Life in the
Current Middle Ages
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What is the
SCA?
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.
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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 selectively recreate 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 Buck-skinning 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 24,000 paying members in the U.S., Canada, United
Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Romania, Japan, New
Zealand, South Africa and Australia. Many of us guess that for every
dues-paying member, there are three or four other active
participants.
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How is the SCA
Organized?
The SCA is a feudal society. The SCA
"Knowne World" is divided into sixteen 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
idea 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 for in a
Crown Tournament for the right to make his Lady Queen and the right
to wear the crown. 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.
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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 -- a helm, and protection for the neck,
cervical vertebrae, elbows, knees, kidneys, hands, and groin. In
addition, 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, known as "marshals." This training aims at ensuring that
the fighter is safe to himself or herself and to others, 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
authorized 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.
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Why do you all have such funny
names?
Every person in the SCA picks a name to
use in the Society. It could be something simple and familiar (John
of Wardcliff) or something elaborate and exotic (Oisin Dubh mac
Lochlainn). Most people pick a time period in the SCA "period"
(pre-1600) and a country (any place that can documented and proven to
have had trade with western civilization during the period), and
choose a name from that. Some SCA members 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 if 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 members in choosing a registering their SCA names and
heraldic devices. The College of Arms assists members in their
research, to ensure that their names and devices are appropriate to
the medieval world we try to create, and ensures that each person's
name and device will be unique.
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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 members 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 members (and lots of long-time
members!) 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
evolved. 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 in, 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 breast 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.
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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.
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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 members
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 spend 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."
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How You Can Get
Involved
We welcome you to attend 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 members find their way into the
SCA.
If you want more information about
groups near you, the best starting point is the Geography page which
lists the Kingdoms and the States in which they are located. Just
click on the name of the Kingdom that you reside in and you will be
taken to that Kingdom's web page. If you are unable to find the
information you are looking for you may also call our corporate
office in Milpitas, CA, at (800) 789-7486, or send mail to:
In US/Canada: Member
Services
Society For Creative
Anachronism
PO Box 360789
Milpitas, CA 95036-0789
This material was taken
verbatim from the SCA website: address:
http://www.sca.org/sca-intro.html
It is included here for informational purposes only!
For questions about Scholarum Caidis or its information,
please contact THL Chretienne Angele de Courtenay, mkaBonnie
Black-Shockey, decourt@flashcom.net