The
most successful popular medievalist organization of our time
is the Society for Creative Anachronism. The number of people
who have come into contact with the S.C.A. over the past thirty
years must be in the hundreds of thousands, and that very
fact, I believe, is having a slow, underground effect on popular
views of the Middle Ages, at least in North America.
The
S.C.A. has always been interested in both recreation and re-creation.
People participate in the S.C.A. for fun, not because they
are paid re-enactors or have a compulsion to pay homage to
their ancestral culture. Yet from an early date, the S.C.A.
has been also been concerned with re-creation, the revival
of the customs, ideals, and artifacts of the Middle Ages.
Few long-term members of the S.C.A. are indifferent to the
re-creation of the Middle Ages. They tend to see a concern
with the real Middle Ages, its values and material culture,
as the one of the things that marks their hobby off from others,
and makes it a more serious hobby than most.
But
what does re-creation mean? What aspects of medieval culture
are most deserving of revival? Which is more important, literal
re-creation of medieval life, or a select re-enactment of
the best of medieval life -- in an old S.C.A. phrase, "The
Middle Ages as They Should Have Been"? These are questions
that have divided the S.C.A. from a very early date. An examination
of the internal debates of the S.C.A. about what the organization
actually does and what it should be doing is of interest to
anyone who thinks about what it means to revive past custom,
past ways of life, and the realistic limits of such revivals.
The
best place to start is with the very first tournament of what
became the Society for Creative Anachronism, which took place
on May 1, 1966. It was a party held in a backyard in Berkeley,
California, and no more than thirty people attended. The invitation
that was sent out beforehand made no direct reference to the
Middle Ages. It was addressed to "lovers of chivalry,"
and the main attraction is described as an "international
tournament" of knights seeking to uphold the honor of
their ladies. Guests were encouraged to dress in the manner
of any age "in which swords were used." This was
a costume party put together by some imaginative young people,
and it got an eclectic response. One participant, recalling
the occasion in 1995, said that attendees included "Queen
Lucy of Narnia...and a hobbit, and several generic fantasy
duelists, and a pair of Roman gladiators."(2) The First
Tournament of the S.C.A. was recreation almost entirely, with
re-creation not terrifically evident.
However,
among the attendees were several people who had a serious
interest in the Middle Ages; they had been largely responsible
for organizing the party. They and others who had enjoyed
themselves so much on May Day, 1966, were soon planning other
tourneys, and evolving a philosophy and a permanent set of
institutions to give a shape to their efforts.
Much
of the early philosophy of the S.C.A. came out of the small
circle of tournament fighters whose martial efforts were the
centerpiece of all the early S.C.A. gatherings. They debated
rather heatedly what they were trying to accomplish. Were
they inventing a new sport, or more ambitiously a martial
art, governed by a set of hard and fast rules, and supervised
by judges? In other words, something like competitive fencing
or judo? Or was tournament fighting a chivalric exercise,
in which the fighters fought on their honor, and in the best
tradition of the medieval tournament? It is extremely significant
for the development of the S.C.A. that the advocates of "chivalric
combat" won the debate with the "martial artists."
S.C.A. armored combat, so central to the activities of the
organization, was not to be simply a re-creation of the mechanics
of fighting in armor with sword, and shield, and other mock
weapons modeled on medieval exemplars; it was to have an ethical
content.
By
the time the S.C.A. held its second Twelfth-Night feast in
January, 1968, the organization had both the outline of a
social structure and a name. The social structure was based
on tournament combat. The winners of tournaments were to be
Kings for a term, with the ladies they fought for as their
Queens. The most accomplished and honorable fighters of the
realm were honored as knights; those fearsome figures who
had won two crowns were called Dukes. All this was inspired
by the Middle Ages but the result did not reflect the Middle
Ages as they ever existed. Rather it was a Society designed
in Berkeley, in A.D. 1967, to support certain chivalric virtues
considered typical of the Middle Ages. If the S.C.A. was no
longer imitating "any age when swords were used,"
but more specifically the Western European Middle Ages, eclecticism
was still important. Indeed, it was reflected in the name,
Society for Creative Anachronism, which was devised by Marion
Zimmer Bradley, a member from the start. "Creative Anachronism"
signified the freedom of the organization to adopt and reject
old customs and practices as it saw fit.
So
far it may seem that the idea of "the Middle Ages as
They Should Have Been" had been having things all its
own way. There is a lot of truth to that. The S.C.A.-specific
customs inaugurated at that Twelfth-Night, 1968, are dearer
to most members than anything taken directly from the Middle
Ages. The S.C.A.'s attitude is in contrast to that of other
historical re-enactment groups, with their focus on a short
span of years and the staging of specific historical events,
such as the Battle of Hastings or Gettysburg. But as early
as 1968, one could also see an increase in the value the Society
gave to actual research into the Middle Ages and authentic
re-enactment of certain medieval arts.
One
important turning point was the invention of the Order of
the Laurel, which took place at the same time as the formalization
of the Order of Knighthood. This was created to recognize
those who excelled in non-martial arts, "without whom
our Society would not be half so pleasant." The first
two Masters of the Laurel were a Master Musician and a Master
Artificer and Armorer, and they were raised to the nobility
for adding to the medieval appearance and sound of the new
society, for giving some cultural substance to the modern
game, and for having the specialized knowledge necessary to
do so.
