[Ansteorra] Odd question reguarding persona development

[Deirdre]

HA! Everybody was King Henry's mistress!

Deirdre

-----Original Message-----
From: ansteorra-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:ansteorra-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Stefan li
Rous
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 7:10 PM
To: Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc.
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] Odd question reguarding persona development


On Sep 26, 2006, at 4:25 PM, Susan wrote:

> I was pondering persona earlier and wondering just how close one's
> persona is to be to historic people?  In that manner that we are
> presumed to be of the gentry (I can't remember the exact on this),  
> this
> was a limited population in period-some times and places more so that
> others..  Where is the line on presumptions of our relationships of  
> the
> actual people who lived in period?  This has always confused me, it is
> one of those paradoxes that I have never really been able to work  
> out to
> a degree I am comfortable with.
>
> Looking forward to hearing thoughts about this topic and how different
> people have worked these things out for themselves,
> Susan the Curious

You cannot claim to be someone who actually lived in period. You  
can't be Charlemagne or Joan of Arc or King Henry, but you can be one  
of Charlemangne's gardeners or King Henry's mistress.

The assumption is that everyone is of gentle birth, however, that  
doesn't mean you can't play a serf, a peasant, a merchant or a  
tradesman if you wish. If you choose a lower class as that of your  
persona, it can set up some conflicts you have to work around. For  
instance, as a non-gentle, how do you handle getting an Award of  
Arms? One of the best, and funniest, that I can think of is how Leon  
Donne, as a yeoman archer, did so. It is detailed in one of the  
Florilegium persona files.

I'm sure folks here will be happy to fill you in on their ideas of  
persona. You might also want to take a look through the files in the  
PERSONA section of the Florilegium to see what various folks have  
said about personas in the past. A couple of files which folks might  
find of use in developing their personas include:
Barbrn-Persona-art (9K)  2/18/05    "Barbarian Personae" by Baron Hrolf
                                        Herjolfssen.
persona-art       (14K) 11/12/96    An article on persona by Duke  
Cariadoc.
Som-Per-Ideas-art (16K) 12/31/02    "Some Persona Ideas" by by HL  
Elaine de
                                        Montgris (known as 'Lainie).

And for some personas that folks have had fun with, probably on a  
temporary basis:
per-insanity-msg  (36K)  9/13/96    Insane personas, insanity in period.
per-lepers-msg     (9K)  2/23/01    Stories of using leper personas.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****


_______________________________________________
Ansteorra mailing list
Ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org
http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/ansteorra-ansteorra.org