Scribes’ Blog Archive – Scribes of Lochac

These are the entries from the Scribe’s Blog which ran from 20010 to 2013

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2013
September Scribes North Innilgard
We have two new scribes: Fionn and Faegan.
Fionn is currently illluminating her first Award of Arms scrolls for some Lochac recipients and Faegan is now waiting for AoA blanks to start his first scroll. In the meantime, he has illuminated and calligraphed an entry for today’s A&S competition on the history of Innilgard. (He is also running the Chess tourney that is part of). Posted by Karen C.

SATURDAY, MAY 11, 2013
May Scribes in Innilgard (Northish)
Today we had one of our new Scribes attending the Northern Scribes Practice. Faelan is working on his exemplar and is really keen on early scripts (especially Icelandic)! Posted by Karen C.

SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2013
Scribes: brought to by the north reaches of Innilgard
Today was the second time that I have hosted Scribes on the North side. Last month, we had a new scribe, Fionn, who has already sent in her exemplar. Today, Faelen joined us for the first time. He has been pottering with calligraphy for some time and is now working on an exemplar as well. Clever boy, also helped me to try to nut out Latin wording for a peerage scroll I am working on. I have decided on a black background (which I have been dying to do for a while). I have help from two other Scribe friends who are both conversant in Latin. So have sent these off to see if they appropriate.
Happy that we have two new potential Scribes keen to get going! Posted by Karen C.

SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 2012
I have finally finished up another original scroll for a GoA. will be handing it up soon.It was based on Songs of heart, Savoy c. 1470

Posted by Karen C at 11:32 pm

MONDAY, JANUARY 2, 2012
Ductus
Newsletter of the Royal College & Confraternity of Scribes & Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac
http://www.sca.org.au/mailman/listinfo/scribes
http://lochac.sca.org/scribe/index.htm
http://lochacscribes.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/
Volume 11 Issue 4 December 2011

Greetings all and welcome to the December Ductus.

I would like to start this issue of Ductus by wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This has been a big year for the College of Scribes yet again. We have not completed all of the Pelican Scrolls that were on the backlog but there are a lot that have been started, completed or are well under way. It has been amazing to watch the progress of many of the scribes this year. I have been particularly impressed by some of the newer scribes who have been so productive and who have really managed to branch out this year and produce totally wonderful scrolls.

Competitions
The Pelican Scrolls competition end at Canterbury Faire at the end of January 2012. If you have scrolls for the Pelican Competition please let me know and make sure that they get to me either before Canterbury Faire or at Canterbury Faire at the latest. I hope to announce the winners at Festival in 2012.

If anyone would like to see the scrolls that have been done this year please check them out at our Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

As a number of scrolls have come to me at events or have arrived directly before events and gone straight out there are a few that I am missing photographs of. If your scroll is not up on the site and should be could you please send me a photo so that I can put the scroll that you have done up on the site.

Next year our focus will move to Knight and Laurel scrolls. Can everyone please complete your Pelican scrolls ASAP so that I can start to assigning Knight and Laurel scrolls as soon as possible. We have lots of them to do this year and it would be wonderful to get through as many of them as we have managed to get through of the Pelican scrolls. We still have a fair way to go but the backlog is looking much better than it has for a very long time.

Scroll Timings
When scrolls are assigned they are not assigned indefinitely. AA and GA scrolls must be completed within six months. Original Scrolls for Peerages must be completed within 1 year. If a scroll goes over this time an extension must be negotiated with the Provost of Scribes. This extension is not automatic and if the Provost of Scribes does not feel that it is warranted it will not be given.

Currently there are a number of outstanding scrolls that have gone over this time. Those scrolls will be removed from the people who are doing them unless they have already contacted me to request an extension or unless they do contact me and ask for an extension.

Seals
The first Scribes seals have been used for the new Writs for Their Royal Highnesses. These have been sent out to Their Royal Highnesses so that they will be available for when they step up. It is very exciting that we have finally go to the point where these seals are available and able to be used. From now on all Writs will be done with the College of Scribes Seals.

I hope to have seals for all the Wardens by Festival 2012 and to be able to give out many of the seals to those Wardens who will be at Festival.

Copies of all Writs that have been done for each Reign will soon be available on the Scribes website. Keep an eye out so that you can see what they look like http://www.sca.org.au/scribe/gallery3.htm

Royal Peerage Scrolls
One of the many changes that has been made while I have been Provost is the completion of scrolls for the Kings and Queens of Lochac as they step down from their roll and receive the award of Duke/ Duchess or Count/ Countess. So far for each Reign the College of Scribes has had at least one if not two of these scrolls to complete. These have all been done and presented on time as the ex-Royalty have received their awards. This has been a tremendous success at these events with many people commenting on the quality of the scrolls that have been done and how wonderful it is to see these scrolls given out at these events.

I would like to congratulate all of those who have contributed to these scrolls to date. They have been very well received and have provided a much needed boost to the College of Scribes visibility.

AoA Scrolls
Even though Pelican Scrolls have been the focus of this years efforts this has not meant that the College of Scribes has lost its focus on continuing to complete AoA scrolls. A large number of AoA scrolls have been completed and handed out this year. In particular I would like to thank the scribes in Queensland for their amazing efforts to catch up and complete so many AoA scrolls this year. They have been an inspiration. To see their efforts please look at the Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

Beginners Packs
Thanks to the generosity of the Barony of Rowany through the Rowany Fighter Auction, the College of Scribes has been given some money to make up beginners packs for new scribes. These packs will have enough brushes for five new scribes for each region plus a set of paints for each region. These paints will be made available so that the Wardens in each area can hand them out to new scribes who would like to start doing calligraphy and illumination but may not have enough money to be able to start work on projects.

To keep the equipment in each of these packs the idea is that the local Warden get a commitment from each scribe to complete at least one AoA. As usual any person who has a pack has six months to complete their AoA. If they do not feel up to doing both the calligraphy and illumination then they have that six months to complete either the calligraphy or illumination and to get the scroll to their local Warden who will either complete the remaining section or assign it to another scribe for completion.

This has been trialled in Rowany with success and I hope it will prove to be as useful for the Wardens in other area’s. If you find that in your area a different system works better than please let me know.

Packs will be given out between now and Festival depending upon my availability at events and which Wardens will be at what events. At this stage I will be making it to Canterbury Faire and Rowany Festival. If there are going to be representatives from any of the scribal groups at either of those events can you please let me know so that I can take your pack with me. Otherwise packs will be sent out.

Website
The College of Scribes website always needs the links updated, as things change links go out of date and sites disappear. New sites also appear and many of those are really useful for the College of Scribes site to link to. If you find any websites that you think it would be useful to have links to on the College of Scribes website please send those details through to the Upper Warden Kerdwen the Mouse at janelle.heron@gmail.com

Provost
2012 will be my last year as Provost of the College of Scribes. I plan to step down in August. I already have at least one person interested in the position of Provost, however if you think that Provost is a position that you would like to do please contact me so that I can send you a job description and talk to you about the roll.

The roll of Provost can be a very rewarding one but there is quite a lot of paperwork. The Provost is a Kingdom Officer and as such needs to complete a quarterly report amongst the other paperwork that comes with being the head of the College of Scribes. This is not the job for someone who just wants to do wonderful illumination but does not want to do the paperwork. You do not have to be a Laurel in calligraphy and illumination to be Provost, you do not even have to be a Laurel, you do need to be able to do paperwork. I hope to see a few people interested.

The position of Provost will be advertised in Pegasus as is required of any Kingdom Officer. All applications should go to the Crown and to the Kingdom Seneschal. It would also be beneficial if they came to me. As a requirement of the roll of a Kingdom Officer you must have a Drop Dead Deputy in place within six months of moving into the position of Provost of the College of Scribes. For other requirements of a Kingdom Officer please see the Lochac Procedures Manual http://lochac.sca.org/seneschal/docs/LochacProceduresManual.pdf and the Provost job description that I will send out upon request. I will also have the Provost job description place on the website.

Thank you all for your support this year. I look forward to seeing many more wonderful scrolls as we move into 2012.

Caristiona nic Beathain –
Provost of Scribes provost@lochac.sca.org Posted by Caristiona at 4:12 AM

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2011
Ductus
Newsletter of the Royal College & Confraternity of Scribes & Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac
http://www.sca.org.au/mailman/listinfo/scribes
http://lochac.sca.org/scribe/index.htm
http://lochacscribes.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/
Volume 11 Issue 3 September 2011

Greetings all and welcome to the September Ductus.

I would like to congratulate everyone on how well scrolls are going this year. I know that doing original scrolls is making the task much longer but I have been impressed with the number of original scrolls that are being done. In addition many scribes seem to still be doing the GA and AoA scrolls that are coming up on the database. It is wonderful to see that these scrolls are continuing even while the focus is on original scrolls.

