ANST - A Scribe's point of view...

[Dawn Draheim]

Mistress Lasair from the Steppes, here.

My apologies for weighing in so late to this discussion, but I am not
subscribed to this list (I have far too large a quantity of email as it
is to add in any additional e-lists...) and only heard about it recently.
It's been a lengthy discussion to try to absorb all at once, but I'll give
commenting on it my best shot.  :)  I further apologize for not replying
to individual messages but if I tried that, I'm afraid I'd never catch up!  :)

I have worked within the scribal community almost continuously for about 
eleven years now (barring a couple months of total burnout, and another
seven month absence during an illness).  I have served our kingdom as 
Star Signet once and as Sable Scroll twice.  I helped found the Steppes 
Scribes Guild eleven years ago, a guild which has remained active 
continuously to this day.  I have watched and participated in the evolution 
of our Charter system, and have seen the wonderful strides we've made in 
the improved quality of their calligraphy and illumination.  We've come a 
long way in those eleven years and I'm very proud to have been a small 
part of it.

My understanding of what's being proposed:  There are two 
documents that would be given in Court to each recipient, a warrant 
(which would be pre-printed, calligraphy only, and filled in by Sable Scroll 
much as our current Charters are) and a Proclamation (which would 
preferably each be done by hand, but photocopied "fill-in-blanks"
would be available for last minute additions).  At some point after 
Court, each of the recipients would contact the Star Signet to arrange 
for a "pretty" version of their award which would not disrupt anyone's 
feeling of "periodness" because it's only going to be seen in the recipient's 
own home and not openly in Court.  (Which also means that the
scribe's work won't be seen either...)

I have to say that I have various reservations regarding the proposed
ideas I've been reading about.  I'd like to provide some information
points from an active scribe who has a reasonable amount of experience
in the various aspects of the work required...

By using both Warrants and Proclamations, you're easily doubling the 
workload of the Sable Scroll (because they have to, at a minimum, 
fill out two documents for each award).  Part of the reason for using
one person (Sable Scroll) to fill out the charters is to help keep a lid on
knowledge of who's getting what from leaking out.  Another reason
for one person is the short amount of lead time given for filling out
the award documents.  If they had to spend time tracking down 
calligraphers to help them create the individual Proclamations...I'm
getting a headache just imagining the logistics.  If they have to do 
it entirely themselves, that's a lot more calligraphy than they're used
to doing.  I'd rather not have scribes injuring themselves and ending up
having to have surgery done (losing Serena's talented and capable
hands to it was quite bad enough, I'd rather not go there again).

Painting Charters has proven to be a valuable training tool for reaching 
out to potential new scribes.  It exposes them to a number of different
styles, giving them the opportunity to see what things do and don't 
interest them more quickly than if they were having to try out each style
by themselves, and allows them to try out painting techniques in a low-
pressure situation.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard a new painter
utter something like "I could *never* do something like that!" while 
looking at a charter, only to be quietly encouraging and guiding them 
a year or so later through their first original project.

It's also a fun and rewarding way for people to do a useful service for 
their kingdom.  Most of the people who paint have *no* interest in learning 
to draw the artwork or do the calligraphy.  (Which derails the suggestion
that all the painters could simply take up creating originals.)  They enjoy 
the fellowship of painting with others, sharing their enthusiasm and joy in 
being able to provide service for their kingdom.  I, for one, am very grateful 
to them for all their hard work because it frees up those scribes who do 
want to do original work to do it.  Bless you all for painting; I think of
you every time I sit down to do an original piece.

It is my belief, and that of the other scribes with whom I've spoken over
the last few days, that we have more illuminors (those who draw the
original artwork) than calligraphers (though, of course, there are those
who do both), and that we have more Charter painters than either of
the other two.  Therefore, the proposed purely calligraphed 'warrants'
and 'proclamations' would require the work of our smallest subset of 
scribes.  Furthermore, if we were truly to do these warrants properly, 
they should be done using legal documentary scripts which is not 
something most SCA calligraphers are interested in (indeed, many of 
them probably don't know such things exist...).  I could count on the 
fingers of one hand those calligraphers I know of who have attempted 
even one legal script.

