I have mentioned before that I’m back in the SCA (do a search for SCA or use the Medieval category) and I’m finally narrowing down the persona that I want.

For those unfamiliar with the process, when you’re a part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, you come up with a medieval persona that you “play” when you’re at SCA events. Kind of like real-life role playing. At the minimum, people generally come up with a place and general time they want to be from, for instance: 13th century France or England in the late 1400’s. THAT’s necessary to help you come up with a name. If you’re going to play the game, as it were, you at least need something that other people can call you. So picking a time and place allows you to get a list of names that you could choose from. Of course, some people probably pick a name they like and find a time/place they could use it, but the more “serious” people are interested in some specific facet of medieval Europe and they tailor their name and persona to match.

After picking a name, you’re encouraged to develop a persona, as detailed as you like. You might be Wilhelm the Merchant or a monk named Thomas or Natasha, a seamstress. Whatever you like. Some people even develop an entire history for their persona, with parentage and a life story.

You probably will then want to figure out what your person would wear, since you’ll need to get or make some kind of costume for you to wear to the various events. That will, of course, be effected by the place and time that you’ve chosen. For many people, the clothing fashions play a big part of determining that time and place.

Then, whatever you’re interested in, you simply LEARN about. There are always people to help you find the resources you need, or often even to teach classes that you’d like. There are all kinds of handcrafts (calligraphy, illumination, embroidery, leatherwork, sewing, and woodworking, to name just a few) as well as various skills (like fighting, music, dance, cooking, brewing, and heraldry). Pretty much, if it went on in the Middle Ages, there are people in the SCA who do it.

Except for the Black Plague. ;-)
So that’s persona development in a nutshell. It’s only limited by your interests and drive. And the more you learn and the more skills you develop, the better you can play the persona you’ve chosen.

I’ve pretty much settled on my persona. I’m looking at early 15th century Austria. To be more specific, I’ll be from Salzburg around 1425. I went back and forth between a clerical and an academic persona and have settled on the academic. Probably be teaching at the University of Vienna, since the University of Salzburg wasn’t founded until 1622. The University of Vienna was established in 1365 and, except for the Charles University in Prague, it’s the oldest university in Central Europe. The U of Vienna was also the first university in the German-speaking world. There’s a nice article in Wikipedia about the University of Vienna.

Some activities I’ll be able to pursue while playing this persona are learning more about the medieval universities and how they taught, developing a specialty subject area and even teaching SCA people in the way the class would have been taught back in the Middle Ages. I’ll probably delve into the more knowledge-based arts and sciences, too, like writing, cartography, heraldry, and maybe even book-binding. Boy, wouldn’t it be cool to learn how to make woodcuts the old way? I could also learn more about medieval technologies, sciences, or sociopolitical/spiritual topics, like how medieval towns were run (by magistrates, etc.) or how philosophers and religious types spread their knowledge. And of course activities like dance or brewing are fine for just about anybody. :-)
That’s it in a nutshell. I think it will be very interesting, with all kinds of possibilities for me to learn, to make and do things, to teach, and to help others get excited about these kinds of things too.

Current music: Sacred Road, by David Lanz

[tags]medieval, middle ages, SCA, universities, persona development[/tags]