SC - Imagination and Creativity

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/31/98 1:09:53 AM Eastern Standard Time,
pagedgrt at mediaone.net writes:

<< Do you not have any imagination, wear is your creativity. Just because it
is not
 on paper does not mean it has not happened before.   >>

Imagination is not the issue.  The issue is serving foods that are not found
in the extant body of literature that we have available to us dating from the
Middle Ages.  Some may find it better to guess or create but I find that
attitude more in line with fantasy role-playing than serious historical
recreation. 

Oftentimes a creation or imaginative concept is used as an excuse for not
doing serious research and re-creation.  Other times it is used to make some
preconceived modern notion fit historical scenarios.  Although such mental
exercises can be fun and often produce esthetically pleasing results, they
cannot be presented as 'period.' 

With the hundreds of recipes, herbals, household accounts, archeological
evidence, books of days, contemporary writings and other documents available,
there is little need to 'imagine' what period cookery, social life,
agriculture or most any aspect of the Middle was like.  After one is familiar
with the actual things we do know about the MA, I have little problem with
using that knowledge to 'create' things.  I do have reservations about using
information based on imagination to create period things. 

If a person ignores historical fact by imagining things then uses that
imaginary thing to validate their period creations, I would have some cause to
wonder about their seriousness in re-creating a given artform.  An example,
would be 'raisons of Corinth,' we know (e.g., have written records) that these
were not currants, so there is no valid reason to imagine they were and create
a recipe substituting currents for raisons of Corinth especially since the
original product is still widely available today.  OTOH, European dormice are
a protected species in the current middle ages, so imagining the dish using
guinea pig or squirrel, and re-creating it using those animals would be OK. so
long as the substitution was noted and the reasons why were given.  Created
things which are based on solid information are a good thing but created
things based on imagined things are very difficult to rationalize in the view
of historical validity and impossible to document with any degree of accuracy.

All in all, fantasy and role-playing are used by many personas in the SCA but
the purpose of the organization is clearly defined as education and re-
creation and such purposes should never be forgotten when defining one's path
in the organization, IMO.

The above opinions are my very own and are not meant to delineate official SCA
policy with regard to it's views on imagination or creativity.

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