Ansteorra gives out a great many awards every reign, the most recent
estimate I've heard places it around 300 to 350 per reign, 600 to 700
per year.  Assuming that there are 20 active scribes capable and willing
to do the original works (and honestly, I can not name even that many),
each one of them would have to do least 30 to 35 originals a year, every
year!  Plus somehow manage to keep teaching and training up new
scribes, plus designing pre-printed warrants, filling them in for the 
emergency/last minute awardings, and writing out original proclamations,
in addition to participating in any other activities and interests they may
have (and, oh yeah, living their mundane life as well :) ).

Yes, I know, the proposal is for changing the Court documents to only
calligraphy.  But the additional part of it is for those 600 to 700 people
to contact the Star Signet (adding an incredible amount of work to
that office...ok, so create yet another deputy to the office to handle
this specific job  :) ) to arrange for the 'pretty' version, an original piece 
to hang on their wall eventually.  This is where the 30 to 35 originals per
scribe comes in, assuming we could find that many active scribes who
would be willing and able to do that quantity of work.  30-40 hours of
work per original piece is nothing; many of them run far longer than
that...60, 80, even 90 hours or more is fairly common.  How many
original pieces do you honestly think a scribe is capable of?  How
many should they be expected to do?  And just how quickly would 
the scribes burnout?  (Being Ansteorra, do remember that almost 
everyone does far more than one or two things, is it fair to expect the
scribes to forgo all other interests to concentrate solely on trying to
meet the increased demand for original works?)  Sure, I don't really 
expect that every one of the 600 to 700 will actually followthrough but 
I do think that far more would do so than do currently if the painted 
charters were discontinued.

As far as the question of doing all originals in Court:  I, and several 
others over the years, have contacted the Star Signet and/or 
Zodiacus equivalents for other kingdoms to try to get some
corresponding data for the number of awards and number of scribes,
among other things.  In general, Ansteorra gives out more awards
than other kingdoms.  And in general, Ansteorra has far fewer active
scribes than other kingdoms.  Also, compared to those kingdoms
who do all originals, we get *far* less advance notice.  Here, we're
lucky to get a few days, sometimes only an hour or even less (I
know that I'm not the only scribe to be frantically filling out a last
minute award while Court is actually going on around me...).  We
also give out awards nearly every single weekend,  many times
they're given out at more than one event on the same weekend,
while many other kingdoms do not give them out that often.

I do understand and applaud the desire for futher authenticity in
our award documents.  I've been working with Mistress Serena
on a number of period Latin Charters and Letters Patent texts
(many thanks to Master Tadhg and Master Robin for their
invaluable assistance on those!) for several months now.  Rather
than forcing the legal document approach on everyone in the
kingdom, for several years now the option has been made
available to those who wished to have it on their original work,
their Achievement document.  Several people have availed themselves
of that option and I know of several more who are currently doing
so as well.  (Warning to scribes: once you do calligraphy in Latin,
you won't want to go back!  :) )  Tadhg, don't go anywhere!  Come
help us work on the legal document texts so we can make them
available more quickly so that those who really do want them, 
will have them.  We're at the point of taking baby steps in getting
scribes interested and *excited* about using (and the populace in 
wanting to have on their wall) proper legal texts, come help us walk 
a little faster.  :)

In closing, I feel that our present process does serve good and 
useful purposes (helping to interest and train new scribes, and
allowing many people to do service for their kingdom by painting
charters).  I feel that trying to change at this point in time would 
undoubtedly result in majorly overloading the smallest subset of
scribes, the calligraphers (they'd be the ones doing the new 
warrants, the proclamations, as well as the originals that would 
later be requested through Star Signet).  We have tried the unpainted 
charter approach in the past (as was pointed out by Mistress Rose, 
I believe), only to have it widely rejected as undesireable by the
majority of the populace.  I feel that the best way to ultimately, down
the road,  achieve more properly period Court documents is to first 
create an interest and desire for such a thing by continuing to educate 
and to make the period legal texts available to those doing original 
Achievement documents.  (Original Charters can be done for someone 
getting an award, and there's no reason why they couldn't be made 
following  a proper period model.  Get  your text approved, make 
sure that the award is really being given,  and create your document.  
Keep in mind that you're not likely to get much in the way of advance 
lead time though...  :) )

Lasair ni Fhionnualann, OL, OP
Barony of the Steppes

P.S.  I have been speaking with Mistress Serena about some of 
this and she plans on borrowing my email at some point in the
near future so that she can share her own views and opinions
with us.


============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.