[Scriptoris] An Answer to the question: Scrolls and Charters--why?

[Diane Rudin]

Siobhan asked some good questions, which give me a chance to explain some
things that don't get explained often enough.

> Having followed the current discussion and its various tones and suggestions
> for several days the radical idea has occurred to me that we could clear the
> backlog of Peerage Scrolls, the chronic shortage of Award Scrolls and any
> need for revisions or the like in one fell swoop if we just eliminate them
> altogether.

Breach of contract.  At the time that they received their awards, it was (and
will remain, for the reason stated below) policy that they would receive a
document to serve as proof of elevation, even if that document would be
delivered at a later point in time.

> Why do we have scrolls at all?  Award scrolls as we use them have no
> equivelent in the Middle Ages.  

Incorrect.  The kingdom has a responsibility to issue documents to the
recipients of awards from the hand of the Crown for the purpose of proving
receipt of an award or elevation to membership in an order.  This is *exactly*
why similar documents were created in period.  Without a land-charter, a
claimant would have to resort to all sorts of legal processes in order to prove
claim to the land, up to and including having champions fight on the claimant's
behalf in a judicial duel, called "trial by wager of battle".

Of course, there were no such things as documents for winners of tournaments. 
They were given some sort of prize object, such as the jewel of three feathers
illustrated in *King Rene's Tournament Book* (late fifteenth century).

Award documents as almost all SCA scribes *create* them--lots of illumination
based on books of hours--*do* "have no equivalent in the Middle Ages."  (Except
heraldic grants, and those got simpler as their issuing became more frequent.)

> If artist are "wasting time" on Award
> Scrolls for local event Champions just so they can "have something to hang
> on the wall", is that not true of all scrolls?  

No.  If I have to move to another kingdom, no one will particularly care if I
can prove that I won Kingdom Arts & Sciences.  They *will* care that I have
written proof for every award I've received from the hands of the Crown.  They
will care *very much* that I can prove that I was elevated to the order of the
Laurel.

That the things are elaborately illuminated was the choice of the documents'
creators, along with the fact that until recently, no one was interested in
creating legal documents that looked like, well, legal documents, if they even
knew anything about period legal documents at all.

> From what I have been able
> to find, every Kingdom Award in Ansteorra--with the exceptions of an Award
> of Arms or a Rising Star--has some sort of Regalia that goes with that
> Award.  So isn't any scroll just a superfluous thing to hang on the wall?

No.  I can replicate every piece of regalia handed out in this kingdom, up to
and including simple coronets--and have.  I could travel to another kingdom
positively *dripping* with insignia, claiming all sorts of nonsense.  Nowadays,
with the internet, I would be less able to get away with it.  But it *has*
happened in the past that people showed up claiming to be knights (why is it
always knights?) and were able to fool people until someone asked for *proof*.

In addition, in 1987, the then-holder of the office of Zodiacus Herald looked
at a framed document on the King's wall, said, "Your Majesty, we don't know
that you have that award", pulled out a notebook and got the Order of
Precedence corrected.  (Yes, they knew it was a genuine document--the scribbles
that most crowns call signatures are hard to forge, and they knew the granting
Crown's signatures very well indeed.)

At that time, the heralds were engaged in a wholesale effort to reconstruct the
entire Ansteorran Order of Precedence based on miscellaneous pieces of paper,
scattered old reports, ancient copies of the Principality of Ansteorra Order of
Precedence, and *the scrolls on people's walls*.

We've had to do that *twice*.

And it was only two months ago that her Excellency Mistress Jehane d'Avignon,
who was elevated to the Laurelate in 1996, got that fact into the Ansteorran
Order of Precedence.  She could do so because of the document hanging on her
wall.  It happened in Bryn Gwlad seven years ago, and we only just noticed the
omission from the OP this year.  The Crown that had given her the award could
attest to the granting of it, but could not remember the date.  *She* couldn't
remember the date without looking at the document, and it's hanging on her wall
where she can see it every day.

> If all the Scribes and Artists of Ansteorra were not bogged down with the
> need to produce Award Scrolls and to clear the giant Backlog, think of the
> wonderful things that could be produced---Books of Hours, Herbals,
> Beastiaries, and fabulous originals of all sorts for the folks who really
> wanted them--and were willing to pay for them!  Hmm..the imagination
> staggers at the possibilities.

My Book of Hours is coming along nicely, thank you.  I'm halfway through doing
the research necessary to reconstruct a correct and complete text and minature
cycles appropriate for a late-fifteenth-century English Book of Hours.  You
see, none of the so-called "complete facsimilies" are, in fact, complete.  They
leave out all of the "boring" pages that don't have much fancy stuff on them.

--Serena


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