Have you ever thought? "Scribal arts look cool, but how would I even get started?" or "I wonder what all the parts of an SCA scroll are so I could make one..." Well then we've got the event for you! _Couch to Five Scrolls_ is a one day workshop, assuming no prior experience with any SCA scribal art, that will introduce all of the steps and techniques to make a scroll.  We'll cover

• Page Layout
• Wording
• Calligraphy
• Illumination
• Drinking Tea
• Eating Pie

This is not an official "event" no garb will be required, and there will only be a small fee requested to cover your supplies.  It is scheduled for October 29th in the Shire of Quintavia (Berlin, MA  Just off of i495.  GPS Address: 46 Sawyerhill Road, Berlin MA.)

Schedule of the day

Although subject to change, the broad outline of the day's schedule is as follows

• 930-1030 Breakfast and social
• 1030-11 Layout
• 11-1130 Words
• 1130-1145 break
• 1145-1245 Intro to Illumination
• 1245-130 lunch
• 130-230 Intro to Calligraphy
• 230-300 break
• 300-500 Small group coaching on either Caligraphy or Illumination
• 5 pie

Fiore Leonetta Bardi, current Baroness of Carolingia, was to be elevated to the Laurel at Birka in January 2023. She is a late 16th C Florentine of … questionable legitimacy.

Our base text was requested to be a Papal bull. Even though he’s a bit earlier than her persona, the Bull Vocavit nos pius, of Pius II is going to be our pattern because Eneas Silvio Piccolmini was an overeducated Renaissance man, and a really good orator, so the text is more interesting than many. It can be found in Latin and translation starting on page 31 of Oration “Ut apertum vobis” of Pope Pius II (10 October 1458, Rome). Edited and translated by Michael v. Cotta-Schönberg. 4th version. With the papal bull “Vocavit nos Pius”. (Orations of Enea Silvio Piccolomini / Pope Pius II; 29)

Latin Text

Mohammad, Rex, et Corotica, Regina, servi populorum Orientis, universis et singulis has Nostras litteras inspecturis salutem. Pro Jure Armorum et Luce Inspirationis, regnantis Carum Regnum Humeris Nostris commisit. Hoc Regnum derigere et servare creditur, et alte fluctuantem pelago Orientalis populi regere naviculam. “Gravis haec quidem Nobis sarcina est, nec Nostrae vires sunt, quae tanti regiminis ferre molem sufficiant.”

Magna fortuna habemus nec gerere nec hic pondus tolerare solis, sed adsurgimus Nostris cameadoribus, cum dexteritate, arte et scientia armant. “Sunt preciosa in conspectu Coronae opera campeadorium” ait. De septem campeadoribus qui navigare Nos maria illa subveniunt, campeador Artis dehibet quem demonstrare scientiam artemque, et magnissime, fervor artibus habet, lucinaria radiare.

Nos enim nequid ad res bene gerendas ex latere nostro desit, de provectione et agnitione illi qui regnum communiunt cum artibus et scientiis, quin ea mens Nostro est id stabile propositum ac certum quaevis incommodo, quaevis pericula parvi facere placita Ordonis Lauri consulamus, et consilium persapientem eorum consequi. Itaque condecerminus exultare Fiore Leonetta Bardi Nostris Ordoni Lauri carissimi. Vestes sui tenuissimis filis subtili artificio indissolubili materia perfectae, quas, uti post eadem prodente approbamur, suis manibus ipsa texuerat. Etsi peregrina est, ergo iam non est hospes et advena, sed filia Orientis nobilis atque legitima. Threnis Nostri ornamentum aureum est, qui cum vestibus gloriosis gloria Nostrae auget.

Non facimus ipsis, sed gloriae populorum Orientis.

Datum Birkae, quinto Kalendae Februariae, regnum Nostri anno primo, Anno Societatis LVII

English Translation

Mohammad, King, and Corotica, queen, servants of the people of the East, to all who see and read this letter, greetings. By the Right of Arms and the Light of Inspiration, it is upon Our Shoulders that the task of ruling this Beloved Kingdom rests. It is entrusted to us to guide and serve this kingdom, to steer the ship of the Eastern state as it is tossed about on the open Seas. “This is a heavy load for Us, and Our strength is not sufficient to carry the burden of this great charge alone.”

