On Scroll
Texts
By Master Hector of the Black Height
When an award scroll is created, great care is taken
in the layout of the text, the illumination for the text and the hand the text
is written in. Often, less care is taken in the selection and creation of the
text itself. To be sure, the various heralds ensure the text meets the legal
standards of the Society as set forth in the
Middle Kingdom Text Standards, Ealdormere
Scribes' Handbook or other applicable authorities. Such inspection ensures
heraldic compliance with bureaucratic standards and meets legal requirements,
but what does it do about aesthetic requirements? A scroll is a work of art
(who better to know this than the visual artist who created it?); why not let
the whole product become a work of art? Careful creation of a suitable text can
embellish, compliment and complete a scroll.
First, let's look at the legal requirements I
referred to above. According to the Middle
Kingdom Text Standards (which you should use as your authority when
composing text for Midrealm awards. In the Kingdom of Ealdormere
a. the address ("be it known that");
b. the intitulation (identifying the donor, for example a member or
members of the Midrealm Royalty);
c. notification and exposition (a lead-in phrase, such as
"having heard much good of NAME..." and a description of what the
service or accomplishment being recognized is);
d. the disposition (the phrase where the donor
actually bestows the award in question); and
e. corroboration and date (which authenticates the time, place and
donor of the award).
This is all necessary and significant. If care is
not taken, however, the obligatory text can read like a car rental agreement.
There are very few limits on what you can say on a
scroll: the biggest caution is not to use the word "grant" (i.e.
"We do grant unto her...") in the disposition unless the award is a
Grant of Arms. Beyond that you can say almost anything you want, as long as you
touch on all the points listed above.
This is the stage where the scroll can stop being
only a piece of visual art and may also become a work of literature or poetry,
if you want. Let's look at how you can do this.
First, let's examine the importance of the narrative
voice in the text. Who is this person who proclaims the award? If you stick to
the cut-and-dried texts in the Middle
Kingdom Text Standards, the text is proclaimed by a herald, a bureaucratic
functionary, acting as the voice of the Crown. In such a case the text is dry
and the message is dry. The text will meet the legal requirements but it sits
on the page. There is no passion to the text, nothing individualistic about it.
It is nice (in that it says something nice has happened to someone), but not
inherently special beyond the fact. The new Ealdormere texts are better (in my
opinion) but there's only so much that can be done when creating a generic
text.
Instead of being in the voice of the herald
(individual or corporate), the text can be written in the voice of the King or
Queen, or of someone from the time and background of the recipient. These
latter examples are often exemplified by the elaborate texts in foreign
languages that sound so splendid in court. There's nothing like hearing an
award in Norse for a viking, or in Japanese for a Samurai. The sound of the words
takes on a new beauty as the court herald (and eventually the scroll's reader)
explores the rhythms of another language and the shapes and sounds of other
characters and words.
Selecting an appropriate verse or prose form to
compliment the persona of the recipient makes the award a very special gift. It
customizes what could be a very generic text and adds artistic and emotional
impact. There are other options, however, than merely suiting the text to the
recipient.
The King, Queen, Prince, Princess or any other noble
person who bestows an award is fulfilling two roles. First, the donor may be
acting on behalf of the Society by creating a new member for an order,
encouraging the efforts of others and thereby perpetuating the existence of the
order in general and the Society as a whole. The donor also acts on his or her
own behalf. Consider the heroic model of society so central to Germanic culture
(and, to cut a long story short, I believe central to the SCA also). The King
in such a culture sought a reputation as a generous patron, the
"ring-giver" of the sagas. Awards in the SCA are the King's rings,
his valuable (and valued) gifts. Each donor knows his or her signature (and
thus his or her name) will hang on walls across the Kingdom for decades. Wise
awards ensure the immortality of the King's name. Given the donor's role in the
award process, it is entirely proper for a scroll to reflect the character,
persona and cultural background of the donor instead of the recipient. This is
especially true of awards that reflect a bond between individual donor and
recipient (say a Queen' Favour from the Queen or a martial award from the
King).
Another factor to be considered is the cultural
climate of the recipient's home group. For example, in Ealdormere we have very
strong Celtic and Scandinavian roots. If a Mongol is King of Ealdormere and is
giving an award to a non-Mongol, you might want to create a text that reflects
the abiding cultural milieu of the area and not the transient specifics of that
particular Prince's culture. Such decisions may be best based on the nature of
the award being bestowed. If the award is for long service to a particular
group, it seems reasonable that the group's cultural character (if it has
developed a specific culture) should be indicated in the text of the award.
