From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V2 #54 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Friday, June 5 1998 Volume 02 : Number 054 In this issue: Re: [scribes]: Purple as main color? & New Question Re: [scribes]: Challenge (to find round red-dot) [scribes]: Ranthulfr's challenge [scribes]: Doing your own scroll Re: [scribes]: Doing your own scroll Re: [scribes]: Purple as main color? & New Question [scribes]: Good start! Dots Re: [scribes]: Purple as main color? & New Question Re: [scribes]: Good start! Dots Re: [scribes]: Multiple things- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:38:00 -0700 From: "Thomas Brownwell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Purple as main color? & New Question Greetings Lady Mylisant de la Croix asked if it would be okay to use a lot of purple on a scroll even though she hasn't seen a plethora of examples. Both James and Christofano have responded, and I figured I'd chime in too. Purple is a perfectly appropriate color to use. In fact, they liked the color in period so much that they dyed the entire hide purple, then used gold, silver and white text on top. In other instances, they painted a solid background of purple and penned in the text the same as above, leaving a border of other colors and the un-stained parchment around that. Use as much purple as you like! As for green, I just opened up Hamel's book "History of Illuminated Manuscripts" to page 152 (very fortuitous) and found a page that had been dyed *green*, the whole bloody page is an thin, awful, pukey green with black outline drawings and blues and yellows painted on top. Go for the green! On a more serious note, the color choices of a medieval scribe would obviously be tied to availability and cost, so that shell-based purples would be relatively rare compared to earth-based reds. But it's quite clear from the use of such extravagances as gold leaf that cost was not always important. So what other factors could account for the preponderance of blues and reds in early French Gothic illumination and miniatures? I think that the social & religious significance of the colors themselves played a part, with red representing the blood of Christ, and blue, who knows -- it's all over the place symbolically, especially in their armory. All I know is that the Franks say "Sacre Bleu", not "Sacre Vert". (I know someone out there knows this one, I'm having a brain-*!$) So on a more practical level, the color choices have a strong social content, and since the SCA has its own social constructs I think that an SCA specific scroll shouldn't have any color restrictions. Now I have a question for you. In Caid it is considered poor taste to do one's own scroll for an award. I'm pretty sure this is a Westernism that we inherited. What is the convention in your kingdom? Yours in Service - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Douglas Brownell AKA Thomas Brownwell, Calligrapher, brownwell@home.com Dancer,Silversmith,Singer,Cobbler,... San Diego, CA Barony of Calafia, Caid The 4 elements = good physics stuff:: Or,a fountain, a chief rayonny gules. Goutte enough herald:: (Fieldless) A goutte barry wavy azure and argent. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 18:03:12 -0700 From: "Thomas Brownwell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Challenge (to find round red-dot) What a challenge... Because most red-dot work is so tiny, it's tough to find examples blown up enough to see detail, but I've found a few examples. Most of the ones I found were indeed oblong, trapezoidal, dashed, or otherwise drawn in a way that belied the quill they used. There is one excellent example, though, of almost perfectly circular dots (many but not all on the page qualify). The blow-up is shown in Backhouse's "Illuminated Page", page 10, and is the initial page to Iohannes gospel, with the lovely, intricate, knotted "In Principio". The blowup shows a double row of dots that are very evenly spaced and nearly perfectly circular. In addition they are quite shiny (glair base?) and are clearly sticking out from the page in a dome shape -- you could undoubtedly feel them as raised bumps like Braille. In Backhouse's other book, "Lindisfarne Gospels", she has many enlarged examples which clearly show that the larger dots were very uniform and for the most part circular, though not perfectly. Which makes me wonder: Is the uniform roundness on the large dots an artifact of a large amount of liquid and pigment held in place by surface tension? The smaller dots around the "IN" are flatter, darker, and very uneven in shape by comparison to the set outlining the "IN" itself. So, do you have an answer for us, Ranthulfr? What were the tools, and how did they do it? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Douglas Brownell AKA Thomas Brownwell, Calligrapher, brownwell@home.com Dancer,Silversmith,Singer,Cobbler,... San Diego, CA Barony of Calafia, Caid The 4 elements = good physics stuff:: Or,a fountain, a chief rayonny gules. Goutte enough herald:: (Fieldless) A goutte barry wavy azure and argent. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 21:58:53 -0400 From: Elyse Boucher <70521.3645@compuserve.com> Subject: [scribes]: Ranthulfr's challenge Hmmmm..... I bet that if one took one of the smaller feathers from a bird, evened out the end of the quill if needed, and dipped the end in paint, one could make a bunch of little, perfect circles. Like using a stamp, or a leather punch. Dab, into the paint! Blip, blip, blip! Little perfect circles, minimal effort. :) My 2 pence. Your Servant, Merouda Merouda Pendray: Caer Anterth, Northshield, Middle. (Elyse C. Boucher: West Allis, Wisconsin, USA) Per pale sable and Or, a gryphon segreant countorney within an orle of feathers counterchanged. "Semper ubi sub ubi" http://members.tripod.com/~Pendray/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 21:58:58 -0400 From: Elyse Boucher <70521.3645@compuserve.com> Subject: [scribes]: Doing your own scroll Greetings. :) Thomas Brownwell asked: Now I have a question for you. In Caid it is considered poor taste to do one's own scroll for an award. I'm pretty sure this is a Westernism that we inherited. What is the convention in your kingdom? Well, I can't speak for all of the Middle, but I can say that it happens here, in this small section; the person to whom I am apprenticed did her own Laural scroll, by command of the Royal Couple elevating her. I'm not certain whether she did it between vigiling and elevation, or after elevation; I never asked. :) I myself intend to redo one of my award scrolls (it was destroyed while in the care of the royalty--I'll tell you the story sometime) and have considered redoing one other (still another story), but I don't know if you would consider REPLACING award scrolls in the same category as doing the initial award scroll. Ever your servant, Merouda Pendray ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 20:49:33 -0700 From: ken stoner Subject: Re: [scribes]: Doing your own scroll My entry here is purely "Old Wives Tale" I have strongly discouraged doing your own scroll in the past. The reason I joke "I was told when I was new that if you do your own scroll you'' never get a laurel". Now admitteldy this is about as rational is walking under a ladder or broken mirrors or stepping on a crack breaking your mothers back. I think the root of the matter is thus: One should allow others to do your *original* scroll for reasons of:Being Humble, Letting someone else give something to you for a change, promoting the art, etc. When I say letting someone else do somethng for you, the context here is that of a scribe who has done a whole *LOT* of scrolls. There may very well be someone out there that would DEARLY love to do your scroll for you and would feel dissapointed to not have the chance. I am not sure that this is a *Western Thing*. When I joined in Atenveldt/Artemesia, the kingdom defenitaly followed what Eowyn calls "The Eastern Rite" as opposed to the western. Like Helmets on shields for AOA's instead of Crowns, and people with AOA's wearing circlets. Not that I am supporting a sacred cow here... Even as an original atenveldter, when I recieved my AOA in Caid, it took me about 3 hours to buy my own circlet. *laugh*. Anyways, that is my $.02 worth. PS: Thomas had better NOT be thinking of doing *Any* of his award scrolls in the near future... Cystennin sends, affectionetly. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 22:51:07 -0500 From: Lady Mylisant Subject: Re: [scribes]: Purple as main color? & New Question Thomas Brownwell wrote: > Now I have a question for you. In Caid it is considered poor taste to do one's > own scroll for an award. I'm pretty sure this is a Westernism that we > inherited. What is the convention in your kingdom? I really don't know how it works for all of the Kingdom of Meridies since doing scrolls is a fairly recent endeavour for me, but in my case all I am doing is replacing a promissory scroll for an Award of Arms that I had recieved a few years ago. At the time I had not yet passed my arms. Now that my arms have passed, I'm doing the permanent scroll which incorporates my arms and blazon. It's not like I haven't already received the award. Doing the scroll is not ruining the "surprise". I can say that I have never heard of someone doing the scroll for an award they had not yet received. That, I do believe, would be tacky since it is supposed to be a surprise. But I have no problem with someone redoing a scroll for an award already received. Quite a few people know I am doing the scroll and no one has said I shouldn't be doing it. - -- Lady Mylisant de la Croix Barony of Grey Niche, Meridies Purpure, two natural seahorses addorsed on a point pointed argent a crescent inverted sable and on a chief triangular argent a crescent sable. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 00:07:03 -0400 (EDT) From: randyaf@provide.net (Randy & Melody Asplund-Faith) Subject: [scribes]: Good start! Dots Well done Thomas Brownwell! You are definitely on the right track, but there is always more to find and there are always exceptions to the things we discover. Personnally, my trick for getting them round is similar to your surface tension theory. I get an old junk brush, blunted and with just a little tail sticking out of the larger hair mass. the little blunt tip will deposit a wet dot which is OFTEN round from surface tension. The bulk of the hairs act as a reservoir and hold enough fluid to make a good long row all the same. Of course I have no idea if a medieval artist did that. Darn, I don't have a copy of Backhouse's Illuminated Page. However in the Lindisfarne Gospels QUO NIAM page the large round dots in the middle of the red dot trellis in the second row of text from the bottom seem like they may have been drawn round rather than planted that way with a brush. The quill work in the illuminationis remarkably fine and on much smaller scale. As for the paint being shiney, what makes you suspect glair? Is your glair shiney as a paint film? Mine is always matte and opaque. I bind about the same volume of glair to pigment powder for most mid-range absorbancy pigments. Obviously, carbon blacks would be out of that range in one direction and malachite/azurite out in the other. The reason I ask is that a couple years ago Wizards of the Coast flew me out to St. Gall(en) Switzerland, and before doing the show I visited the monastary there and looked at a lot of Insular style MSS. Some were made by the missionaries there, and some later collected but originally from the isles. I remember being struck by the very pronounced gloss of the translucent paint films in colored in letters in some of the MSS. It was like looking at stained epoxy layers on the page! The workmanship was mediocre at best for the majority of the books I saw. I would have hesitated to make middle level award recommendations to many of those illuminators if they were in the SCA today. Our average scribe could out paint some of those folks without even thinking about it. Of course, that in itself makes me wonder about whether such paint films were what they were really going for, or if the guys in the scriptorium were just not too hip on better methods. Ranthulfr Randy Asplund-Faith Science Ficion & Fantasy Illustration 2101 S. Circle Dr. Ann Arbor, MI. 48103 (734) 663-0954 http://www.provide.net/~randyaf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 21:21:26 -0700 From: John Stracke Subject: Re: [scribes]: Purple as main color? & New Question Thomas Brownwell wrote: > On a more serious note, the color choices of a medieval scribe would obviously > be tied to availability and cost, so that shell-based purples would be > relatively rare compared to earth-based reds. But it's quite clear from the use > of such extravagances as gold leaf that cost was not always important. Or, rather, cost *was* important--the nobles commissioning the work wanted to spend as much as they could. :-) /=================================================================\ |John Francis Stracke | http://www.thibault.org |S/MIME & HTML OK| |francis@thibault.org |===========================================| |Crosston, Mists, West| Any time somebody has a conditioned | |My LAN, my opinions. | response, they *always* think of Pavlov! | \=================================================================/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 21:29:25 -0700 From: John Stracke Subject: Re: [scribes]: Good start! Dots Randy & Melody Asplund-Faith wrote: > Our average scribe could out paint some of those folks without even > thinking about it. Of course, that in itself makes me wonder about whether > such paint films were what they were really going for, or if the guys in > the scriptorium were just not too hip on better methods. Or perhaps they were trying out some new material that looked fine in their lifetimes. Do you remember if all the glossy ones were from that scriptorium? /=================================================================\ |John Francis Stracke | http://www.thibault.org |S/MIME & HTML OK| |francis@thibault.org |===========================================| |Crosston, Mists, West| Any time somebody has a conditioned | |My LAN, my opinions. | response, they *always* think of Pavlov! | \=================================================================/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 16:12:55 +1000 From: Steve Roylance Subject: Re: [scribes]: Multiple things- Elyse Boucher wrote: > 5. Thorfinn's Rotunda. > > Thorfinn, I really like your ductus page; do you mind if I put a link in > from my scribal site? I did want to ask you about your terminology, though, > and open up the discussion to everyone, too.... I have always known the > "Rotunda" script to be an Italian gothic variation; that is, identifiably a > Gothic hand, but less angular, and it dates from the thirteenth century. > What you have at your site as "Rotunda" is what I have always known as a > "Humanist" hand. Is this a difference in American versus Australian > terminology? What other inconsistancies have y'all noticed in your studies? Maybe this is an OOPs on my part, but I have a commment in one of my other papers that Rotunda is a pre- Humanist Italian script. Also, on my timeline I have it as a different script to the one I published here. The "d" has a straight back whereas the "d" of that rotunda is closer to an Uncial script. But, I have been searching for my sources for this comment and I could not find where I got that comment. Arthur Baker has an Italian Rotunda script from about this time and place, but it is a transition script between Gothic and Humanist as you have described. Also, A.Baker is a very poor source. There are many differences between America and Australia as mainly we get our books from England and you get the same books reprinted by a local publisher. So, any publishing reference (ISBN and Publisher) I put forward is usually different from what you have and a significantly different price. You get the book cheaper. as ever Thorfinn, Lochac, West Melbourne, Australia ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V2 #54 ****************************