are the most fun to most folk, because you get to go
and show off all the things you have been learning in the past few
months.
What Kind of Person Joins the SCA?
SCA folk tend to be people like you and me -- just plain folks, but
people who enjoy doing something more with their weekends. It seems
that a high percentage of SCA participants are involved in high tech
fields -- Computers, Aerospace, high energy physics, etc. Perhaps the
attraction the SCA holds for them can be attributed to the fact that
people who send all week with highly complex, modern technology find it
relaxing to spend their leisure time working with a different kind of
technology, in a less modern setting. There are lots of people in all
fields in the SCA -- historians, writers, secretaries, law enforcement
personnel, teachers, programmers, insurance agents -- the appeal of the
SCA is widespread.
A housemate of a SCA person recently said: "From what I can tell about
these wild and crazy SCA people, they do more than just this fighting
thing. They really like to make and wear the medieval clothes (garb),
eat the medieval food, dance the medieval dances to the medieval music,
maybe even make their own medieval music, and other medieval party type
activities. They also seem to like to be medieval so they can relax and
have a good time. They are quite willing to talk about SCA or invite you
to the SCA stuff or whatever."
How You Can Get Involved
We welcome you to our local meetings and our events. You needn't join
the SCA, Inc, to attend and participate (although if you decide to be
with us regularly you may wish to join). The only requirement to come to
an event is that you make some attempt at pre-1600 costume -- and most
groups have "loaner" costumes for people who want to come to their first
event. Each SCA participant remembers the day s/he started, and most
people are happy to help out a newcomer. Many local groups have
officers whose sole duty is to help new participants find their way into
the SCA.
Welcome to the current middle ages!
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