Once you decide that you want to try to do something
different with your text and determine what voice you're going to use, you have
to select a style that reflects the narrative voice. If you decide you want
your text to be poetry this is not as hard as you'd think. Various poetic forms
are very period- or location-specific. For example, a Shakespearean sonnet sets
the text in the last years of the sixteenth century in England
Let's say you've decided that you want your next
award scroll's text to reflect the donor of the award, and the donor is King
Comar II (i.e. Comar during his second reign as King of the Midrealm), who is
an early-period Saxon. Where can you find out how to write a poem suitable for
this scroll? There are a couple of good sources. The best of all is The Princeton
Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Enlarged Edition), which is the most
complete single survey on poetic forms I have found. Most good libraries have a
copy; if you really want to get serious about poetry it's available in
paperback in good book shops for about thirty dollars. To understand the
mechanics of alliterative verse, especially in early England
Having sat down with the references and boned up on
alliterative verse (in this case), you set out to write the poem and discover
you don't know where to start. Take the Kingdom standards and use them as a
framework; your text will have to include the five critical points, at the very
least. The donor will have to identify himself, say who's getting what and why.
The donor, in this case Comar, will have to bestow the award and then
corroborate the award. Take an award of arms to the fictitious Ragnar the
Unbathed of the Canton of Great Bog, awarded at the springtime Feast of Good
Cheer, for example:
Comar the King am I, now Crowned Midrealm's monarch
Sword-hewn throne sit I, the second so named
Bench long shared with Lisa, our Queen true and
well-loved
Past winter wind's whistle have I heard words of
praise raised
Marked well I the many deeds, made note of glad
service
Have given good thought to the Great Bog petition
Begging a boon of me, arms to bestow by me
On subject deserving such, sterling example
On subject deserving such, sterling example
Know my will, northmen, and none ever hinder
The rights of Lord Ragnar, remarked as Unbathed
To always bear arms, as heralds would counsel
From now and forever, in lands far and near
Such lands as my holdfast to Imperium's ends
King's word I commend to you, ring-giver's counsel
Mark well mighty Comar, made true declaration
From long bench in Great Bog, beyond inland waters
At fine feast of good cheer, fourth day of fair
April
Said scribes that date is year our folk cite XXVII
King's word once clear uttered will not be forgotten
This is one example of a form of alliterative verse;
the whole poem doesn't flow too well because I tried to fit all five parts of
the award text in. You can tack the corroboration on after the Royal
signatures; it is truly a bureaucratic and archival requirement. It's hard to
make an indexing feature into poetry, as the fourth stanza proves beyond
question. Given the reference to Comar's second reign I wonder if a specific
year reference is required; the award is set in the SCA's history (this
decision would be best made by a senior herald well before you start
calligraphy on this project). As for dates, it's possible to consult a good
hagiography (mine is The Oxford Dictionary
of Saints, available in paperback) and cite a Saint's feast day, eve of a
feast day or octave of a feast day instead of a Julian calendar date. This
religious citation is not always appropriate, of course; you have to know the
desires of the donor and the inclination of the recipient, within the
limitations of Corpora regarding religious observance and reference.
There's an easy way to avoid the problem of starting
a poem; have the text appear to pick up in the middle of a longer text! You
don't need to sit down and write seventeen pages of poetry and then grab a bit
from the centre, however. Rather than creating a huge saga, you can create an
excerpt from a non-existent longer work. I've been involved with a project like
this; in this one case, the scroll looked like it was a page lifted from a
complete period book. It was a very effective way to suggest continuity (in
this case, recognizing recipients of an annual award). It was also a lot of
fun, as this lay-out let the calligrapher and the illuminator play with
marginalia. If this idea doesn't suit you, you can simply start in the middle
(a technique called "in medias res" as I recall, and used very
effectively by Homer in the various openings of sections of The Odyssey). These aren't the only
answers to writer's block; any literary style or form can contribute to a
project that will turn out as that little bit more than the run-of-the-mill
scroll.
If you want to do a poetic text but just can't get a
handle on the verse form appropriate to the donor, try a different form
suitable to the recipient or the location. You can be flexible; you're the one
creating the work of art, after all. Whatever you do, the recipient will be
delighted you went that little bit farther and added interest and merit to the scroll,
as will the donor.
When all else fails, ask your local musicians and
poets for ideas for award scrolls or assistance with your composition. I've
seen Awards of Arms which are knives, axes and drinking horns; why can't an AoA
be a song, or a poem that gets published in a local group newsletter (or in Tournaments Illuminated, for that
matter)? The text of an award is a collection of words of praise, after all.
Use of an interesting prose or poetic form adds to the circulation of the text,
and to the spread of the recipient's praises.
Words are like paint or ink; they sit, waiting for
the artist to use them and give them value. Play with words like you play with
inks and paints. Just like in a sketch pad, you'll tear up a lot of false
starts and doodle a lot, but Da Vinci had lots of notebooks so why shouldn't
you? Experiment with styles and forms on your own or, better yet, collaborate
with another artist. You'll both learn something from the creative process, and
your efforts will make a person or persons very happy. After all, the recipient
won't just receive a scroll from their King, he or she will be given a work of
visual and literary art.
