SC - More on 'Nef' (including a citation)

[Stefan li Rous]

 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 ****