SC - Period Recipes

[david friedman]

At 5:49 AM -0400 6/5/97, Donna J. White wrote:
>Your Lordship,
>
>I feel humbled even attempting to reply to one of your posts.  I believe
>intimidated might be a better term; however, I will attempt to answer
>what may be some of several posters' concerns.
>
>>There seems to be a very common attitude in the SCA that authenticity
>>is
>>something you do for A&S contests, rather than something you do
>>because it
>>is fun, interesting, and makes the Society a better place.
>
>I am not knocking contests or those entering contests, nor am I knocking
>anyone of rank within the Society.  Obviously somebody felt recognition
>was deserved for those holding titles of differing sorts to bestow the
>honor(s) in the first place.  I am not saying we should forget
>documentation, either.  All I believe is that each member has within them
>a limit as to how period that person wishes to be and how much "trouble"
>they wish to go to to be accepted by members of rank.

I agree that each person has a limit in how period he is willing to be in
various ways--and should. I don't think this ought to have anything to do
with "to be accepted by members of rank." There are lots of peers who are
blatantly out of period and lots of people with no awards who are good
about doing things in a period fashion.

The implication of what you wrote seems to be to identify "being period"
and "going to trouble to be accepted by members of rank." Isn't that
precisely the problem I was commenting on in my post--assuming that the
reason to be period is to win a status game, rather than because it is a
good thing to do? I do not believe you will find anything in my posts or my
published articles on these subjects (collected in the _Miscellany_) that
even hints at the idea that the reason to do things in a period fashion is
to be accepted by members of rank.


>I agree we should make an effort to retain the atmosphere of the Middle
>Ages; however, when keeping that atmosphere leads to the segregation
>between the "haves" of brass hats and the "have nots" of anything, I
>believe we have gone too far.

What is the connection between brass hats and authenticity? You don't have
to know anything about the middle ages to win a crown tournament.



David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/