SC - Late-period is NOT Medieval

[LrdRas@aol.com]

Aine of Nowhere wrote, with regard to a part of the whole "potatoes
are/are not period thing:
> 
> sounds like a serious case of semantics to me mylord....
> isn't there some sort of innoculation for that or should I just call
> the period police?

Not a case of semantics at all, but one of equivocation, it seems.
Essentially the bone of contention was whether potatoes would typically
have appeared in a medieval meal, and the answer is no, they wouldn't.
The response was made that potatoes are period, because some
documentation exists for them from 1575 on. Personally I question
whether some documantation for them, as late as that, with no reference
made to how they were used, whether people ate them, and who they were,
is adequate, but I believe the point Cariadoc was trying to make is that
even if they _were_ commonly eaten in Europe after 1575, they would not
have been in the Middle Ages. 

Therein lies the equivocation, or rather the debunking thereof. If one
wants to state that something existed in Europe after 1575, even if that
date is within the SCA's rather arbtrary cut-off date, it is misleading
and to say that "it is period", particularly when used in support of
another claim that that item is "medieval".

That would be about as preposterous as me, a Briton living around the
end of the Roman occupation, carrying a firearm, because "firearms are
period".

Possibly a case of semantics, yes, but also an attempt to keep our
thinking honest and clear.

Adamantius  
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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