[Ansteorra] Start/end of Period

[James Crouchet]

For years I have been reading a wonderful space opera about a woman
named Honor Harrington who lives in the far future and serves in the
space navy of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. It's a very fun series with
great lessons on honor and duty. More to the point, the SCA is mentioned
in a few of the books. In fact, Honor learned to shoot gunpowder based
handguns from her uncle who plays 20th C. in the SCA and owns an ancient
Desert Eagle .45 cal. pistol.

I don't think that getting too fanatical about our time limits serves
us. I can understand how seeing, say, a British Redcoat at an
Elizabethan event could be jarring. Though I do wonder why that is more
jarring that seeing an early Roman. Perhaps some day we will find a way
to be more inclusive overall while making our individual events less
"jarring".

I think the big tent has served us well and made us the 800 lb gorilla
of historical organizations. We do need a limit but I think our focus on
history (rather than fantasy, fiction or Sci Fi) is a good limit.

Christian Doré

Elisabeth B. Zakes wrote:
> On 9/21/06, Lori Campbell <countesskat at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>> I'm gonna say, just for anthropology's sake, that Ansteorra does not
>> appear to confine itself to the period typically labeled "after the
>> fall of Rome".
>>
>> We've always had the occasional Roman persona, but in recent years
>> there has been a definite trend towards people adopting a Roman mode of
>> dress and naming practices.
>>
>> I think, perhaps, Ansteorra isn't alone in this.  As I recall, the
>> Grand Council's discussions were generated from concerns about similar
>> trends elsewhere - the idea that the SCA time period might be edging
>> earlier and earlier, away from the true middle ages and more towards
>> "late antiquity."  Some believed it to be counter to our purpose of
>> recreating the middle ages, hence the reason we were asked to discuss
>> the possibility of setting a definite start date for the period covered
>> by the SCA.  As Brendan said, the idea wasn't popular.
>>
>> Kat MacLochlainn
>> (GC member, at-large)
>>     
>
> A perusal of Corpora, on page 9 of the .pdf version online
> (http://www.sca.org/docs/govdocs.pdf) shows just how nebulous we are
> at the corporate level. "Middle Ages and Renaissance" can cover a lot
> of ground, and "all of the centuries prior to the 17th" makes it even
> less exact. I recall when we had one ancient Egyptian household. Yes,
> ancient, as in dates B.C.
>
> I would be happy with Corpora defining exact start and end dates, and
> places. More than a few people think the "cutoff date" is 1650, which
> is outside the "prior to the 17th [century]" time period. And seeing
> 18th-century pirates at one Pennsic was certainly jarring.
>
> That page also does not state a specific area, just "a social
> structure adapted from the forms of the European Middle Ages." It then
> goes on to refer to "the life and culture of the landed nobility in
> Europe prior to 1600 C.E." and acknowledges that personae from Asia or
> Africa are "[guests] to a European court." So it is strongly implied
> that the SCA covers Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to 1599,
> and the definition of "period" on the next page bears that out. But
> without anything explicitly stating so, we will always have people
> unclear on just what we're aiming for. Where on the timeline do we
> move from Dark Ages to Middle Ages to Renaissance? It varies by
> country and culture.
>
> My twopence.
>
> Aethelyan Moondragon
> Bryn Gwlad
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