SCA Award Texts
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Scribe lettering. |
Recently I was asked to create text for an award scroll. It’s something I like doing and use to do often.
The common awards are based on period charters and patents of arms. The period inspirations are not actual awards but often legal documents giving land or other rights. They sound very lawyerly because they were legal documents then.
- Monarchs’ names bestowing the honor
- Recipient’s full SCA name
- Award’s full name
- Reason for the honor
- Date of the award presentation
- Location of the award presentation
- Period documents of all sorts mention God and do it often.
- Dates were often given in reference to the most recent or next religious happening, especially the more important the document.
- Grants of land were given when honors were bestowed.
- Queens were seldom mentioned unless the lands were hers.
- Honors were not often given for arts and sciences.
- Writings commonly begin with a greeting, state from whom they come and may include descriptive bragging.
- Writings were wordy, repetitious and used long, unusual sounding words.
When researching period sources Google search is your BFF. General terms I’ve searched include medieval charter, medieval grant, medieval letters patent, and medieval legal document. Other similar options might be medieval literature, medieval texts, and medieval writing.
SCA Curiosity And The Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Towards a More Period Text SCA article by Baron Adhemar de Villarquemada
Useful External Sources:
- Anglo Saxon Charters by King in Latin with English translations
- Columbia University’s Epistolae
- The Scriptorium: A collection of resources and examples of writing for SCA award scrolls. Particularly note the Resources and Articles sections.
- University of Cambridge…Spoken Word: Old English Text
- Yale’s Avalon Project
Categories: Resources