recent scrollwork

[aryanhwy]

The best part about being signet (other than getting all the gossip in advance, in getting to see all the beautiful scrolls produced by the kingdom scribes, arranging for scribes to do scrolls for their friends, making sure people get their long-awaited backlogs...okay, so there's lots of good things about being a signet) is getting to make scrolls for friends. When the queen sent me a court list that included a Sigillum Reginae for an old, dear friend, I put my name down for that one without giving anyone else a chance.

It was given out this weekend (or, it would have been, had not car trouble prevented the recipient from making it to the event!), so I can post it here.

Sigillum Reginae for Guntram von Wolkenstein


The text is based on the first 13 pages of The Paston Letters and reads:

To our right trusty and heartily well-beloved Guntram von Wolkenstein, Master of the Laurel, we greet you well, thanking you as heartily as we can for ourself and especially for that ye do so much for our house and court, which I trust verily ye do rather for the great love that ye deem I have thereto. And forasmuch as we purpose to thank you for your rightful favour showed to us in all matters that toucheth us, we pray that you proudly and humbly bear our sigil, and that in so doing you be long preserved in honour and prosperity. Written at Adamestor, on the 6th day of November, a.s. 45, by your queen

It took two days to complete; I drew out the design on the first day, and did everything else on the second. The design is taken from the Hours of Mary of Guelders, fol. 19v, reproduced on p.78 of John Harthan, Books of Hours and Their Owners. The MS is dated to 1415.

Comments

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

In Drachenwald, so long as the text has the name of the recipient, the name of the K&Q, the award, and the date, anything goes. This is good on the one hand, because it allows a lot of flexibility, but it's not so good on the other because new scribes can find it daunting to come up with a text on its own. That's one reason why I always put my texts on my documentation pages for my scrolls, so that when someone asks for wording suggestions I can send them to ones of couple of different styles and lengths so that they can either copy or modify.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I gather part of the reason for the Outlands policy is because there have been issues in the past with religious-flavored text that the signers weren't comfortable signing (I am guessing not so much period religious-flavored). The SCA in the U.S. has an uncomfortable relationship with religion.

There's probably also a certain amount of wanting to be sure of the correct legalese (Award of Arms vs Grant of Arms, etc.) being included, and there are rules about who has to sign off on the illumination if heraldry is included (if the recipient's arms are presented on a shield, the principal herald is supposed to sign the scroll; if they are on a flag or a dress or if pieces are incorporated into the overall illumination, they don't. I think. And we're not supposed to put blank shields on AoA scrolls; people are supposed to commission non-promissory AoA scrolls if they want to, which most people don't realize).

I wonder if the level of trust in the scribe in your system works because you have a somewhat smaller scribal system?

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I don't know. We certainly have a pretty small system at the moment, but I don't know if it's always been like that. Well, even if we haven't had such a small number of scribes in the past, it is the case that relatively few awards are given out each reign, just because traveling for the royalty is expensive and time-consuming. There's been 51 awards given out in the current reign so far, and that's pretty high, I believe.

We don't have the requirements about the herald signing off on scrolls that have arms on them, so that helps.

We haven't had problems with religious-flavored texts here, so much. It's pretty much all omitted, unless the scribe knows that both the K&Q and the recipient don't mind it (I've had the pleasure of doing a few scrolls that met that requirement, and it warmed the cockles of my period-text-loving heart).

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I would think one could write guidelines that would allow for custom scroll texts while avoiding major pitfalls. Hmmm.

(I wish I could think of a way to write them so period religion was okay, but modern religion was off the table, but I can't, and I'm sure that would still bug people.)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

It seems like the bullet points you gave me could be turned into flexible guidelines pretty easily. Maybe also if it was accompanied by examples of both what to do and what not to do?

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.

*Custom scroll texts should be based on period examples or current approved kingdom scroll texts.
*Do not include references to religion unless you known the recipient will not mind and have confirmed that Crown/Coronet/Herald [as applicable] is comfortable with signing it.
*Double-check that terminology regarding awards is correct. [include some kind of cheat-sheet here to order names, styling of members, etc.]
*When in doubt, run your custom scroll text by the kingdom scribe.

Something like that? It should be possible--after all, illuminators have similar latitude and that works out pretty well (although I suspect there are a lot of scrolls with heraldry that didn't get properly signed because someone didn't remember that bit of the handbook).

(I admit I have a scroll written in lolcat, that was totally not approved by anyone other than the Coronet, and which is totally not period, but I do love it. Kind of a special case, though.)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, something like that, along with things like "these bits are required: name/award/granting royalty/date", and "AoAs for people w/o registered arms shouldn't have blank shields".

A Lolspeak scroll, awesome!

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

"AoAs for people w/o registered arms shouldn't have blank shields".

That's already in the scribal handbook in the illumination section.

Well, I'll have to reread the handbook and ponder further and perhaps I'll ask the new KS about the policy once she's more settled into the job. I suspect getting it changed to allow people to skip the approval process is sort of unlikely, but it's worth a shot. Maybe just getting more information out there about writing custom texts would help....