Herald’s Admonishments: Chivalry for Heralds

About a decade or so ago, I became acquainted with Gerald Legh's Accedens of Armourie (1562) as a relatively new herald. Gerald Legh was an English lawyer (specifically the Inner Temple of the Inns of Court) and wrote a lot on heraldry specifically. Within the Accedens, he also admonishes that the people acting as heralds …

Adventures in Mesoamerica: Maya Blue Paint

A little bit ago, I discovered a pigment while window-shopping at Kremer Pigments' website and, well, I fell down the rabbit hole pretty hard. The colour had a couple of shades of a greyish, almost smoky blue, ranging from dark to light, and to find out that it was used in not only Mesoamerican stonework, …

Illuminated Fealty Oath

So, in this, the days of the panda's panini pandemonium, life in the SCA has continued. We have a new set of royals in Calontir, but because this is indeed the panda's panini pandemonium and also January, my partner and I decided that we could not really afford to travel to coronations. Now, if you …

Breaking Byzantine: building a Byzantine persona for the SCA

This originated as part of building a basic persona guide, written for the Midrealm Pursuivant's Handbook (located here). Within that guide, I discussed the basic history of the Eastern Empire, as well as basic points of clothing, weaponry, literary references, political groups, religious information, as well as people within the Empire of note. This guide …

Broke Byzantine: making a sartorial riot happen on a budget

All too often, when the term Byzantine and the Eastern Roman Empire are brought up in re-enactment and recreationist contexts, especially in a clothing context, we think opulence and splendour. We think “guess I’ll have to mortgage my house” or “time to rob the bank to afford this look.” I’m here to say that no, …

Pomp and Splendor: what to do with your heraldic device once registered

Once you've registered your arms, there are a multitude of ways to display them, all which add to our game. While I'll be using my arms as an example, keep in mind that different shapes may work better (or worse) with your arms. When you work on your own ideas, sketch out your own arms …

Making Choices; or why Konstantia wore one outfit over another

Seriously. This is pretty close to what we had. I live just north of the green circle. Calontir Coronation was this weekend, and as is often the risk with midwestern kingdoms in January, we had the prediction of some pretty heinous weather. So not kidding - we had a winter storm warning issued that morning …

Byzantine Monograms: a heraldic practice

As an early-period Byzantine within the Society, I have come to grips that my arms and badges as registered with the College of Arms are perhaps not the most period for my persona, and so, this concept of trying to find a way of marking things that were mine or even blinging out things further …

SCA Philosophy Question Ahoy!

Since November 28, 2017, I’ve been asking my social media friends list (which, yes, comprises mostly of SCA folks) questions about SCA philosophy, SCA personae, and the like. Sometimes, the questions may have been a bit pointed, and sometimes, well, it’s curiosity. I know I’ve repeated some in my questions (as I’m going through the …

And after you ditch the donut. . . the bling!

My Byzanbestie, Anna of Anna's New Rome, just made a post about how anachronistic and frankly, terrible, the fabric donut is with Byzantine clothing.  You can read about it here, with this another part of our collaboration.  (TAG TEAM GO!) Of course, this led down the rabbit hole of what to do to further ornament …