Competitions
The people who contributed to the blanks competition last year were;
Caristiona nic Beathain
Branwen of Werchesvorde
Maeve ni Iasachta
Keridwen the Mouse
Katherine Alicia of Sarum
Muirghein ni Ghrainne
Brain dorcha ua Conaill
Constanzia Moralez y de Xamora
Liadan verch Lochac
Celestrai Ashwood
Svartr Ormsson
Tamsyn Northover
Leonie de Grey
Madoc ap Gryffith
Tailtiu of Gortruna
Tatiiana Kalinin
Arlette Mortimer
Riona of Caerleon
Catherin d’Arc
Katrijin van Delden
Madelaine de Bourgogne
Helen Hartshorne
Katerina de Brescia
Phedre de Caravalle
Kathern Richer
Alicia the Pastry Chef
Maragerete Engelhardts
Lyssa Trygvrrsdottir

Each of these scribes either has, or will receive one of the Scribes tokens for the work that they have done. Congratulations to all of you, your efforts made a huge difference in our backlog and considerably increased the visibility of the College of Scribes over the last year. It was an amazing effort.

Pelican Scrolls
Pelican scrolls are coming to me slowly but surely. There are many assigned that I hope to see by the end of this year. Remember for your scrolls to be considered part of the Pelican Scrolls competition they must be to me before Canterbury Faire in January.

Change in Wardens
þorfinn is no longer the Warden for the College of Scribes down in Stormhold. He has been Warden for many years and it is now time for him to move on and for other scribes to take up this position. At the moment there is not a Warden for Stormhold. This position will remain vacant until a new Warden takes up the duties. So if anyone is interested in this position could they please contact me about details.

The new Warden for Politarchopolis is Quataryna de Montpelher. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Quataryna and a thank you to her for taking on the position of Warden in Politarchopolis.

It does not matter how far through a scroll a scribe is, if an extension is not granted their scroll will not be accepted by the College of Scribes. All reasonable requests for an extension are granted but continual requests by the same scribe may result in all assignments being removed from that scribe.

Doing an original AA or GA does not automatically mean that the time you are allocated for doing that scroll is extended to 1 year as it would be for other original scrolls. It is expected that you will be able to complete an AA scroll in 6 months. If you decide to do an original AA scroll you will need to complete it within that 6 months.

Seals
The first of the Scribal Seals has been completed and was used for the first time at the recent Rowany Scribal meeting. It is very exciting that these seals have been completed. They are the last part of the new Writs that have been going out to many AA recipients over the last year. It is wonderful to see that they have almost been completed. Thanks go out to Mistress Tigriana for her work on these seals. The one I have currently looks wonderful.

A photo of the seal and of an example green seal will be posted on the blog shortly.

The College of Scribes officers that will be receiving seals as they are finished will include;
Caristiona nic Beathain- Provost
Keridwen the Mouse- Upper Warden
Aeron Lasair- Northern Regions Warden and Verger
Branwen of Werchesvorde – Western Regions Warden
Svartr Ormsson- Crescent Isles, Northern Island Warden
katherine kerr of the Hermitage- Crescent Isles, Southern Island Warden
Leofwynn Wulfinga- Innilgard Warden
Maeve ni Iasachta- Rowany Warden
Quataryna de Montpelher- Politarchopolis Warden
Madelane de Bourgogne Ynys Fawr Warden
Additional seals will be made for the positions that are currently vacant in this list and also for the positions of Northern Warden and Verger which would normally be separate rolls.

Newly Warranted Scribes
There have been a few new scribes who have joined our ranks over the last few months. These new scribes include;
Bernard
Corinna
Dragana Roza
Elinae of Whitby
Iarnulfr
Kazimera
Maddie
Pádraig Lowther

Redoing Scrolls
Due to the natural disasters in some places in Lochac over the last year a call went out for people to redo scrolls for those recipients who have had their previous scrolls damaged. So far one of those scrolls has been completed. The scroll was for Catherine the Friendly, it was a GoA and it was completed by Elinae of Whitby. Thank you to Elinae for that work. I hope to see the others completed over the coming months.

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes provost@lochac.sca.org

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2011
Late Scribes Post for August
Greetings,

the scribes have once again been very productive and completed a number of scrolls. Last month there was a drop off and so no scrolls were advertised as completed, however this month more than makes up for that drop off.

Scrolls that have been completed over the last month include;

Cairistiona inghean Raghnaill- OP
Catherine the Friendly- GA
Fionnabhair inghean ui Mheadhra – AA
Gabriel de Beaumont- OP
Kane Greymane- OP
Hrothgar aet Gytingbroc- OP
Miles de Colwell- LOG
Muirghein ni Ghrainne- OL
Muirghein ni Ghrainne- OP
Nathan Blacktower- KSCA
Nathan Blacktower- OP
Nathaniel Mendoza de Guadalajara- AA
Raphael d’Avallon- AA
Waldo Turner- AA
Varndell Lynche- AA

The scribes who have completed these scrolls are;

Arlette Mortimer
Branwen of Werchesvorde
Catherine d’Arc
Celestria Ashwood
Constanzia Moralez y de Zamora
Dragana Roza
Elinae of Whitby
Katerina da Brescia
Keridwen the Mouse
Riona of Caerleon
Tailtíu of Gortrua

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes – Posted by Caristiona at 6:09pm

MONDAY, MAY 30, 2011
Royal Visit, Innilgard.

Greetings all!

Just recently we had the honour of Their Majesties visiting the Barony of Innilgard. During their visit, they passed onto me a Medallion from the Lochac Scribes.

I also recieved my Grant of Arms Scroll, thanks to Branwen of Werchesvorde (thanks). Pics can be seen on flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/4806044@N02/55215324/in/set-7215762499052941 Posted by Karen C at 1:48 AM

Comment: CaristionaSeptember 6, 2011 at 6:11 PM
This was very well deserved. Mistress Tig did the tokens based on the design for the seals done by Master Giles and Lord Madoc from the 2010 seals competition.

TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2011
Hidden details
I found this picture tonight when I was doing a search for celticly styled pelican images:

copy right Royal Observatory Greenwich

it’s from a blog from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and is the jumper from John Harrison’s first timekeeper. Which means that it wouldn’t be seen once the clock is assembled.

Wow! Is all I can say. It’s such a beautiful detail.

Posted by Mad Scientist AT 2:00 AM

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2011
Results of the Scribes Competition
Greetings,

a Scribal Competition to help reduce the backlog of scrolls was run over the last nine months from Festival to Canterbury Faire with results to have been announced at Festival AS 45. Unfortunately due to the rain the Competition Results were not announced.

I would like to announce the winners of the competition now these were;

Branwen of Werchesvorde
Maeve ni Iasachta
Aeron Lasair
Keridwen the Mouse
Katherine Alicia of Sarum

Other members of the College of Scribes that took part in this competition and helped to reduce the backlog of scrolls include;
Muirghein ni Ghrainne
Brían dorcha ua Conaill
Constanzia Moralez y de Zamora
Liadan verch Lochac
Celestria Ashwood
Svartr Ormsson
Tamsyn Northover
Leonie de Grey
Madoc ap Gryffith
Tailtiu of Gortruna
Tatiiana Kalinin
Arlette Mortimer
Riona of Caerleon
Catherine d’Arc
Katrijn van Delden
Madelaine de Bourgogne
Gillian Attwood
Katerina de Brescia
Phedre de Caravalle
Kathern Richer
Alicia the Pastry chef
Maragerete Engelhardtz
Lyssa Trygvrrsdottir
Caristiona nic Beathain

For those who would like to see the work that each of these scribes put into reducing the backlog each of the scrolls included in the competition are available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

Together these scribes completed over 100 scrolls in the nine months from Festival AS 44 for Canterbury Faire AS 45 for the competition and many of these scribes also completed additional peerage scrolls during this time.

Another competition has been started to complete Pelican Scrolls over the next nine months. I look forward to seeing more wonderful work from each of these scribes.

I would like to thank each and everyone of these scribes for the amount of work that they have done over the last year for the College of Scribes and for the Kingdom of Lochac.

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of the College of Scribes, Lochac
Posted by Caristiona at 6:13 PM

Comment:

Mousicles April 27, 2011 at 9:14 PM
One thing that needs to be said is that the last name on the list should be first. By far and away the person who put in the most work this year was Caristiona herself but she took her name out because she didn’t want to win her own competition. Check out flickr and note how many times her name appears.

But well done to everyone who helped demolish the preprinted backlog. Fabulous work. Gosh darn, we are triffic.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011
Ductus
Newsletter of the Royal College & Confraternity of Scribes & Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac

http://www.sca.org.au/mailman/listinfo/scribes

http://lochac.sca.org/scribe/index.htm

http://lochacscribes.blogspot.com/

Volume 11 Issue 2 March 2011

Greetings all and welcome extremely late February Ductus.