By
1969, some members felt the new organization needed a legal
existence, and incorporated the S.C.A. in California. In the
Articles of Incorporation, the S.C.A. claimed to be an organization
dedicated to research into pre-seventeenth century culture.
The honesty of this claim has sometimes been questioned --
since the S.C.A. was simultaneously applying for a favorable
tax status on educational grounds -- but I see no reason to
doubt it. True, the incorporators had no desire to abandon
the eclectic, modern game that had evolved. They did, however,
think that the S.C.A. could be more than just a game, that
the re-enactment of selected aspects of medieval life would
indeed lead to a real understanding of medieval life. It would
be hands-on learning that would supplement and be supplemented
by book learning.
That
hope has been amply borne out over the last thirty years.
I have observed the S.C.A. for most of that time, and repeatedly
I have seen people transformed from partygoers into skilled
artisans and serious, if amateur, scholars of the Middle Ages.
At the same time, even members who are not artisans, who accumulate
gear through buying or barter, have continually gotten more
discriminating in their tastes. At the biggest S.C.A. gathering,
the annual Pennsic War, over two hundred merchants compete
for the re-creationists' dollar, selling everything from pavilions
to 15th-century style eyeglasses. More remarkable than the
size of the market these people serve is its sophistication.
In August of 1995, I noted that it was becoming commonplace
for S.C.A. merchants to offer, with their goods, documentation
of authenticity of design and materials. The merchants are
not only proud of their efforts at re-creation, but believe
that authenticity is a selling point.
Thus,
the S.C.A. has made a great deal of progress in re-creating
the material aspects of the Middle Ages, and its membership
has, true to the hopes of its incorporators, gained a great
deal of hands-on knowledge not easily gained through more
usual educational channels. Former members who return after
an absence of ten years or more are usually flabbergasted
by this development. Yet, at the same time, criticism of the
S.C.A.'s medieval re-creation by its own members has, if anything,
grown.
Quite
often, as people learn about the Middle Ages through their
participation in the S.C.A., they become very dissatisfied
with their own efforts and the uses to which they are put
in the organization. It is a standard custom, for instance,
when ranks and awards are made to outstanding members, for
the awards to be accompanied by illuminated scrolls. Because
such awards are very important in the Society, and lots of
scrolls are needed, calligraphy and illumination are much
cultivated and highly respected arts. Many members of the
Order of the Laurel, the artistic nobility of the S.C.A.,
are calligraphers and illuminators. But I heard in 1995 a
noted calligrapher complaining that the customary scrolls
are inauthentic, because they are usually modeled on pages
from Bibles and Books of Hours. She argued, quite accurately,
that medieval documents conferring rank and office were usually
not illuminated, but consisted of text only. She floated the
idea that her kingdom should adopt this more authentic style.
She quickly found, to her disappointment, that all her friends
and neighbors preferred the more beautiful if less authentic
documents that have become customary in the S.C.A. (3)
What
makes this particular conflict between one member's sense
of authenticity and the traditions of the S.C.A. poignant
are two facts: first, the critic had discovered calligraphy
and illumination through the S.C.A., and been motivated to
master them because of their importance in the Society's rituals;
second, she was not an individualistic partisan of "art
for art's sake," but the person who was in charge of
organizing production of scrolls for her kingdom. In other
words, this is a case of a dedicated member finding herself
torn between a desire for more literal re-creation, and traditions
and rituals that she loved and supported, but which she now
found wanting, because they no longer matched her knowledge
or esthetic understanding of the medieval period.
The
same conflict is played out endlessly within the S.C.A. Some
members become dissatisfied enough to leave, to pursue what
they consider a higher quality historical re-creation with
the help of a select group of their friends. (For an electronic
pamphlet describing one such group, The Traynd Bands of London,
see http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jsingman/Bands.Advert.html;
the vast majority of its early members, perhaps the totality,
were past or present members of the S.C.A.) Whether they escape
the central dilemma of re-creation versus recreation by doing
so is doubtful. The experience of the SCA seems to show that
the problem is irresolvable. The success of the S.C.A. as
re-creation, which is considerable, is a function of its success
as recreation, or perhaps, as a working society with its own
rules, customs, carrots, and sticks, few of which can be considered
to be accurate reflections of any medieval reality. It is
social interaction in the present that motivates SCA members
to attain higher levels of skill and authenticity in their
chosen areas of re-creation. And in turn, this process of
self-education changes the way members regard the S.C.A. itself,
and motivates some to try to alter its customs.
The
S.C.A. may stand for any number of attempts to bring a piece
of the past alive in the present. Such attempts must both
reflect the admired past, and make social sense in the ongoing
present. How past and present reach a fruitful compromise
in the behavior of actual human beings is a matter of constant
negotiation. Both present and past make demands on the Society
for Creative Anachronism; and it is in the nature of the enterprise
that, as long as it remains vital, neither recreation nor
re-creation will ever win out entirely.
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