Shelby, I met my wife at an SCA event. She used to be able to stab me a whole lot better than I could stab her. Fencing with dull blunted rapiers mind you, but

Now that is an excellent question!! First of all, it is a myth that women were inferior to men throughout the medieval period, there were cultures where the

... Welcome, Shelby! :) You're right, we're not strict literalists. We take our name pretty seriously: Society for *Creative* Anachronism. What we seek to do

One of the sayings associated with the SCA is "Not as it was but as is should have been". There are a lot of roles that Ladies' in the SCA are involved in

Hi,I am Shelby. I am brand new to the SCA. I hadn't had any exposure to the SCA until recently when I stumbled on the website. I was very happy to find it!

Greetings All! I answered this good gentle privately, and copied the Kingdom Chatelaine of Gleann Abhann, who should be able to help Christey find her group,

Notre Dame de Paris, on the River Seine, has seen over 8 centuries of history, from the Crusades to World War II. Now the city will fête the world's best-known church in a year-long celebration that will include recasting of its bells.

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The majority of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts appear to be safe and unharmed after the Saharan city's 10-month occupation by Islamist rebel fighters, experts said on Wednesday, rejecting some media reports of their widespread destruction.

Denying accounts that told of tens of thousands of priceless papers being burned or stolen by the fleeing rebels, they said the bulk of the Timbuktu texts had been safely hidden well before the city's liberation by French forces on Sunday.

Brittle, written in ornate calligraphy, and ranging from scholarly treatises to old commercial invoices, the Timbuktu texts represent a compendium of human knowledge on everything from law, sciences and medicine to history and politics. Some experts compare them in importance to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

News that they were mostly safe, from people directly involved with conservation of the texts, was a relief to the world's cultural community, which had been dismayed by the prospect of a large-scale loss.

Click here to read this article from Reuters

Daniel Defoe's novel about London's 1665 plague can help us understand new media. No, really.

 The plague was abroad. Londoners knew not where it had come from, only that it was upon Holland. "It was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus," Daniel Defoe wrote in the opening of his historical novel, A Journal of the Plague Year.

 The book, which many read as something like non-fiction, bore the webby subtitle, being observations or memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665, and bore stamps of authenticity -- it was "Written by a citizen who remained all the while in London" -- and intrigue, having "Never [been] made public before."

 Which, as a journalist of the web era, made me think: that Defoe knew how to gin up some pageviews! And in fact, Defoe did. (If you can't see the translation to the headline argot du jour, allow me: 73 Amazing and Horrible Things That Happened During the Plague, From Someone Who Saw Them With His Own Two Eyes. And no, I didn't count. But the point is: no one's counting.)

Click here to read this article from The Atlantic

... You've come to the right place. :) Where exactly are you now, if you don't mind sharing the name of the town, county, and/or state with us? I'm confident

Christey73, You may wish to visit this helpful web page. http://www.sca.org/geography/findsca.html If you need further assistance, I will be happy to do what I

Greetings my lords and ladies. I am a fairly new member to the SCA. When i started going to events I lived in the Kingdom of Meridies but have moved now to

Duncan Bane fuar Bhathais has been placed on vigil by Their Majesties Tristan and Damiana of the Kingdom of Atenveldt to contemplate elevation to the Order of the Chivalry.

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A restoration project completed on time is a rare happening. Even rarer is one completed 6 months early and under budget, but that is the case with work on the 12th century Torre Abbey in Torquay, Devon.

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The great East Kingdom bardic competition draws near.   Our gracious King and Queen will choose their new champions, while the populace will enjoy the story and song.  To show the bards that we appreciate their gifts of entertainment, we are encouraging the populace to give their site token as a gift to a worthy bard.   To increase these feelings of appreciation to greater heights there will also be small tokens for sale costing $1 each.  All token sales benefit the East Kingdom Royal General Fund.

