[Sca-cooks] The Puritans

[Elizabeth A Heckert]

On Sun, 07 Oct 2001 01:55:11 -0500 Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net>
writes:

>When we create a persona, should we be striving for the way-out on
>the edge 'wierd' personas? Or should we be working on the ones that
>would fit a typical individual of that time, place and culture?

     Dear Stefan,

        There are a number of things going on.  One, in England, by the
1570s, a Protestant denomination was the state religion-and practiced by
the nobility.  Two, Calvin's dogma appealed to the non-noble classes.
Three, in England, Protestant thought reaches back into the 1300s with
Wycliff (first Bible in English) and the Lollards.

       Then you have four, which is me.  I'm a serial crafter; this is
one of the main reasons I'm in the SCA.  In the last quarter of the
sixteenth century, a noblewoman would not have done the things I'm most
interested in learning how to do.

      So, like many other people in the SCA I know, my later personas are
middle class.  A Lollard's widow in the 1370s and a proto-Covenanter's
widow in the 1570s.  Other than the fact that I don't wear lots of
jewelry you can't tell anything about my beliefs--other than the broad
strokes our actions reveal about character--unless the subject of
religion comes up.  While I may not be a typical member of the
aristocracy, I certainly represent a typical, non fringe-element member
of the bourgeoisie; and there were way more bourgeois people than nobles
in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance.

       OFC: Do the purple carrots have a season?  The local grocery's
vegetable catalogue does not list them anymore.

      Elizabeth



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