SC - Nobility and Feasts

[Stefan li Rous]

Anne-Marie said:
> The Known World Handbook says that we're all supposed to be assumed to be
> of noble birth, if that helps. 

I agree here. I have seen a number of non-noble birth personas over the years.
Some of those folks had varying solutions when they were awarded AoAs. Some
of these are detailed in my personas-msg file. Some have done it as a temporary
persona. Others have done "aflicted personas". Those who might want to consider
these might be interested in these files in my Florilegium:

per-insanity-msg  (36K)  9/13/96    Insane personas, insanity in period.
per-lepers-msg     (9K)  4/29/94    Stories of using leper personas.

One of our well known knights did a leper persona at one of our recent events.
I, at least, didn't recongnise who it was until later. Of course these are
not really class personas as insanity and leprosy were know in the upper
class as well as lower.

I'm going to do a bit more research on leprosy and period attitudes toward
it, so the next time someone does a leper persona, I can give a period reaction.

> Since we decided to stick with the middle class thing, things have gotten
> SO Much easier! gold isnt appropriate, but silver and pewter and brass are.
> Silks arent appropriate but linen and wool is. The upper classes in the
> 15th century wore goofy clothes anyway (especially the womens hats. Ugh!),
> the middle and lower classes wore very reasonable and practical garments.
 
> Of
> course, of those farmers, the majority were actually self employed and
> owned their own lands. The dirt grubbing peasant is not the norm. We have
> inventories for people where even the peasant pig farmer has a couple coins
> stashed away. (ack! my books are out in the car from teaching a class on
> agriculture last week!! I can give citations if you like).

Are you talking about the 15th century again here? There was a big shift
in the prosperity between peasants before 1350 and after 1350. Prior to the
Black Plague population preasures were causing marginal land to be farmed
and the life of a peasant was much harder than after the plague, when the
scarcity of labor forced wages upward.

I would appreciate those citations or bibliographic referances when you
get a chance.

Thanks.
  Stefan li Rous
  stefan at texas.net
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