As you all know we have now finished the AA and scrolls that can be done with Blanks competition. Sorry for the bad name, it just sort of expanded because everyone did such a wonderful job of working through so many scrolls.

Last year we completed well over 100 scrolls. Of that number over 20 of the scrolls completed were original scrolls. This is an amazing effort and probably means more scrolls were completed last year than in any other single year in the history of the College of Scribes. So I would like to commend you all on the huge effort that you have all put in to completing these scrolls.

Competitions

It is now time to judge the competition from last year. Every person is allocated 10 points. Please go and look at the Flickr site https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox see what scrolls you like the most and then allocate your points. You can allocate them in any order and quantity you like but you may not allocate them to yourself.

So if you would like to allocate all your 10 points to one scroll please do so. If you would like to break your points down or allocate them one at a time that is also fine.

When you have decided how you are going to allocate your point please send me an e-mail at provost@lochac.sca.org I will need your name to make sure that no person accidentally doubles up on allocating their points but how you distribute your points will remain confidential.

Anyone who is a scribe is welcome to allocate points. So please if you have been working with a bunch of scribes that are not on the List but have contributed to the College of Scribes please pass on this information so that they can have their say.

If you notice that I have not put your scroll up on the Flickr site, or a scroll that you think should be up on the site please let me know. With so many scrolls being completed this year it would not be unheard of for me to have missed one. I would like all eligible scrolls to be counted in this years competition so if you think a scroll should be there and it is not let me know and I will fix that omission.

Pelican Scrolls

Many of the Pelican’s have contacted me with preferences for their scrolls. I have already assigned lots of Pelican scrolls and have more to assign. If you would like a Pelican scroll please let me know I will be delighted to assign you a scroll.

If you are entering the Pelican scroll competition entries are welcome any time from the first day of Festival onwards. That will include any Pelican scrolls that have already been assigned. So all of the people who currently have Pelican scrolls are welcome to enter them in this years Pelican Scroll Competition so long as they arrive with me between the first day of Festival and the first day of the 2012 Canterbury Faire.

There are currently around 20 unassigned Pelican scrolls.

Other Scrolls

Please remember that while our competition is focused on Pelican scrolls this year we still have a lot of other scrolls that need to be completed. These include AA’s, GA’s and RP scrolls for those whose name and device registrations are still coming through. So if you feel that you are unable to do an original scroll but you would still like to contribute please feel free to ask me for other assignments. I have lots and will welcome all efforts to complete these.

Change in Wardens

With a heavy heart I am announcing the resignation of two Wardens Katherine Alicia of Sarum and Leonie de Grey. Both of these Wardens have held their position for a number of years and have contributed a lot of hard work to the College of Scribes. It is a sad thing to see them leaving as Wardens but I am pleased that this does not mean they are lost to the College.

In Katherine Alicia of Sarum’s place will be Aeron Lasair. Aeron is currently one of the Vergers of the College of Scribes so it made sense to roll those two positions into one.

The position of Warden in Politarchopolis is currently vacant. I would like expressions of interest to be sent to me at provost@lochac.sca.org as I would like to make a decision about the new Warden and announce who they are at Festival if possible.

Deputies

All officers in Lochac are supposed to have a drop dead deputy. As the College of Scribe has grown bigger it has become more and more a formal office within the Kingdom of Lochac. For this reason I would like to request that all Wardens confirm that they have a drop dead deputy. I would like to know who the drop dead deputies will be for each Warden by the time your next reports are due.

Reporting

There has recently been some confusion about reporting. Reporting for the Provost of Scribes is set by the Kingdom. The Provost of Scribes must report to the Kingdom Seneschal by;

February 28th, May 31st, August 31st, and November 30th.

This means that I normally put out a request for reports from all Wardens to arrive to me two weeks before those dates. In other words I would like all Wardens to report to me by;

February 15th, May 15th, August 15th, and November 15th. Could all Wardens please put these dates into their diaries.

If I do not receive a report or if I feel that a report does not give me enough detail I will request additional reports. Continual failure to adequately report is grounds for the Provost of Scribes to remove that Warden from office.

Scroll Timings

When scrolls are assigned they are not assigned indefinitely. AA and GA scrolls must be completed within six months. Original Scrolls for Peerages must be completed within 1 year. If a scroll goes over this time an extension must be negotiated with the Provost of Scribes. This extension is not automatic and if the Provost of Scribes does not feel that it is warranted it will not be given.

Newly Warranted Scribes

As we move into the beginning of even season for the new year lots of new people are starting to show an interest in scribal activities. So far this year we have had a bunch of new scribes joining our ranks from Newcomers events and from various Collegia new scribes include;

Alannah

Bronwyn

Elizabeth Ong

Erin Matuzic

Liduina

Melanie

Nic Matuzic

Phillipa Granwal

Rosamund

Seamus

Wesley

Ynedeye

express an interest in becoming scribes and have started work on their first piece.

Madeline Kelson- warranted for illumination only
Has become warranted for illumination after finishing her first piece.

Annabel de Swinburne- warranted for calligraphy and illumination
Melanie Koehler- warranted for calligraphy and illumination
Have returned to us after a long absences and will be working with us to complete blanks and originals this year.

Bestiary

I was incredibly impressed with the number of entries that went into the Lochac Arts and Sciences competition for 12th Night.

While completing the most amazing number of scrolls for the College of Scribes this year many of you have still managed to produce an entry for the Lochac Arts and Sciences competition. The entries were of very high quality and took myself and Mistress Muirghein ni Ghrainne a whole day to go through and to judge. We were very impressed with the quality of the work and the excellence of the overall entries.

Winners will be announced at Festival so please keep an eye out for that announcement. Congratulations to all those who entered. I believe a few of those entries will now become Baronial property for some groups and will be continued as the group expands and as more scribes enter the group. I would love to see those same Bestiaries in a number of years to see how they have grown in that time.

Redoing Scrolls

As many of you know earlier this year Lochac was inundated by a number of natural disasters. This has resulted in the lose of houses and property by some of out members. So far I have been approached on behalf of at least three of those members to let me know that they no longer have their scrolls. Each of them were heartbroken that the efforts of our scribes had been lost and that they no longer had the beautiful pieces of work that had once graced their walls.

I would like to be able to reassign those scrolls. So if anyone is interested in doing scrolls for those who have lost their scrolls currently we are looking for people to do scrolls for;

Catherine the Friendly- AA and GA
Jacques du Bar sur le Loup- AA
Rosetta Eizabetta Cortez- instant AA

Alexandra de Santiago has lost a Caid promissory and is waiting for her name and device to be registered when we will negotiate with Caid to take over the production of her scroll.

I believe that at least one family lost their house in Victoria over the Christmas holidays as well. If anyone has details of this family and any lost scrolls that they may have please contact me so that I can put them back on our list of scrolls to be completed.

We have now reached the end of a very long Ductus. Once again thank you to all the scribes that have contributed so much of their time over the last year. You have done an amazing job and the Kingdom recognises the contribution you have put forward.

If anyone feels that some of the scribes in their area deserve specific recognition for the work they have done please let me know. I think it is important that scribes are mentioned for the work they have done and given awards where appropriate.

In this particular issue I would like to thank Branwen of Werchesvorde and Muirghein ni Ghrainne for the continuing amazing amounts of work that they put into the College of Scribes particular through their teaching.

Caristiona nic Beathain

Provost of Scribes provost@lochac.sca.org

Posted by Caristiona at 6:34 PM

SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2011
Competition
I have finally managed to track down and get scrolls to most of the people that the scribes have done scrolls for over the last nine months. That means that all of the scrolls that have been done over that period should now be on the Flickr site so that we can now judge our competition.

The way the judging works is- every scroll gets three points, those points go one to each of the people who have done the calligraphy, the illumination and the device. In addition to those three points every person on the scribes list, is a scribe who has contributed over the last 9 months, has 10 points to allocate. You can allocate these in whichever way you see fit. For example you may like to allocate 5 to some amazing illumination on one scroll and then one each to another five scrolls that you feel the calligraphy or device was particularly good on, or you may like to allocate 2 points to five different scrolls. It is totally up to you except that you can not allocate points to your own work.

You will need to e-mail me with the details on how you are going to allocate your 10 points. I need to know your name but your name will then be crossed off my list as having voted and your vote will remain anonymous to everyone aside from myself. I will not keep a record of your particular vote, only that you have voted. All votes will then be recorded just as individual points and allocated to a scroll.

Please let me know if you are voting for the calligraphy, device or illumination on a scroll so that if a scroll was done by multiple people I can allocate it to the person who did the work.

To check out all the scrolls that can be voted upon please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/sets/72157623871853029/

All scrolls that could have been done by a blank are included in this competition regardless of whether they were done by a blank or not. So an original AA, GoA or County scroll could all have been included.

