[Sca-cooks] 13th Century Icelandic Fish Skin Tanning Techniques

[Laura C. Minnick]

"A. F. Murphy" wrote:
>
> I'm new enough to not really know if this is true myself, but I have had
> several people tell me that the vast majority of costuming laurels are for
> late period work. Seems to be a "pretty discount" in that field, too.
>
> Or, an "Easy to understand" discount. I mean, if you look at an
> Elizabethan, you know that a lot of work went into it. No one has to
> explain that. It's harder to demonstrate that you have made the perfect
> T-tunic, stitched correctly, with all the correct gores and gussets, with
> the ultimate accessories, in the absolutely right fabric...

This is, of course, something of an over-generalization- and
unfortunately one I tend to agree with. And as there is a great deal
more to work with in late period (extant garments, tailor's manuals,
etc) and a larger corpus of instructive materials, an SCA artisan can
fairly quickly learn enough to make people oooh and aaah. Check out the
costume sites and see the proportion of 16th c. resources compared to
the 12th or even 15th c. And I have been told to my face that you can't
get a costuming laurel unless you do late period work (apparent
exception? early period hand woven or felted stuff. I will never
understand this Kingdom...). I know this is not true, as I have seen a
couple given for earlier period work. A couple. Yup- that perfect little
upper-middle class around-the-house houppelande isn't worth much when
faced by someone wearing 120 yards of trim.

But is this why we do what we do? Heck- I made that little wool houp so
I could be warm and comfy and period, too. And I make the weird little
hats and such because they look cool, and it is sooo nifty to look in
the mirror and see something that looks like the pictures in a book.

Which is not to say that I don't get irritated or frequently get the
Sour Grapes Syndrome. I am, after all, a human being (at least the last
time I looked!). But I know I have chosen a different path, and I know
that the work I've done, whether in costume, or in food, or research and
teaching, is not in the mainstream popular fields. I once had Someone
Who Should Know Better tell me to my face that my work and teaching in
Canon and Marriage Law was irrelevant and 'didn't count'. Same person
told me that teaching costume by helping teenaged girls cut and sew
their own garb in my living room 'didn't count'. Well, BAH! I'M GONNA DO
IT ANYWAY! So make your 'perfect t-tunic'! If you know it is right and
you know you look great, then you will have accomplished something- you
will have followed the Prime Directive of the SCA- you will have
re-created something of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, added to the
SCA community of Pretty Stuff and What We Know About It, and you will
have had fun doing it. Isn't that why we're here?

stepping down from my soaspbox before I fall and hurt myself,

'Lainie