We have the great fortune to neither bear nor endure this burden alone, but are borne up by our champions, armed with dexterity, skill and knowledge. As it is said “Precious in the sight of the crown is work of ones champions”¹ From the seven champions who help us navigate these seas, it is the Champion of Art who must demonstrate knowledge and skill and most importantly a passion for the arts to shine like a beacon, a light for all that the Kingdom and Society are.

To ensure that we have, on our part, done all that we can for the promotion and recognition of those who buttress our realm through the arts and sciences, It is our intention and Our firm and certain resolve to ignore all inconveniences and dangers that we may take heed of the pleas of the Order of the Laurel and act upon their learned council. Thus we resolve to elevate Fiore Leonetta Bardi to our dearest order of the Laurel. “Her garments are of an imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads and of the most delicate workmanship; and these, as all assure us, she had herself sewn with her own hands.”² Furthermore, though she comes from a strange land, she is “neither stranger nor alien”³, but a noble and legitimate daughter of the East. She is golden raiment for our thrones, who multiplies our renown with glorious garments.

We do this not for ourselves, but for the glory of the People of the East

Given at Birka, on January 28rd (5 Kalends Feb), in the first year of our reign, AS 57

Notes

1. Psalm 116:15 - gloriosa in conspectu Domini mors sanctorum eius
2. Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, Book 1 “Uestes erant tenuissimis filis subtili artificio indissolubili materia perfectae, quas, uti post eadem prodente cognoui, suis manibus ipsa texuerat;”
3. Eph. 2:19

Authorship

Scroll text by: Aelia Fortunata, Margreta Gyllensteirna, Gun∂ormr Dengir, Aildreda de Tamworthe, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, and Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

This assignment was a challenging secret, because the recipient is the current Signet, the officer who manages scroll assignments. So we had to handle this entirely behind her back.  Luckily the scribe is one of the absolute best and was willing to play along with my silly idea.  The text is a combo of the creation stories from the Book of John (NT) and Genesis(OT).  We took the Douay-Rheims, which is an English translation of the Vulgate, assembled our text, and then translated it back into Latin for the final scroll.

Latin Text

In principio erat Ideam et Idea mandabatur Æsam feilinni Jossursdottiri et Ideam Feilinn suscipiebatur. Pagina autem erat inanis et vacua et candidiatis erat super faciam paginae: et manus Feilinnis ferebatur super paginas. Dixitque Feilinn ‘fiat tabula’ et facta est tabula. Et divisit textam a imagonem, et paginam fulgere in tenebra confecit. Litterulae rubrae et atrae et aureae parere in pagina confecit, verba et sensiculi et paragrapha scripsit. Omnia per ipsa facta sunt: et sine ipsa factum est nihil, quod factum est.

Videruntque Ioannis et Honig, Imperator et Imperatrix Orientis cuncta quae fecerat et cuncta manum eam tetigerat, et erant valde bona, in vice eam creaverunt Comes Ordinis Manulei. Et factum est Mane et Vespere, dies sextus, mensis undecimo, quinquagesimo sexto anno Nostri Societatis.

English Text

In the beginning there was the assignment, and the assignment was given to Æsa Feilinn Jossursdottir and the assignment was accepted by Feilinn¹.

And the page was void and empty, and blankness was upon the face of the parchment; and the hand of Felinn moved over the across the page². So Feilinn said “let there be text” and there was text, and she separated the text from the illumination and caused the page to gleam in the darkness³. Letters in black and red and gold she caused to appear on the page, words and sentences and paragraphs she wrote. All things were made by her, and without her was made nothing that was made⁴

And Ioannis and Honig, Emperor and Empress of the East, saw all she had made and all her hand had touched, and called it good, and they, in turn, created her a Companion of the Order of the Maunche. And it was Morning and it was evening, the 6th Day, the 11th Month, the 56th year of our Society⁵

Credits

Scroll by Mistress Rhonwen Glyn Conwy

Text by Master Gun∂ormr Dengir, Lady Aelia Fortunata and Jerome of Stridon

Notes

1. John 1:1
2. Gen. 1:2
3. Gen. 1:3-4
4. John 1:3
5. Gen 1:31

Lilias de Cheryngton, now Dona, joined the Order of the Silver Crescent in 2020, during pandemic times.  I was honored to be asked to compose the text for her scroll, which speaks to her tireless service in the kingdom, particularly on behalf of the rapier community.  The text is based on the Song of Songs (Alternately Song of Solomon or Canticles) from the Bible.  We worked from the online Douay-Rheims Translation, massaged the English into the form we wanted, and then translated it back into Latin for the final text on the scroll.  In court it was read in both Latin and English.