If there is a scroll not on the Flickr site that you believe should be there please let me know and send a photo of that scroll to me. With so many scrolls coming through this year it was very easy for me to miss taking the occasional photograph. I have tried to make sure that I have copies of any scrolls that I missed taking a photo of but it is possible that I have totally missed some.

All votes need to be in by the 17th of April so that I can collate them and sort them out for Festival.

I look forward to seeing who wins the competition. Good luck to all those people who entered. There will be both a group and an individual winner.

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes Lochac
Posted by Caristiona at 8:35 PM

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011
Another one!
The Heart Book. Denmark 1550’s.
Thott 1510 4º

Click for enlarged imageClick for enlarged image NB! 381 KB

The Heart Book is regarded as the oldest Danish ballad manuscript. It is a collection of 83 love ballads compiled in the beginning of the 1550’s in the circle of the Court of King Christian III. Shown above is the beginning of ballad no. 43, Store længsel, du går mig nær (Great Yearning, thou touches me). A later reader – the otherwise unknown Christen Masse – has added some notes, i.a. this pious hope: “gvd ende oc vinde alle mit er lende til en god oc gledelig ende amen” (may god end and turn my misery into a good and happy ending amen).
We do not know who compiled the ballads and instigated the writing of the Heart Book. All ballads except one – no. 66 – have probably been written by the same hand.

19.5 x 15 cm.

Posted by Mark Calderwood at 7:43 AM

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2011
Making Books Blog: Valentine Count Up/ Le Chansonniere Cordiforme
Making Books Blog: Valentine Count Up/ Le Chansonniere Cordiforme: “This amazing book is a facsimile of Le Chansonnier Cordiforme: Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu. It is accompanied by a recording of the mus…”
Posted by Mark Calderwood at 4:26 AM

SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 2011
December Scrolls
Greetings.

My apologies. to everyone for getting the list of December completed scrolls out so late.

The scrolls that were completed and put into the December Pegasus were;

Artemisia da Quieto d’Arzenta- GA
Aylwin Greyman- OWL
Branwen verch Lewis ap Thomas- AA
Catherine the Friendly- GA
Hrothgar aet Gytingbroc- GA
Kane Greymane- Vis
Lorcan of River Haven- AA
Lowry ferch Gwenwynwyn ap Llewelyn- GA
Leylii bint Hızır- AA
Margie of Glenmore- LCA
Maud la Leitiere- AA
Rhianwen ni Dhiarmada- Vis
Salaberge de Granson- AA
Serephina le Dauncer- AA
Sorcha inghean ui Cheallaigh- AA
Táriq ibn Jelal ibn Ziyadatallah al-Naysábúrí- GA
Táriq ibn Jelal ibn Ziyadatallah al-Naysábúrí- OWL

The scribes who have completed these scrolls are;

Aeron Lassair
Branwen of Werchesvorde
Caristiona nic Beathain
Catherine d’Arc
Celestria Ashwood
Constanzia Moralez y de Zamora
Katherine Alicia of Sarum
Keridwen the Mouse
Maeve ni Iasachta

Caristiona nic Beathain Provost of Scribes

http://www.sca.org.au/scribe/index.htm

Posted by Caristiona at 8:51 PM

MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2010
Writs for their Royal Highnesses Gabriel and Constanzia
Greetings everyone,

Tamsyn has found a number of documents that will help everyone with their research into Spanish style Writs for their Highnesses. I hope everyone enjoys looking at these documents and that they all give you food for thought in the coming weeks as the time for the Writs to be chosen comes closer.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5176307

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/LargeImage.aspx?image=/lotfinderimages/d20528/d2052836x.jpg

http://bp0.blogger.com/_SHLX7y6f5Gw/Rfe3V9UIlaI/AAAAAAAAAGI/0l4uua9LUQc/s1600-h/429px-Edictofexpulsion.jpg

https://www.soleryllach.com/soler4/fichaLote/VD/1256265

http://www.iberlibro.com/Letter-Signed-rey-Reyna-Don-Luis/832976616/bd

http://www.joergs-british-autographs.de/philip-doc.jpg

http://www.invaluable.com/photoPopup.cfm?sh=1&img=16531985&rh=99860059A29D303A68CDA0CDE2981049

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/Philip2Corr&CISOPTR=213&REC=13

http://www.granada.org/inet/wagenda.nsf/wwtod/1b2ce97e7102323ec125770b003d36e5!OpenDocument&ExpandSection=1

Can all example Writs please be to me by December 31st so that their Highnesses can choose what Writs they would like to use for their Reign.

YiS

Caristiona
Posted by Caristiona at 3:58 PM

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2010
DUCTUS
Newsletter of the Royal College & Confraternity of Scribes & Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac

http://www.sca.org.au/mailman/listinfo/scribeshttp://lochac.sca.org/scribe/index.htmhttp://lochacscribes.blogspot.com/http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

Volume 11 Issue 1 November 2010

Greetings all and welcome to the November issue of Ductus.

Congratulations to everyone. I know that this time of year gets slow and full of other commitments but I have been hugely impressed with the amount of effort everyone has put into completing the scrolls assigned to them this year.

We currently have 1 AA on my database to be assigned and we have been making heavy inroads into Grants and Grant related awards and into the Royal Peerage scrolls. We still have about 10 GA scrolls to be assigned this year but the number is going down and a remarkable effort has seen these scrolls substantially reduce in number.

We ended up having 6 GA blanks which provided a reasonably wide range of choice for those doing GA scrolls. We also have two RP blanks for those who wish to use them for RP scrolls.

In addition to all of this exciting news we have also started with the new process of having the RP scroll for those outgoing Royalty, who have their name and device registered, presented when they receive their RP. I look forward to seeing Lenore’s scroll being handed out at 12th Night in January 2011.

Competitions

Our competition ends at Canterbury Faire, on the 29th of January and we still have close to 40 scrolls to come in. Please try and get these scrolls to me as soon as possible. I would like to see as many of these scrolls completed as possible before the cut off date of 29th of January.

We also have approximately 20 more scrolls still to assign mostly GA’s and RP’s at this stage. We do have one more AA that needs to be assigned. So if anyone is going well and wants to take on extra assignments please let me know. I am always after helpful scribes.

Once the AoA scroll competition is completed we will be starting the Pelican Scroll drive. This will officially take off as of Festival 2011 but I would like to encourage people to get a head start. This time I will take Pelican scrolls that are completed later than Festival, but they do not need to be started later than Festival to be part of the competition.

I would like to remind everyone that you do not need to do a whole scroll yourself. Please find people who you want to collaborate with if you feel you can only do either calligraphy or illumination. I am also happy for you to use things like the Atlantian blank templates if you do not feel confident in designing a scroll yourself. There are lots of templates in the zip file that can be used just add calligraphy and colour. If you are unable to find these templates or would like me to send you the zip file please let me know.

Other suggestions for designing scrolls include tracing work from Books of Hours or doing a full design combing elements from different scrolls in a similar time period and of a similar style.

If you are unable to find someone to work with but you feel you are only able to do either the calligraphy or the illumination for a scroll please let me know. I will either do the element you are unable to do myself or find someone else who you can work with.

Pelican Scrolls

As you all know our next target for next year is to complete all the outstanding Pelican scrolls.

There will of course still be GA and AA scrolls that keep coming in during next year so for those scribes who really feel uncomfortable working on original scrolls I will make every effort to keep you working on the GA’s, RP’s and AA’s that come in over the course of the next year.

In the mean time I have asked for the Pelican’s to be contacted to see if any of them have particular preferences. Currently the unassigned Pelican scrolls that I have on my backlog that I would like to see completed next year are for;

Alethea of Shrewsbury
Alfar of Attica
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo
Asbjørn Pedersen Marsvin
Aylwin Greymane
Bain de Saint Florian
Bernnard Sterling
Cairistiona inghean Raghnaill
Catalina de Gata
Catherine the Friendly
Constanzia Moralez y d Zamora
Corin Anderson
Cristoval Gitano
Elspeth Caerwent
Fineamhain an Einigh inghean ui Chonchobhair
Gabriel de Beaumont
Gwir verch Madog
Hanbal al-Barbari
Hrólfr Hreggviðarson
Hrothgar aer Gytingbroc
Ingerith Ryzka
Jessica of Fearn Abbey
Kasian Astrakhanovich
ketherine kerr of the Hermitage
Keridwen the Mouse
Louisa Lyppard de Cattone
Margie of Glen More
Marit the Wanderer
Miriam de Mont Noir
Nicolette Dufay
Osgot of Corfe
Rangarn Mangnusson
Rowena le Sarjent
Sancha da Sylva
Siona of the Eagle’s Nest
Stephen Aldred
Sven the Stormdriven
Thaddeus Blayney
Vitale Giustiniani
Vittoria del Fiore
William de Cameron
Please contact me if you have a particular desire to do a scroll for one of the above people. I will give preference to older scrolls first and then I will move onto assigning newer scrolls. So please try and request people that you know and that have had their Pelican for a long time before you request people who have only just received their Pelican in the last year or so.

