SC - More on 'Nef' (including a citation)
Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net
Thu Feb 22 20:41:20 PST 2001
Thorvald saod:
> I've tracked down a published extract of the article I referred
> to last week concerning the nef. The original article was from
> the early 80's, and the extract / summary was published in May
> 1986 in a local SCA newsletter (_The Montengarde Mouthpiece_).
> It was written by Sir Conrad von Graz.
Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to look.
> The caption (by Wilson) for the sketch reads:
>
> "This sketch shows the double table laying in greater detail.
> Note the leather nef of the gentleman is far less elaborate
> than that of the King. The page placed the food onto the
> platter where the guest cut it onto pieces and placed them
> on his trencher which served as a plate."
>
> The extract does not say where or when the original of the
> sketch came from, nor where Wilson got her information about
> this meaning of nef.
>
> So we have some evidence (depending on the reliability of C.
> Anne Wilson, whose book I do not have and therefore cannot
> judge) for nef referring to a container for some or all of
> the things that a guest would bring to a feast.
Thanks, I am in fact currently reading this book. However,
I have been reading the sections that struck my interest and
not reading from the start, so I hadn't seen this quote
until now.
I think she is fairly reliable. One complaint is that
she often moves through time in such a way, multiple times
thoughout a chapter, that it is often difficult to tell
precisely what years she is talking about when she is talking
about the progression of a food item through time. And along
those lines, I wish she had used more footnotes. But I
understand the audience she was probably writing for was
not us, but rather a more general audience.
Also the index has some glaring holes. Last night I wanted to
look for a passage on aphrodisiacs that I had remembered
reading recently in there recently for a request on this list,
but I that page wasn't mentioned in the index. I did find it
later when skimming for something else. This was the recipe
with the sparrow brains, which someone else mentioned later.
> I presume that a number of those on this list will have
> this book, and can check directly and perhaps report on her
> sources.
> Sir Conrad also writes in the summary (I've strung relevant
> bits together):
>
> "... I am the source of the use of the term NEF for an SCA
> table setting. ... to refer primarily to the basket or box
> _plus_ contents which the typical SCA Feast Guest is
> expected to bring to the SCA Feast or Revel. ... The final
> shift from the container to contents took place at the 2nd
> War Games [1984] where there was a contest ... they only
> had table settings ... from that point onward NEF has meant
> Table Setting, etc, in Avacal [then a region in An Tir, now
> a Principality]."
>
> I know I have a copy of the original article (which was more
> complete than the extract I've been quoting from) somewhere, but
> so far my ransacking of the files has not turned it up.
If you find it, and the original author agrees, I would still like
to consider it for the Florilegium.
> Stefan, it's interesting to note the mis-rememberings about the
> contents of the article (at up to 20 year's distance) by both
> myself and by Sir Conrad.
That is why I've tried to capture when I can the various stories
and rememberances of the SCA and its history.
- --
THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: http://www.florilegium.org ****
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