Hors-Training-art (16K) 8/12/10 "SCA Equestrian Training Tips" by Lady Lyonet Lamoureux.

trim-msg (61K) 8/16/10 Medieval and SCA trim for clothing.

Calontir Deputy Historian Vilhelm Lich reports that he has created an album of photos from the recent Raid or Trade event. The photos are available on Flickr.

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Caelin on Andrede reports that he has posted an album of photos from Summer 2010 Crown Tournament in the Kingdom of Ansteorra. The photos are available to view on Flickr.

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Dame Christian de Holacombe from the Shire of Windy Meads in the Kingdom of the West reports on Medieval Sock Wars at the recent West/An Tir War. (photos)

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A few months ago, I developed a big-time crush on a sailor. We’re very different, he and I. Language, an ocean, spouses, and six centuries separate us.

His name is Michalli da Ruodo, or Michael of Rhodes. He sailed for Venice in the days when her merchants controlled a commercial empire envied from London to Constantinople. My mind’s eye has conjured a man who looks like Federico Castelluccio, complete with the ponytail and sideburns he sported in The Sopranos, and I imagine he behaves like Russell Crowe’s Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

After reading Michael’s service record, I’ve decided that he’s brave, strong, and loyal. He’s definitely clever and ambitious. He wrote a book about mathematics and shipbuilding, no subjects for slouches. And his wit is mordant. Mind you, my only evidence for Michael’s sense of humor is an amateurish coat of arms he drew in his book. It shows two crowned turnips flanking a rat holding a bloodied cat. Now, I wonder, does the rat represent him, and is the cat a stand-in for the Venetians he served, possibly with resentment?

I met my centuries-old flame in The Book of Michael of Rhodes: A Fifteenth-Century Maritime Manuscript, a three-volume work released recently by MIT Press. It is the culmination of work begun in 2002 when Michael’s manuscript, which is privately held, was made available for study to the now dissolved Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology. MIT has meticulously recreated Michael’s manuscript in one volume; the second and third volumes include a transcription of the medieval Venetian, a translation, and a collection of essays put together by an international team of experts in Venetian history, shipbuilding and design, navigation, mathematics, medieval astrology and medicine, art history, and paleography.

Click here to read this article from Humanities

See also our feature on The Book of Michael of Rhodes

During the weekend of July 3-4, 2010, reenactors from around the world converged on the banks of the River Vistula in Warsaw, Poland to celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Battle of Klushino in 1610.

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Khevron's Heraldrydiculous Comics, which feature SCA heraldic puns and other historical humor, passed #200 recently, and the author reports, "inspiration continues (for good or ill -- ymmv)."

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For centuries, it was theorized that Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his second wife, Bianca Cappello were murdered, but new evidence shows that their deaths were from natural causes.

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In a region already rich with archaeological artefacts, the excavation of a small alabaster box containing a few pieces of bone amid the ruins of a medieval monastery might easily have passed unnoticed.

But when Bulgarian archaeologists declared they had found relics of John the Baptist, one of the most significant early Christian saints, their discovery became the subject of rather more interest -- prompting angry exchanges in the local media and even calls for a government minister's resignation.

The claim is based on a reliquary -- a container for holy relics -- found on July 28 under the altar of a fifth century basilica on Sveti Ivan, a Black Sea island off Sozopol on Bulgaria's southern coast. Inside, archaeologists found eight pieces of bone, including fragments of skull and face bone and a tooth.

Click here to read this article from CNN

Archaeologists in Melksham (located in the English county of Wiltshire) have uncovered evidence of medieval iron working believed to date from the 13th-14th century.

A team from Cotswold Archaeology has been excavating before new housing is built at Clackers Brook on the east of Melksham.

“The finds are very tantalising” said senior project officer Alistair Barber.

“One discovery in particular stands out. We have uncovered a rectangular pit measuring 1m wide, 2m in length and 0.5m deep which bears some very unusual scorch marks, indicating that the pit was heated to a very high temperature.

Click here to read this article from This is Wiltshire

The citizens of Joplin, Missouri (USA) were treated to an afternoon of knights in armor recently when members of the Shire of Crystal Mynes presented a demo. Bonney Bowman of FourStates.com has the story. (video)

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From May 31 until August 21, 2011, the Getty Center in Los Angels will play host to the exhibit Fashion in the Middle Ages.

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An amateur actress rehearsing for a show at St. Mary's Church in Redgrave, England got more than a sore ankle when her foot went through a flagstone near the altar. She inadvertently discovered a long-lost burial chamber.

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favors-msg (86K) 7/19/10 On the making and giving of favors.

beads-msg (53K) 7/29/10 Necklaces, beads.

placenames3-msg (16K) 8/11/10 Origins and meanings of SCA placenames. Pt. 3

placenames2-msg (106K) 8/11/10 Origins and meanings of SCA placenames. Pt. 2

butter-msg (197K) 7/29/10 Period butter. Making butter. Butter churns.

In this episode we go crazy with cooking, thatched roof talk and all the fun of the middle ages. Also we have a return of the things I hate comedy bit. Hope you enjoy.