Working Copy

This is our working copy, with chunks of the original that seemed useful collected as we found them, and then reworked to fit the content

Final Poem

Conclusion

Authors

• Scroll text by Gun∂ormr Dengir(that's me!), Ælia Fortunata(my apprentice, Latin translator) and Jerome of Stridon
• Calligraphy and Illumination by Aesa Faelinn Jossursdottir

At the upcoming Known World Heralds and Scribes Symposium I will be running a version of our Reading Manuscripts Roundtable focused on Beneventan miniscule. The class is meeting from 10-11am on Sunday the 12th of July. Here is the formal description

This will be a participatory session, not quite a class in the usual sense. We will work on reading Beneventan Script, a hand used in the Montecassino/Benevento area of Italy, primarily in the 11th and 12th C as its use declined precipitously after 1215. Everyone is invited to try reading the texts, though it won't be required for attendance.  Prior to the event, we will provide digital copies of all manuscripts to be discussed, and direction on how to get started, for anyone who chooses to prepare in advance. No previous experience necessary, other than basic literacy! This is the first attempt at expanding a local Reading Roundtable group to a more global audience.

Just an annotated list of the various sources for SCA Period computer fonts I have found

• KPS  - A fantastic collection of 70 fonts, many based on specific historic exemplars, created by Klaus-Peter Schäffel. They often include automatic OpenType ligatures and alternates (tall vs. short 's' for example).
• GoticoAntiqua - A symposium held in April 2019 on 15th C hybrid typefaces existing between Gothic and Roman.  It includes video of all the presentations and images of the source manuscripts as well as samples of the fonts developed as part of it.
  
  • GitHub Repo - Actual fonts and source code for the project
  • Gotico Antiqua - Homepage for the symposium and project
• Peter Barker's Fonts - Several GitHub repositories, some containing very carefully done period fonts and others with fonts more useful for transribing period manuscripts, with abbreviations and flying letter glyphs. The period ones are BeowulfOne, Cissanthemos, Eadui, ParkerChronicle, and Joscelyn.  The last is perhaps the most interesting, there are plenty of Old English fonts, but few that try to reproduce the flow and structure of Elizabethean Secretary, which is the aim of this hand.

Reading Manuscripts Roundtable: Irish Minuscule

The RMR is a group that meets roughly monthly to try and practice reading period hands. No experience is needed, nor is any knowledge of Latin, though it does tend to help. This month we will be working on Irish Minuscule, and maybe cursive if we have the time. These are members of the Insular family of scripts, used in Ireland pre-1000(ish).

Specifics

• Date: April 19th
• Time: 1:00pm will start the online call, but we probably won’t really start working until closer to 1:30
• Location: Google Meet online. Link/invite to be provided directly, please contact Master Gun∂ormr(me) or Duchess Thyra Eiriksdottir
• Who is welcome: Anyone! We are specifically targeting this at people with little or no experience with the hand, or reading period manuscripts at all

The image below is f.52r from the Book of Armagh, now held in the collection of Trinity College, Dublin as MS 52.

Reading Manuscripts Roundtable: Visigothic

The RMR is a group that meets roughly monthly to try and practice reading period hands. No experience is needed, nor is any knowledge of Latin, though it does tend to help. This month we will be working on Visigothic, a hand that was used in Iberia from the 9th through early 13th centuries. For more information on the hand and a collection of links to digitized manuscripts and other resources, see Aiona Castro’ excellent Littera Visigothica.

Specifics

• Date: April 19th
• Time: 11:30am will start the online call, but we probably won’t really start working until noon
• Location: Google Meet online. Link/invite to be provided directly, please contact Master Gun∂ormr(me) or Duchess Thyra Eiriksdottir
• Who is welcome: Anyone! We are specifically targeting this at people with little or no experience with the hand, or reading period manuscripts at all

The image below is from a copy of Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on the Apocalypse. It was made at the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos around 1091-1110, and is often referred to as the “The Silos Apocalypse”. It is now held at the British Library with shelfmark Add MS 11695 (BL MS Add 11695 f.8r)