With Pelican scrolls I do recommend that you talk to the recipient to see if they have any preferences. If you are unable to accommodate those preferences let me know I am always happy to reassign scrolls if what the recipient wants is not something you feel comfortable doing.

In the mean time I have asked any Pelicans who have distinct preferences to contact me so that I can discuss this with anyone taking on an assignment before the assignment is given out where possible.

Newly Warranted Scribes

There have not been as many newly warranted scribes this quarter as in the previous quarter but I would like to welcome

Tamsyn Northover- illumination only as a new scribe and

Riona of Caerleon- illumination only as a scribe from the past who has come back to help out with our AA and GA backlog.

Both of these scribes have already completed the illumination for their first scrolls and it is wonderful to see this increase in scribes.

Once again congratulations to you all you have done a wonderful job this year. For those scribes I do not have more contact with between now and Christmas;

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Caristiona nic Beathain

Provost of Scribes provost@lochac.sca.org

Posted by Caristiona at 6:58PM

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2010
Scrolls for the month of November
Greetings,

The scrolls completed for this month are;

Artemisia da Quieto d’Arzenta- GA
Aylwin Greyman- OWL
Branwen verch Lewis ap Thomas- AA
Catherine the Friendly- GA
Hrothgar aet Gytingbroc- GA
Kane Greymane- Vis
Lorcan of River Haven- AA
Lowry ferch Gwenwynwyn ap Llewelyn- GA
Leylii bint Hızır- AA
Margie of Glenmore- LCA
Maud la Leitiere- AA
Rhianwen ni Dhiarmada- Vis
Salaberge de Granson- AA
Serephina le Dauncer- AA
Sorcha inghean ui Cheallaigh- AA
Táriq ibn Jelal ibn Ziyadatallah alINaysábúrí- GA
Táriq ibn Jelal ibn Ziyadatallah alINaysábúrí- OWL

The scribes who have completed these scrolls are;
Asa Beiskalda, Branwen of Werchesvorde, Caristiona nic Beathain, Catherine d’Arc, Celestria Ashwood, Katherine Alicia of Sarum, Keridwen the Mouse, Maeve ni Iasachta

Brían dorcha ua Conaill’s name was left out of the November Pegasus for a scroll that he had completed. So I would like to add his name here as having completed one of the scrolls that was miss attributed in the November Pegasus. All other scribes in the November Pegasus were correct.

If you would like to see some of the many scrolls completed by the Lochac College of Scribes this year please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes
Posted by Caristiona at 5:28 PM

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2010
Completed Scrolls for October
Greetings,

the scrolls announcement for this month is a bit late as it was
difficult trying to make sure that all recipients knew of their scroll
before the announcement went out.

The scrolls completed for this month are;

Aine Rudad Ingean Cillin- AoA
Berenger of Nancy- County
Brennan Halfhand- AoA
Emma Lastone- AoA
Kathern Rischer- AoA
Rainald FitzRenyard- LCA
Susannah of Locksley- AoA

The scribes who have completed these scrolls are;

Caristiona nic Beathain
Katerina de Brescia
Katherine Alicia of Sarum
Kathern Rischer
Maeve ni Iasachta

You can see these scrolls and many of the others that have been
completed over the last year at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes
http://www.sca.org.au/scribe/index.htm
Posted by Mousicles at 10:29 PM

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2010
Writs for their Royal Highnesses Gabriel and Constanzia
Greetings,

Their royal Highnesses Gabriel and Contanzia have asked for Writs with an early 16th Century Spanish theme. So far I have found only one document that was written at this time to give the College of Scribes an idea of what sort of documents were written at that time and what they looked like.

The document that I have found is a partial payment from Her Majesty Queen Isabella of Spain for a tapestry. The document is signed “Yo la Reyna” and is dated 1501 which is a little bit earlier than preferred but gives us an idea of what to be looking for. Here is the document.

I would love to see other options here so that everyone can have a look at the sort of documents that we should be aiming for during the next reign.

Caristiona
Posted by Caristiona at 5:51PM

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2010
New stuff on webpage
Long time no see everyone….

I’ve added a few things to the webpage and made a few updates. The big change is to add the Grant of Arms blank instructions here. It’s not complete but I’ll add the images and instructions as I get them.

Just in case you weren’t aware, the Award of Arms blank instructions are here.

Both links can be found in the Model Book section of the webpage.
Posted by Mousicles at 8:31PM

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2010
DUCTUS
Newsletter of the Royal College & Confraternity of Scribes & Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac
http://www.sca.org.au/mailman/listinfo/scribes
http://lochac.sca.org/scribe/index.htm
http://lochacscribes.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/
Volume 10 Issue 4 September 2010

Greetings all and welcome to the September issue of Ductus.

My apologise that this issue is late. Unfortunately the real world has taken precedence for the last couple of months. That is almost over for the year so hopefully I will be more up to date for the foreseeable future.

Our AoA competition is going extremely well. We have only six remaining AoA’s not assigned on my database. I know this is more than the two that we had a while ago but people keep getting their names and devices registered. However the important thing is that we are keeping up so this is wonderful.

Not only have kept going with the AoA’s but we have now started work on the GoA blacklog. Mistress Branwen has produced two GoA blanks and I have produced one so we are currently working on getting some of the GoA scrolls completed. As people finish the scrolls they are currently assigned they will either be given additional AoA’s or be moved onto GoA’s depending on their experience, abilities and willingness.

Old Scrolls
Of the scrolls that were placed in Ductus in June to be assigned because they have been on the backlog for so long the three scrolls that have been assigned are:

Eric Ravn KSCA Stephan & Niobe (West) 30/04/1994
Kane Greymane OP Valgard & Megan (West) 27/08/1994
Muirghein ni Ghrainne GA Fabian & Cyneswith (West) 9/04/1995

Thank you to those who have taken on these scrolls. I look forward to seeing them completed.

At this stage I will not be asking anyone else to take on assignments other than the AoA’s, GoA’s and RP scrolls that are part of the competition.

Competitions
Our competition ends at Canterbury Faire, on the 29th of January and we still have close to 50 scrolls to assign and many more to complete so I would like to encourage everyone to keep working.

Missing Scroll
A scroll was done for Milborough Aldaway in 2004 by Keridwen the Mouse. The scroll is listed in the database as having been given out but was never received by the recipient. If anyone has any idea where this scroll may be can you please contact me as it has a home to go to.

Newly Warranted Scribes
A number of recent scribes have sent me their first piece of work so that they can be warranted to produce work for the College. I would like to congratulate;

Alessandra de Florenza illumination only
Arlette Mortimer illumination only
Catherine d’Arc calligraphy and illumination
Celestria Ashwood calligraphy and illumination
katherine kerr calligraphy and illumination
Katherne Richer calligraphy and illumination
Iuliana Morosini illumination only
Margarete Engelhardtz calligraphy and illumination
Tatiiana Kalinin calligraphy and illumination
As you can see we are fast growing the College of Scribes with new members. This is wonderful to see.

Awards for Scribes
I would like to congratulate Katherine Alicia of Sarum for her admittance to the Order of the Silver Pelican for her work in the Scribal arts both as a teacher and as one of our most prolific scribes. Katherine has done a huge amount of work this year helping others get started and producing scrolls

Writs
The first of the new Writs have gone out and have been well received by both their Majesties and those who have received them. We have still not obtained a scribes seal although we are currently in the process of sorting out quotes and hopefully getting the work done. I hope that this will be done relatively soon. In the mean time the Writs are going out with the Kingdom seal done in green. This seems to be working well.

County and Duchy Scrolls
After having discussed options with many of the scribes over the Scribal list it seems that the preferred option is to have a scroll for the K&Q done by the end of their Reign as either a blank or an original, depending on what the scribe prefers. For those who reign and do not have a registered name and device it seems that the consensus is that we give them a Writ similar in style to the AoA Writs that are given out in their Reign.

If there are any further comments on this I would like them to be either sent to me or put up on the list. The the big question is, do we get this ready for the current Reign or do we wait for the one after it, remembering that neither of their current Majesties have a registered name and device.

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes provost@lochac.sca.org
Posted by Caristiona at 7:57 PM

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2010
Luttrell Psalter
Well it has been a while since anyone posted anything. I have been working very hard at getting my Masters finished but this doesn’t mean that I have not done any scribal work while I have been studying.

One scroll I have finished is a Laurel scroll based on the Luttrell Psalter. This is a rather amazing book that shows lots of small scenes of country life as well as a huge number of weird and wonderful animal/ monster type things.