These tokens will also allow the populace to make their favorites known. The performer who accumulates the most tokens will be granted two seats at head table during feast.  Performers who wish to be considered for seating at high table should total the number of tokens received throughout the day and report the tally to Countess Svava Thorgeirsdottir before the beginning of court. Only tokens given to the performer by a member of the populace will count in the tally and may include site tokens, a purchased token, or some other form of token brought given to a bardic competitor as appreciation for bardic skills.

Filed under: Arts and Sciences, Events Tagged: Bardic, King and Queen's Champions

In a scholarly paper, an abstract of which was published recently at Medievalists.net, K.F. Werner examines techniques for forging Frankish swords from 700-1000 CE. Werner disputes the generally-accepted techniques.

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If you were at Birka last weekend you might have seen people with nifty items for which they did not pay! Thieves??  No just happy receivers of gifts made JUST for them from Swap II of the East Kingdom Artisanal Exchange.

While Swap II has drawn to a close Swap III is now open looking for artisans young or old, new or experienced, who have an itch to create and gift for the FUN of doing.

Curious? Have more questions?  Take a peek at the activity at our new EKAE Shutterfly Site

Filed under: Arts and Sciences

The Society Seneschal’s office is seeking a Deputy Seneschal for Market Research to develop and implement a market research capability support the ongoing primary research needs that will prove fundamental to the continued improvement of decision-making for the Society for Creative Anachronism.

The Deputy Seneschal for Market Research will be tasked with integrating existing survey research tools and resources from the significant prior efforts of the 2010 Census Committee with any new staff and tools that may be necessary to support the research and analysis goals and needs to provide the actionable intelligence necessary to improve Society decision-making.

Candidates should have professional experience and expertise designing, deploying, and analyzing online and offline survey designs and web panels through a range of various tools (e.g., Zoomerang and SurveyMonkey) to quickly develop actionable recommendations to improve decision-making.  Initial projects would focus on surveying the general population to gauge the size and potential interest level of different recruitment-oriented psychological market segments to inform Society messaging and targeting endeavors, and surveying our existing populace to gauge the size and ongoing interest level of different retention-oriented psychographic market segments to improve our retention-oriented efforts.

Ideally, candidates would have survey design and analysis experience as an analyst within a corporate marketing department, an advertising or marketing agency or consultancy, or some similar professional background.  Additionally, expertise or experience with SEO and/or SEM digital marketing testing would also be highly valued.

If you might be interested in such a role, or are aware of anybody who might be appropriate for the position let me know please.  To apply email me at seneschal@sca.org attaching both your professional and an SCA resume.

Comments are strongly encouraged and can be sent to:
SCA Inc.
Box 360789
Milpitas,  CA 95036

You may also email comments@lists.sca.org.

This announcement is an official informational release by the Society for Creative Anachronism , Inc.  Permission is granted to reproduce this announcement in its entirety in newsletters, websites and electronic mailing lists.

Filed under: Corporate, Official Notices

The Society Social Media Policy has been approved by the Board of Directors and is now available for download at www.sca.org/docs/pdf/SCASocialMediaPolicy.pdf. The Society has recently debuted its official presences on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/currentmiddleages and on Twitter @SCAsocial and we encourage you to visit and subscribe to those presences to see news and information from across the Known World.

Please note, the Announcements list from sca.org will continue to be the official distribution list for announcements from the Board of Directors. You can subscribe to it at http://lists.sca.org/listinfo/announcements. With any questions concerning use of Social Media in the SCA, please contact Lord Tobias Morgan, Deputy Society Seneschal for Social Media, at socialmedia@sca.org.

Comments are strongly encouraged and can be sent to:
SCA Inc.
Box 360789
Milpitas,  CA 95036

You may also email comments@lists.sca.org.

This announcement is an official informational release by the Society for Creative Anachronism , Inc.  Permission is granted to reproduce this announcement in its entirety in newsletters, websites and electronic mailing lists.

Filed under: Corporate, Official Notices

An additional note to this article about Their Majesties’ Birka clothing.

The longer quote of Queen Thyra’s dress was translated into modern Danish and then into runes.  The translation into Danish was done by Jarla Dagmar and Lady Vibeke Steensdatter.

Photo by Cateline la Broderesse

Filed under: Arts and Sciences, Court