From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V1 #88 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Thursday, February 26 1998 Volume 01 : Number 088 In this issue: [scribes]: signatures Re: [scribes]: Re: scribes digest V1 #73 [scribes]: Scribal Gathering Report ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 19:25:16 -0400 From: wyverns Subject: [scribes]: signatures English Handwriting 1400-1650 by Jean F. Preston and Laetitia Yeandle shows several documents and letters with signatures, seals, and/or marks. Mostly the book deals with cursive ahnds and signatures, but several official documents seem to have been so written. The signatures mostly match the document hand with maybe added flourishes. The flourishes, when present, are mostly separate from the actual letters of the signatures and include such things as flowing 'underlines', religious symbols, and a few squiggly little decorations. the biggest 'loopdy loop' style signatures are associated with cursive hands that have fairly large, loopy extenders, but the signature is even loopier than that or overall larger than the main text. The very end of the 16th C, they follow a more modern pattern - with increasingly large, illegible cursive signatures (with very fine tipped quills)and with attached flourishes. On the other hand, Queen Elizabeth seems to have had a barely legible cursive hand for writing letters, but printed her name very clearly (with simple, attached flourishes). All in all, the book has sevearl examples that may be worth studying if you want to learn a late period signature or cursive/document hand. - --Enid ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 21:28:48 EST From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Re: scribes digest V1 #73 In a message dated 98-02-25 04:25:12 EST, bhw@psychology.nottingham.ac.uk writes: << v) So would most people in period recognise something with barbs as a quill in period heraldry? vi) Is a quill a period charge distinct from a feather? vii) How was it drawn? Minor variation at the tip seems like too subtle a difference. >> I'm sure Eowyn will answer this in addition to other heraldic types..... however, I asked Ghislaine ( my personal herald who by happy coincidence, is married to me) to question : v-vii) yes the difference between a heraldic quill and a feather is that the base of the feather is shaped into a quill point. It is drawn with the barbs on but the base is cut in the shape of the pen point. It is still conflict-checked against a feather, and the default position for both is point down. Hope this answers your question-JimBear ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 23:10:22 -0800 From: "Tammy L. Williams (Tamlyn of Wintersea)" Subject: [scribes]: Scribal Gathering Report Greetings to those on the Scribes List, There was an interest in what ended up happening at the Gathering so I'm sending this missive. The morning hours included setting up and also trying to catagorize a couple hundred books and magazines from various owners into a library, putting up various scrolls and laying out portfolios from those attending including a black and white copy of the An Tir Doomsday book (the color CD is available for those who wish to order contact Meresigha at jlynch@cob.org) and getting the tables layed out so people could work at them and still have room to go freely from table to table. HL Tamsin de Lessely of Seabeck began with first demoing and then teaching a class on Uncial, following her demo HL Elena Anne of Lostwithiel demoed and taught Blackletter. I did a small speech on what is gouache and some of the aspects of its ingredients (thank you Eowyn Amberdrake, Lord Cystennin, Cori Ghora, Zenobia Naphtali and Ranthulfr, I took excerpts from your postings with appropriate credit given and used as part of the display/demo items I had gotten from Master John the Artificer) and then took the students to a separate room and began showing them appropriate color choices and one of the methods for painting with gouache. After I had them started painting I introduced HL Jill Blackhorse and her class Illumination for the Non-artist and Lady Adrianna the Fierce's class Tranferring Designs/Making a Game Board in the main hall. At the end of Jill's class Master Donn an Bronach began his Scroll Layout class. We had a brief time when the lights in the main room needed to go out and so that interupted the other class as far as painting was concerned, but they continued working on the gamesboards after the slide show and completed a couple before the end of the event. At the end of Donn's class we were close enough to lunch that we waited until after it was over to continue the last demo/class, the break was about two hours long (we ended up clearing off tables and getting them ready for the feast and then setting things back up). After lunch Dame Zenobia taught her class Heraldic Scroll Policies and working with the Heralds. Painting continued to go on and work was done on Kingdom Charters in the other room, I also went through the items in my scribal box (inks, pens, specialty gouaches, rulers, etc.. why I had chosen specific brands and types) and in the main room we had a demo on laying gold leaf by HL Elena Anne and another one on how precious stones would have been prepared for making paint by HL Alanus of Bunghea (Master Donn pulled a copy of Cenninni from the library and attempted to make paint with some of the grindings with some success). Unfortunately we ended up not having enough time for the Q&A round table. The classes were all well attended and the teachers were suprised by attendance and pretty much ran out of class notes (I need to run copies for people including myself). The site was free to us so the $2.50 site fee was used to cover the expenses of class handouts and the Scribal Resource Guide which was put together for those attending. It was a handbook that included a listing of the scribes who answered the questionnaire that was sent out, a recommended books list, information on where to procure materials and some good websites to visit for ideas and the schedule for scriptoreums in various branches. The Gathering was well received and some very enthusiastic people left the event, newcomers and experienced scribes alike. It's something we are going to try again next year. We definitely need a larger hall, if the dozen or so people who had called to say they were coming had made it the event would have been way too crowded. People liked that they could go from one thing to another freely even though it sometimes meant giving up something else that they would also like to do. It has been suggested that we have two definite tracks one aimed at total newcomers and the other for those with more experience. My timing of things was off and got worse as the day progressed though I hope to be able to better figur out how long it will take to do things next time. Having the feast in the middle of the day will probably be changed to a cafe type soup bar where you can quickly get something to eat in shifts and then get right back to what you were interested in with a regular feast happening in the evening. If I can find the right site (read right price) I think this would make a great weekend event, there was still plenty that we could have been doing when we needed to start cleaning up. The Canton of Wyewood is a very enthusiastic group with many scribes (and some that don't know that they are scribes yet). Even those good gentles who have no interest in the Scribal Arts came out and supported us so that the "scribes" among us could attend the classes and watch the demos. I was really happy with the event, most aspects turned out better than I had expected and since I've got a year's start on it this time I hope to work out the things that I felt didn't work that well. YIS, HL Tamlyn of Wyntersea mka Tammy Williams tamlyn@gte.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ per pale azure and sable, a wyvern erect contourny and in chief five lozenges argent ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V1 #88 ****************************