As I was researching for the scroll I came across a set of YouTube clips that cover a documentary on the Luttrell Psalter. So here is a copy of the scroll I have been working on and here is the documentary that I watched. It is only about 30-40 minutes if you watch the whole thing and it is well worth it. There are a couple of others to watch once you have watched this first one but the links should come up I hope at the end of this one.

https://youtu.be/vJjCkkKh1CI

Posted by Caristiona at 4:32PM

SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2010
Writs- the Beginning
Hi everyone,
as you know Their Royal Highnesses step up this coming weekend. At the same time we will move on from the Instant AoA system to the new Writ system.
Due to some problems with delivery of equipment the new Scribal seals are not quite ready for this change over, so until we get the proper Scribal Seal we are using the Kingdom seal with the green wax.
The first Writ has been designed and the first Writs in general have been made up and sent to Ildhafn for the Coronation of their Majesties King Edmond and Queen Leonore. At this stage only 12 of these Writs have been made up but as we get the Seals made the pdf’s will go to all the Wardens and new Writs can be made up when needed.

The first Lochac Writs getting folded and ready for being sent out.
Posted by Caristiona at 8:51PM

FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
Have you seen this scroll? – Milborough Aldaway
Cairistiona recently painted Ulfrikr’s scroll and when he came over to pick it up, asked when his wife, Milborough, might get hers. As you can see, that scroll was completed some time ago and is listed in the database as ‘given out’. This is a colour photocopy of the scroll I painted in 2004.

We are now asking around to see where it has gone. Chances are that it didn’t leave the Rowany area, but so long ago, who can tell. It might have gone to Rio for all we know. Most likely is that someone collected it for her and forgot to pass it on.

If you have any info, let us know. Thanks heaps.
Posted by Mousicles at 12:07 AM

TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2010
Heart-shaped book

Caspar Meuser (1550-1593) was an apprentice of Jakob Krause, serving from 1574 as his successor in the court bindery. He used the panels and stamps designed by Krause, but evolved his own style, characterized by profuse vinework. This heart-shaped prayer book, designed for Anna, the wife of Elector Augustus, is a particularly fine example of his artistry.

Betbüchlein ür allerlei Anliegen (Small Prayer Book for All Occasions) Ca. 1580, cover Gilt-embossed leathe

Posted by Mark Calderwood at 2:38 AM

COMMENT: Laren July 5, 2010 at 11:15 PM
Is any detail of the binding methods given? I’d love to give this one a go!! YIS, Jane

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2010
D U C T U S
Newsletter of the Royal College & Confraternity of Scribes & Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac
http://www.sca.org.au/mailman/listinfo/scribes
http://www.sca.org.au/scribe/
http://lochacscribes.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/
Volume 10 Issue 3 June 2010

Greetings all and welcome to the June issue of Ductus.

We have started the AoA competition with a bang with close to 20 of the AoA’s making up our backlog completed and delivered and all of the Caid AoA’s now completed and mostly delivered. At this rate we will have finished all the current AoA backlog by around October. When this happens the competition will continue as we work on blanks for Grants and for Royal scrolls. I have been hugely impressed with the work that everyone has put into reducing the backlog and encourage it to continue.

Old Scrolls
Although we are well on the way to getting rid of the AoA backlog there are many Peerage and Grant scrolls that need to be completed. Some of these have now been sitting on our backlog for a very long time. I am going to put out a list of the top five oldest scrolls that need to be completed each Ductus and would like to ask for volunteers to completed these scrolls.

The current oldest scrolls on the CoS backlog belong to;

Eric Ravn KSCA Stephan & Niobe (West) 30/04/1994
Kane Greymane OP Valgard & Megan (West) 27/08/1994
Eleanor Lyttellhayles OL John & Gabriel (West) 28/08/1994
Sven the Stormdriven OP John & Gabriel (West) 28/08/1994
Muirghein ni Ghrainne GA Fabian & Cyneswith (West) 9/04/1995

If anyone would like to be assigned one of these scrolls please contact me so that I can get further details to you and confirm the assignment.

Completed Scrolls
After some considerable searching the number of scrolls sitting in my files with no home as been reduced to two. These are Aulay Leod and one that was not on the previous list- Karl Krigerhelm. If anyone has contact details for these two gentles could they please let me know.
Thank you to all of those who helped me to find all of the other recipients.

If you know of any current details for either of these Good Gentles could you please let me know so that I can get their scrolls to them as soon as possible. Photographs of all of these scrolls have been placed on the Lochac Scribes Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

Newly Warranted Scribes
A number of recent scribes have sent me their first piece of work so that they can be warranted to produce work for the College. I would like to congratulate;
Katrijn van Delden
Maihread of Braeside
Leylii bint Hizir (calligraphy only at this stage)
Anna von Freiberg

Awards for Scribes
The amount of work done by many scribes has generated a lot of interest in scribal works in the SCA recently. As a result a few scribes have received awards for the work that they have done to promote the scribal arts as a service for the Kingdom.
I would like to congratulate Keridwen the Mouse, Maeve ní Iasachta and Aeron Lassair for their Silver Pegasus which confers a Grant of Arms. Each of these scribes was instrumental in completing the Crescent Isles Caid AoA’s.

Due to a misunderstanding in the scribal processes Gentles from the Cresent Isles had never received any of their AoA’s. After extensive negotiations with Caid it was decided that a bunch of Rowany scribes would take on the job of designing blanks and completing all of the Crescent Isles, Caid, AoA and AoA level award backlog. These three scribes were instrumental in this process. What was particularly impressive is that they took on this job while at the same time working towards reducing the Lochac backlog. These scribes have each also completed AoA’s and originals for Lochac while working on the Caid scrolls. This was a huge undertaking and the award was richly deserved by each of these scribes.

I would also like to congratulate Madoc ap Gryffith. Madoc has recently received his AoA. After having been in the SCA for over 20 years Madoc has finally settled in one place long enough to get his AoA. Madoc has done extensive work for the CoS over the last year, he has contributed to getting the CoS ready for the AoA competition and to building up the CoS in Ynys Fawr. Madoc’s AoA is also well deserved.

I would also like to congratulate Mistress katherine kerr. She will be elevated to the order of the Laurel at Canterbury Faire for her work in “commonplace books to educate the populace in items of
suitable knowledge; broadsheets to announce the results of a Crown Tournament; collections of poetry and prose to record our doings; certain chapbooks, scurrilous though they may be, and so forth.” katherine has also contributed to many of the recent works of the CoS with her research into seals and their attachments and with her Writ prototypes.

Writs
The new Writs will be coming out next Reign. Currently negotiations are under way for the completion of the seals that will be used by the Wardens to seal the Writs. It is hoped that these will be available to all Wardens before Midwinter Crown.

Negotiations are under way to find out what the preferences of Their Royal Highnesses are regarding the hand and style of the first Writs. Once this has been completed a call will go out for all scribes who would like to contribute to do a Writ in the hand favoured by Their Royal Highnesses, they will then be able to choose which one they would like to use for their Reign. The blank for this Writ will then be passed out to all Wardens so that Their Royal Highnesses can have access to it at any location they may need it. The seals will also be provided so that Writs can be sealed anywhere hopefully making the process a lot easier for all future Royalty and scribes.

Blog
I would like to say how impressed I am with the activity on the blog. My apologise for not having published much on their myself recently. It has been wonderful to see how much work others are doing around the Kingdom. This has been a useful resource for many. I hope to see work continuing to be put up on the blog and hope to put a few of my own posts up shortly.

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes provost@lochac.sca.org
Posted by Caristiona at 5:15 AM

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 2010
May Scrolls
Hi everyone,
it gets a bit confusing with what scrolls I am announcing as by the time they go out in Pegasus and so I put them up here they are more than a month out of date. So these are the scrolls that were completed by the 10th of May to go into the June issue of Pegasus.

Greetings,
this month has been very productive for the College of Scribes as we tried to get as much completed as possible before Crown.

Scrolls completed this month include;

Antonia di Benedetto Calvo- Harp Argent
Artemisia da Quieto d’Arzenta- AoA
Asbjørn Pedersen- Crescent Sword
Béoán Freborn
Callum MacLeod- Crescent Sword
Crispin Sexi- AoA
Elspeth Turberville aka Gudrun Bodvarsdottir – Laurel
Fulk de Cherbourg- Harp Argent
Hrothgar aet Gytingbroce- AoA
Hunydd verch Madyn Duy- AoA
Jeneur le Geline- AoA
Rashids al faqih -Pelican
Zanobia Adimari- AoA

The scribes who completed these scrolls are;

Caristiona nic Beathain
Katherine Alicia of Sarum
Keridwen the Mouse
Maeve ni Iasachta
Phèdre de Caravelle

Caristiona nic Beathain – Provost of Scribes
Posted by Caristiona at 5:49PM

SUNDAY, JUNE 6, 2010
Innilgard

Just me today. It is cold and most of us are either working, on holidays or could not make it. I managed to get the laurel scroll finished (to be checked), and started on my next project – an AOA from the backlog. I am at calligraphy practice stage. (my least favourite stage).

Posted by Karen C at 2:20 AM

2 COMMENTS:

Mousicles June 6, 2010 at 3:01 AM
Yeah. I’m stuck on that particular hand myself.

Caristiona June 9, 2010 at 5:48 PM
Hi Katerina,
could you please send me a photo of the Laurel scroll so that I can check it, confirm it and approve it. I would like to put the details into July Pegasus if I can.
Congratulations on finishing it.
Caristiona

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2010
Innilgard Scribes Workshop today

It was cold and wet day but we got some work done. Mistress Bryony did some more work on her current original scroll.

Mistress Leofwynn did more more on some calligraphy for another original scroll.

Katerina has almost completed an orginal scroll and is now starting on an AOA from the backlog.

More scribes next week…
Posted by Karen C at 2:30 AM

COMMENT:

Mad Scientist June 1, 2010 at 6:30 PM
Love the wheat head Katerina

SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2010
Scribe Bios
I’ve just updated a few bios on the webpage.

If you are not listed there (and there are a whole bunch of people who aren’t) and would like to be, please send me a photo and your details and I’ll put it up. Also if you want your details changed let please send me some details. (Of course if you are one of the few people who have access to the site, you can update your own details if necessary.) If you are a warden, it would be cunning to get you details up here so people in your area can find out who you are.

If would be great to have names and faces of people who are currently active in the scribal arts. Some of the names on the list are people who don’t play much anymore. Let’s get some more recent names on that list.
Posted by Mousicles at 6:55 PM

COMMENT:

Karen C May 30, 2010 at 2:55 AM
I shall have to update my bio.. it is ancient!
🙂

SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2010
Where to put it?
Hi everyone,

I’ve just been looking at the scribes web page and I’ve been trying to find a logical place to add links to the blog and the flickr site. I suppose the easiest thing would be to put them both on the front page but we don’t want too much here as it will spoil the look.

A link to flickr would be logical in the gallery section. A link to the blog would make a sort of sense in the Model book, Lectern and Owlery or even in all three.

Does anyone have any cunning ideas?
Posted by Mousicles at 6:42 PM

4 COMMENTS:

AutumnHeart May 9, 2010 at 7:01 PM
With the Gallery, I’d actually suggest moving all the images we currently have on the SCA server off onto Flikr – it has more hosting space!

One of the things I’d like to do with the dynamic part of the site that I am still working on (slowly, I know, but it’s not forgotten) is to store links to images of scrolls in the database with the rest of the records for that scroll. This would let us replace the existing Gallery with a dynamic page that would let you sort scroll images by recipient, or by scribe or award or whatever. This is likely to use a fair bit more bandwidth than the current static setup, but Flikr has no trouble with that.

Mark Calderwood May 11, 2010 at 4:24 AM
I wouldn’t like to move everything off site to flickr. The scribe’s site galleries are intended to showcase the very best examples of scribal work to the public and other kingdoms, not necessarily to put up every single scroll. Update the galleries with recent outstanding examples for sure, and possibly have a link to flickr along the lines of ‘see more here’.

While you’re there it might be an idea to rejig the galleries into a more order: originals, preprints, other stuff and the ‘behind the scene/making of’ sections- Rohesia’s, mine, Maeve’s etc.

Mark Calderwood May 11, 2010 at 4:30 AM
I see what you mean about link to the blog. Unless we link it off the fraternity (which itself shouldn’t have been a link off the front page, but from the list of artists)? Or maybe turn ‘The Vault’ into ‘Letters Close’ for example to incorporate both current and archived communications?

Mad Scientist May 27, 2010 at 12:46 AM
I’d put the link to the Flickr site in the library and links to both the blog and the mailing list in the Owlery.

SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2010
Fiddled right hand column
I’ve just added a link to the flickr page and tweaked the order of things on the right. This should make it easy to quickly see if there is anything new in flickr or comments. Let me know if you have any suggestions for page layout to improve the blog further.

And for my next trick, I’ll add the flickr link to the scribe web page. Tomorrow maybe. I need to go watch Dr Who now….
Posted by Mousicles at 3:44 AM

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010
March Scrolls
Greetings,

As promised at the meeting at Festival, I am publishing a list each month of what scrolls have been completed. This list is one month behind due to the cut off for Pegasus so many more scrolls have been completed since this list was put out. The next list will come out next month. If you would like to look at all the AoA’s that have been completed since the beginning of the AoA competition then go to our Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/ and look in the Competitions Set. That will give you 14 of the current 16 scrolls that have been completed since the competition started. Details of who did what are with each scroll.

Caristiona

Greetings,

in an effort to show people the work that the College of Scribes undertakes we are going to start publishing the names of the scrolls that have been completed each month and the scribes who have completed them. I hope that as we get our momentum up we will be able to publish a longer list each month.

For this month the scrolls that have been completed include AoA’s for the following people;

Bartholomew Baskin

Elyas de Dunblan

Fineamhain an Einigh ui Concobhair

Hanbal al-Barbari

katherine kerr of the Hermitage

Kasian Astrakhanovich

The scribes who completed those scrolls are Caristiona nic Beathain, Katherine Alicia of Sarum and Keridwen the Mouse

YiS

Caristiona nic Beathain
Posted by Caristiona at 1:46 AM

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010
Evolution of a scroll
When the task of completing scrolls for those New Zealanders who had been given an AoA (or entry into an armigerous order) but not received a scroll, landed on our desk, it was necessary to come up with new designs as the Caidan scribes had retired the blanks for all these awards.

We thought it would be a cunning idea to do a celtic style design for the Arts and Sciences award (Harp Argent). So looking through my books I found these two designs from the Tetraevangelium, a 10thC French manuscript.
These are the opening pages of the gospel of St Matthew – the text is written in silver and gold on purple. The vine work and border sides were also in silver I feel.

So from these, came my initial design:

Which then changed to:

I didn’t feel the birdy P really fit with the border – it was a bit too in your face mundanely celtic for my taste, so I went looking again, this time on the web, and found this:

The Gospel of St John from the Hereford gospels, an 8thC English insular manuscript.

Which I adapted into:

And when I realised that as the award text was so verbose, the capital was too large, I reduced it to 65%, as well as shortening the curve of the p. I also stuck a couple of extra words into the box at the start.

Which ended up in the final design of this:

It took a while to decide what to put into the circle – I tried a crescent moon and four stars to show the link between Caid and Lochac, but that looked a little twee (and very reminiscent of one of my favourite millefiore pendants). I then tried a harp, going with the illumination inside a letter type of thing, but that was rather meh – my drawing skills aren’t that great and I couldn’t find a nice looking celtic harp that would reduce that small, so in the end I went with a design fairly similar to what was in the circle on the original design.

Yes the spot for the person’s device is off centre – that’s because there’s an inch in difference between the Caidan Royal and CoH seals. I then faffed around for a while trying to work out what size lines and gap between the lines gave both best looking text and enabled the text to fit fit into the space without squeezing the signatures (of which there should be three according to the Caidan scribes webpage – King, Queen and Principal Herald).

One of the things I wanted to put into the design was the reduction in size of the text which is quite common in the earlier manuscripts, and I wanted to do this both in line height and nib size. In the end I only did this in line size – the larger nib made my calligraphy look better (and made no real difference in the amount of space taken up which was the main reason I was using the smaller nib) and trying to do this over three lines meant that the King and Queen’s names were in different sizes.

When it came down to the colour scheme – I did one based on the silver and purple scheme from the Tetraevangelium using gold rather than silver as I wasn’t satisfied with my silver paint and the other using the original red and blue scheme of the border from the Tetraevangelium. Which resulted in these:

So there you go. What have I gotten from the experience? Well I probably wouldn’t use a border on a scroll in a hurry (the twiddly bits on the end didn’t help either), though on a less verbose scroll it wouldn’t be so bad (thinking of some Laurel scrolls I’ve seen). It might also be handy to work with the sizes of equipment you have to hand – I did the original designs in a not quite A3 sketch book, and then upped the size to A3. This was fine when I was gainfully employed and work had scanning photocopiers, but when I came back to Sydney when my job finished, I only had access to an A4 scanner and spent an afternoon running around Burwood trying to find some place that did have an A3 scanner, to no avail. When I gave my original to Caristiona to take to her local Officeworks, for some reason it did odd things to the design, which meant that in the end I gave up and drew them all (7) by hand. Oh and the final and most important thing? If you’ve got animals, don’t leave your stuff unattended, even for a second.

Pictures: Tetraevangelium from “Western European Illuminated Manuscripts” by Tamara Voronova and Audrei Sterligov, Confidential Concepts, 2006
Hereford Gospel (St John) – Wikipedia
Posted by Mad Scientist at 3:47 AM

5 COMMENTS:

AutumnHeartApril 29, 2010 at 7:18 AM
I hadn’t seen your designs finished before, and they look fabulous 🙂 Nice work, and a good article as well!

I hope the animal-related problems you allude to weren’t too ghastly. The cat or the parrot?

Mad ScientistApril 29, 2010 at 3:21 PM
Thanks.

It was one of my cats actually – after having traced it out I left it on the light table while I watched something on TV, which is when the white cat decided that he would walk across the light table with muddy paws. I tried to wash them off, but it warped the paper and left a grey haze, so I had to do it all over again.

Karen C April 29, 2010 at 7:27 PM
nice…

Mark Calderwood April 30, 2010 at 9:24 PM
These are great Maeve, and I really enjoy reading this sort of article. I love seeing the design process and the decisions that shape it along the way.

Mark Calderwood May 2, 2010 at 6:34 AM
Also have to say I really applaud your judgement in taking design elements that make an authentic scroll without potentially looking modern, as you mentioned talking about the capital. I always like seeing scribes take the road less travelled!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010
Caid AoA Scroll
It appears that we missed one of the Caid AoA scrolls so since Festival I have sat down and done some scribing. This was a very simple scroll but I think it is effective so I thought I would put it up as I did the scroll so people can see just how easy and fast it can be to create a simple original scroll.

When it gets to the stage where all the colour is in but none of the whitework this is where I tend to walk away in despair thinking that the scroll I am working on is going to be awful. But as you can see once the whitework is added the scroll had a totally different look.
Posted by Caristiona at 3:21 PM

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2010
Weekly meeting update

Coming up the last days before Festival so we continued doing C&I on Tuesday nights.

We were all a bit tired this Tuesday but Mouse is well on the way to finishing another couple of AoA’s. Maeve was spending time working on her calligraphy and I finished one of the last Caid AoA’s that needed to be done.
Posted by Caristiona at 2:34 AM

TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010

Festival

Hi everyone just a reminder of what is happening for the College of Scribes at Festival.

Our meeting is on Friday at 3pm
We are officially kicking off with the AoA competition at Festival so if you have any AoA’s to hand over to me they can be handed over at Festival or you can send them to me. If you need blanks please let me know before the 29th of March so if I need to get extras printed I can do so.

We will also have our Scribes Seal competition.
I would like to see designs for seals about 2.5-3cm in size. Weight will be given to appropriate period documentation/ research, and design. The winning entry will be used for the seal on our AoA Writ’s and will also be used as a Warden’s badge/ seal so it will be used for a long time. I look forward to seeing the entries.

If anyone has old scrolls that have not found a home over the last few years can you please give them to me at Festival or send them to me so that I can start looking further into tracking down lost scrolls/ recipients and matching pairs up where possible. I now have only 2 outstanding scrolls in my files for people who are hard to tack down. These are Adam Girard and Aulay Leod.

If there is anything you would like to see covered at Festival please let me know.
Caristiona

Posted by Caristiona at 5:19 PM

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010
Update
Just to let everyone know, since posting the unclaimed AoA’s on the blog and on announce we have found the recipients for 9 more of the AoA’s. We are now only looking for;

Aulay Leod
Cassandra Cattani
Adam Girard
The photos of all the AoA’s we were looking for are on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/ no’s 863, 865 and 866 are the ones we are still looking for. If anyone has contact details for these three people could you please contact me.
provost@lochac.sca.org
Caristiona
Posted by Caristiona at 2:27 PM

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010
AoA Scrolls from Riverhaven

These AoA have just recently made it to me from Riverhaven. They were done by Katherine Alicia of Sarum and Hanbal has already received his although we have yet to track down Elyas.
This is the first time this particular Persian blank has been completed as there were some difficulties fitting in the Kings/ Princes name. As you can see Katherine has solved this problem by putting the name in white up in a square at the top of the scroll. She has done this by painting out some of the blank in this section. I think this was an excellent solution to this problem and Hanbal was certainly very excited to receive this particular blank as it worked so well with his persona.
Two more AoA’s down for this year. It is wonderful to see the movement that the college has made over the last few months.
Caristiona
Posted by Caristiona at 2:12 PM

SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2010
March 7th Scribal workshop, Innilgard.

Our four regular scribes came to workshop this weekend. Devora and Bryonny were both painting. Devora is working on a AA and Bryonny is working on an original scroll…

Leofwynn is finalizing the layout for an original scroll.

The weather was somewhat behaving (though it rained) and I got onto doing the guilding of the capital for my current original scroll. Then I am onto another AA.
Pics posted with permission.

Posted by Karen C at 11:42 PM

COMMENT:

Caristiona March 10, 2010 at 2:11 PM
Lovely post and so wonderful to see all the work that is being done.
Thank you.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2010
Greetings all!

I am a long-time scriber from Innilgard (Adelaide). We have 4 regular scribes and some occasional scribes. We usually meet fornightly, unless the summer temperatures soar in the high 30’s/low 40’s as the paint just dries on the brush!!!
Last year, we did a large number of instant AOA’s. Currently I am finishing off a Laurel scroll.

I am hoping to do some gilding at the next scribes workshop. However the weather has been really hot, so not good for gilding.
I am hoping to post pics of our progress during the year. Posted by Karen C at 1:43 AM

COMMENT:

Caristiona March 3, 2010 at 4:12 AM
Hi Kat,
the scroll looks lovely I look forward to seeing it when it is finished.
Thanks for putting up your work and for writing something on our blog.
Caristiona

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010
D U C T U S
Newsletter of the Royal College & Confraternity of Scribes & Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac
http://www.sca.org.au/mailman/listinfo/scribes
http://www.sca.org.au/scribe/
http://lochacscribes.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/
Volume 10 Issue 2 March 2010
(Some formating has been lost putting Ductus onto the blog, as usual a formatted copy will be sent out on the mailing list).

Greetings all and welcome to the newest issue of Ductus.
As you are all aware last year was a very active year for us especially towards the end. A lot of new projects have been started and there have been a lot of changes within the College.
In the last issue of Ductus I put up details of the new Wardens. I would now like to add some names to their lists. The newest Wardens are;
Innilgard Leofwynn Wulfinga
Ynys Fawr Madelane de Bourgogne
Ynys Fawr (deputy) Madoc ap Gryffith
Crescent Isles (South) katherine kerr of the Hermitage
I would like to welcome these people as our new Wardens to the College. I would also like to say how much I like the college needing extra Wardens as it shows the increase in scribal activity in these area’s.

Thanks to Master Giles who has gone through the database to make sure it is up to date we now have confirmed details for the current backlog.

AA’s- 83
County- 10
Duchy- 7
GA, including LCA and OWL- 34
KSCA- 22
OL- 39
OP- 53
Vis- 6
Total outstanding Scrolls on the backlog is 234.

Completed Scrolls
There are still some scrolls sitting in the database that we are unable to find recipients for. These scrolls belong to;

Antonia della Scalla
Judith Fletcher of Wellow
Wystan of Wallsende
Cassandra Cattani
Miriam bat Shimeon
Adam Girard
William Beckwith
Alyce Stirling
Aulay Leod
Helga rauðtik Leosdottir
Claire Marie Alderton
Bathassar Vrass

If you know of any current details for any of these Good Gentles could you please let me know so that I can get their scrolls to them as soon as possible. Photographs of all of these scrolls have now been placed on the Lochac Scribes Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/

New Scribes
We have a lot of new scribes to welcome to our ranks in this Ductus. Not all of these have started actively working on scrolls for the College and some still have to send me an exemplar but it is good to see such an influx of new blood. I would like to welcome;

Katrijn van Delden
Constanzia Moralez y de Zamora
Zofija from St Florian
Brigide
Asa Beiskalda
katherine kerr of the Hermitage

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes
provost@lochac.sca.org

On Permanency and Paints
By: Madoc ap Gryffith

Permanence and Fugitives
One of the standards for all work done by the Lochac College of Scribes is permanency. All scribal work must be done using only the most permanent and lightfast materials available so that we can ensure the works of art we create will last well into the future and remain looking as sharp, bright, and colourful as when they were created. This implies that as scribes we have a responsibility to understand which materials are sufficiently permanent and which are not. However, determining which materials will truly withstand the test of time can sometimes be less than straightforward, especially when it comes to paints.

The paints that we use are composed of pigments suspended in a carrier based on a simple gum arabic solution. This provides a suitably permanent vehicle for the pigments, but the pigments themselves run the entire gamut from completely permanent to astonishingly temporary. Those pigments that are less than completely permanent experience some sort of alteration, reaction, or decay over time, most commonly as a result of exposure to light. Such non-permanent pigments are referred to as being “fugitive”, as they can seem to literally disappear and go missing from the work. