From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V8 #22 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Sunday, July 7 2002 Volume 08 : Number 022 ======================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with unsubscribe scribes-digets in the body of the message. Leave the subject line blank. Do not include any additional text. Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls [scribes]: gouache and not-gouache [scribes]: Where did ScribalArts.Org go? [scribes]: Great Booke of the MidRealm Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls [scribes]: Looking for charters again Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls Re: [scribes]: Great Booke of the MidRealm Re: [scribes]: Great Booke of the MidRealm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:10:59 -0500 (CDT) From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" Subject: Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls There's always the Anglo-Saxon writs. I did three scrolls this past winter in the style of the writ, with the text in Latin and an Old English gloss. The Latin was done in caroline miniscule, and the OE gloss was done in A/S miniscule. I don't recall which books we used--not only am I at work, but all our sources are at the house of the other half, who is unavailable for the next couple of days. However, I am fairly sure that one of the books we used was entitled _Anglo-Saxon Writs_, by Florence Harmer. I'll see what I can dig out. Margaret FitzWilliam On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, EB wrote: > Greetings from Genevieve, > > I'm a calligrapher first, and illuminator a distant second. > > I'm keen to do scrolls, and want to work with my strengths. I am looking for > examples as models where the art is in the calligraphy, more than the illumination, > where really gorgeous writing was the point of the piece, with perhaps one or > two rubricated letters, rather than the book-of-hours-page look. > > I'm not sure what period I should be looking at, though I did see one lovely > example in a 15th c. batarde hand recently, by Dame Sarra Graeham. > > Can anyone direct me to suitable examples, in either books or online? I'm game > to try new hands and styles. > > Regards, > > Genevieve la flechiere > Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere > =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 12:28:32 -0400 From: "EB" Subject: Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls >There's always the Anglo-Saxon writs. I did three scrolls this past winter in the style of the writ, with the text in Latin and an Old English gloss. >The Latin was done in caroline miniscule, and the OE gloss was done in A/S miniscule. > >I don't recall which books we used--not only am I at work, but all our sources are at the house of the other half, who is unavailable for the next couple of days. > >However, I am fairly sure that one of the books we used was entitled _Anglo-Saxon Writs_, by Florence Harmer. > >I'll see what I can dig out. > >Margaret FitzWilliam > Ooooh, please do! I'd love to know more about these, I can do both hands. I'll look up the book in the meantime. Regards, Genevieve =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 12:41:13 -0500 (CDT) From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" Subject: Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, EB wrote: > >There's always the Anglo-Saxon writs. I did three scrolls this past winter in > the style of the writ, with the text in Latin and an Old English gloss. > >The Latin was done in caroline miniscule, and the OE gloss was done in A/S > miniscule. > > > >I don't recall which books we used--not only am I at work, but all our sources > are at the house of the other half, who is unavailable for the next couple of > days. > > > >However, I am fairly sure that one of the books we used was entitled _Anglo-Saxon > Writs_, by Florence Harmer. > > > >I'll see what I can dig out. > > > >Margaret FitzWilliam > > > Ooooh, please do! I'd love to know more about these, I can do both hands. > > I'll look up the book in the meantime. > > Regards, > > Genevieve Here's another one: Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Charters, Stuart Keynes, ed. I'm pretty sure we used this one as well. Margaret =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 14:11:26 -0500 (CDT) From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" Subject: [scribes]: gouache and not-gouache Feh. The Savoir Faire "French School" gouache says in huge white letters on the boxed set: "Opaque Watercolor Gouache". So, at least according to the box, it's not an acrylic gouache, and should therefore behave properly and rehydrate when told to. Still, it's useful for practicing whitework. Margaret FitzWilliam =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 18:38:11 -0400 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: [scribes]: Where did ScribalArts.Org go? I just tried to go have a gander at the ScribalArts.Org web site, and either that domain name's been hijacked by someone else, or it's temporarily gone, or I don't know what. When you go to that page, you get this page that is called UPSentry Web that asks you for a password to enter. Who or what is UPSentry Web? And where did ScribalArts go? Is it coming back soon, I hope? Wondering........... ~Saradwen Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 21:13:22 -0600 From: Greg Young/Jocelyn Wirth Subject: [scribes]: Great Booke of the MidRealm Greetings all, Does anyone happen to know the brand name of the paper that was used in the creation of the Great Booke of the MidRealm? Thanks, Ainesleah ***************************************************************************** Mistress Hermina Matilda de Ainesleah of Meredene, OL Member # 19216 HL Robin Arthur Kyrke, Esq., Forester and Sargent Member # 28653 Barony of Castel Rouge Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Jocelyn Wirth and Greg Young excalibr@gatewest.net ****************************************************************************** =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 23:26:06 -0600 From: Juanita Subject: Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls > > > Greetings from Genevieve, > > > I'm a calligrapher first, and illuminator a distant second. > > > I'm keen to do scrolls, and want to work with my strengths. I am looking > > > for examples as models where the art is in the calligraphy, more than the > > > illumination, > > > where really gorgeous writing was the point of the piece, with perhaps Begin perhaps with: Miner, D. E., V. I. Carlson, and P. W. Filby (1980), 2,000 Years of Calligraphy: A Three-Part Exhibition Organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Peabody Library, and the Walters Art Gallery, Taplinger Publishing Co., NY, p. 115. My copy, ie the one I use, is checked out of my local university library. I recently used a cadel plus script example out of this wonderful book as the basis for a non-armigerous calligraphy-only scroll. I have documentation for this scroll written up, since I submitted it to an A&S competition, but I have yet to put that on line. I would like to do so this weekend if I have time, since my entire website needs maintenance and rebuilding. If Genevieve would like me to email her my documentation direct as an attachment (it'a an MS Word file, has pictures - not small, 380k), send an email address. Otherwise, y'all can wait for the website rebuild later this week/weekend. Back to callig-only "scrolls" I have been thinking so long outside of the scroll box, that I find it increasingly harder to continue doing "scrolls" without laying down rather strict stipulations to the royalty who ask me to do "scrolls" for them. I've been in long enough now to be considered older than dirt, and have enough chutzpah (I spelled that incorrectly, didn't I?) to get away with it... My conditions: 1. the fool thing is not a scroll, it's a writ or a patent or whathaveyou, but it's NOT A SCROLL. (Okay, I have that out of my system...I'm feeling better now) 2. I refuse to put decoration on a legal SCA document that is inappropriate for decorating medieval or renaissance documents. Since I've invested a large amount of time researching what appropriate decoration is for armigerous and other period legal documents, I have a few legs to stand on here. The bottom line is that books-of-hours type decoration will never appear on any SCA document I do. And yes, I am saying that I've done deeper research than the Saintly Eowyn (hi Eowyn!!!) has published! And before you complain that I haven't published any of this, please refrain until after the Fall TI (hi Nicolaa!!!) 3. I will not probably do any painting on any SCA document I do if I do not have at least 4 weeks advance notice (or if the bribe is not sufficient) 4. I will not do any sca document if I do not have control (within reason, of course) over the language of the document. If I want to play, and use early modern French in the style of the English and French Colleges of Arms of the 15the C., then let me play and put my research to work if you want me to produce anything to be given out in court to an award recipient. If you insist that I stick to concepts, expression and vocabulary from an award text published in somebody's scribal or heraldic handbook that are modern and inappropriate to that which I know is period (and I do provide copious documentation with everything I produce, so there's never a question), then find somebody else to do the "scroll." I have not used a "canned" text for over a decade, and I'm not about to start now... Ok, accuse me of conceit, and it may even be warranted. But I've put a lot of work into figuring out what medieval and renaissance documents really were and how they functioned, and I did it because the research was interesting and pleasing to me (and discovered that translating early modern French, German and medieval Latin was easier than I thought!). I do SCA document "scrolls" to suit and please myself, not to satisfy the scroll factory or the expectations of people who give and get freebie art in court (unless, of course, a good friend is getting an award in court, which always changes the mix of variables going into the "scroll" equation). So basically, if the task does nothing to satisfy whatever imputus it is that keeps me churning out SCA documents, then my answer is a firm and polite no, usually backed up with a polite letter, with copious documentation attached, if I think it will do any good... So now that that long rant is over, I'd like to say that I have learned what the shape and flavor of a text-only period document should be like, and have turned a fair number, more that I can count now, of text-only award "writs" given out in court, often on small pieces of vellum, in a good and fairly-pretty loopy batard, or in my bread-and-butter anglo-norman secretary hand, or in my new favorite hand which I've beeb calling Abbey of Abington Charter hand. All the hands looks spiff, especially on a 6" by 4" piece of vellum, and are only improved if you live in a kingdom that uses dependent seals. I love to knock the recipients over and love watching their faces when they read the documentation/care-and-feeding instructions about period legal documents, how they were written and what they looked like, usually with the letter patent or privy their award is based on quoted in full. So I'd start with _2000 Years of Calligraphy_, and move on from there. I think the next place I would go would be to the wonderful collections of historic English documents that now exist. I'd dig up my references list now, but I'm in bed flat on my back trying to get that old back injury from the car accident to stop hurting, so I'll take a rain check on posting it for now. I suspect the logical thing to do is put that up on the rebuild of the website. What I really like doing these days, other than writing up period- style SCA legal documents, is doing period art. I've recently been trying to teach myself to make portrait "cartoons" in the style of Holbein the Younger, completely with making my own period sticks of colored drawing "chalks" (and the reason the back hurts is that I took the apprentice out to collect calcite for making more white pigment for drawing and painting today, and got stuck in the back seat of a car for the 2.5 hour drive home in a funny position...owww! - I'm getting too old for this sort of thing...) I love living outside of the "scroll box" I highly recommend it! I'll shut up now and refrain from spouting any more tonight, before I get too outrageous, even for this patient crowd... ttfn Therasia (aka Tux, aka Grumpy, aka ShouldShutUpAndGoToBed) =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2002 09:02:36 -0700 From: EowynA Subject: Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls Hi Therasia! > And yes, I am saying that I've done deeper research than the > Saintly Eowyn (hi Eowyn!!!) has published! And before you > complain that I haven't published any of this, please refrain > until after the Fall TI (hi Nicolaa!!!) I admit, I had hoped others would do more research in that vein and expand the SCA scribal knowledge base (that is -- local research should be published to let everyone advance). The resources for examples that I had back when "Scrolls and Rolls" was written were so much more limited than today's, and the mindset about SCA documents was constrained by "the way things are" at time it was written. We have grown. I look forward with anticipation to the Fall TI! Eowyn =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 17:30:59 -0700 From: "Dr Donna DeBonis" Subject: [scribes]: Looking for charters again Greetings all , A few weeks ago someone had posted websites that had pre-printed charters for SCA use. Could someone plese email me those websites again? I have some friends who were looking for that. thank you for the bandwith, Donwenna =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 22:00:54 -0400 From: "Susan Carroll-Clark" Subject: Re: [scribes]: calligraphy-only scrolls Greetings-- > I look forward with anticipation to the Fall TI! You're in for a treat. How could I resist an article that combines two of my favorite topics--SCA history and scribal arts! (The issue should be out in October, BTW--we're just starting work on the editing/layout now...) Nicolaa =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 10:25:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Cecelia M. Hughes" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Great Booke of the MidRealm It bwas chosen by her grace, Duchess Elen. I fear I do not recall the name. Duke Eliahu might. Graidhne On Thu, 4 Jul 2002, Greg Young/Jocelyn Wirth wrote: > Greetings all, > > Does anyone happen to know the brand name of the paper that was used in the > creation of the Great Booke of the MidRealm? > > Thanks, > > Ainesleah > > ***************************************************************************** > Mistress Hermina Matilda de Ainesleah of Meredene, OL Member # 19216 > HL Robin Arthur Kyrke, Esq., Forester and Sargent Member # 28653 > Barony of Castel Rouge Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada > > Jocelyn Wirth and Greg Young excalibr@gatewest.net > ****************************************************************************** > > > =================================================================== > To unsubscribe from this list, send email to > with a blank Subject: line and > unsubscribe scribes > in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in > the body. > > =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Jul 2002 12:21:16 -0400 From: Randy Asplund Subject: Re: [scribes]: Great Booke of the MidRealm I can answer that. It was Rising brand. I think it was a two ply Bristol. It was ok for work to be put in a frame, but too absorbent for watercolors going into a book. The artists needed to compensate by adding more binder (gum arabic) to their paints, but unfortunately most didn't know that. It was another era back when that book was made. We have learned a lot since then. In my opinion, it was a good paper, but we could have gotten away with a lighter weight version. I have to admit though, with all of the abuse that book took from the process of creation, display, and restorations, the heavier weight paper actually was a good factor in the book's longevity. RanthulfR "Cecelia M. Hughes" wrote: > > It bwas chosen by her grace, Duchess Elen. I fear I do not recall the > name. Duke Eliahu might. > > Graidhne > > On Thu, 4 Jul 2002, Greg Young/Jocelyn Wirth wrote: > > > Greetings all, > > > > Does anyone happen to know the brand name of the paper that was used in the > > creation of the Great Booke of the MidRealm? > > > > Thanks, > > > > Ainesleah > > > > ***************************************************************************** > > Mistress Hermina Matilda de Ainesleah of Meredene, OL Member # 19216 > > HL Robin Arthur Kyrke, Esq., Forester and Sargent Member # 28653 > > Barony of Castel Rouge Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada > > > > Jocelyn Wirth and Greg Young excalibr@gatewest.net > > ******************************************************************************> > > > > =================================================================== > > To unsubscribe from this list, send email to > > with a blank Subject: line and > > unsubscribe scribes > > in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in > > the body. > > > > > > =================================================================== > To unsubscribe from this list, send email to > with a blank Subject: line and > unsubscribe scribes > in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in > the body. - -- VISIT RandyAsplund.com To see a Universe of art ranging from Magic: The Gathering to Star Trek and Medieval Manuscripts Randy Asplund (734) 663-0954 Science Fiction and Fantasy Illustration 2101 S. Circle Dr., Ann Arbor, MI. 48103 =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V8 #22 ****************************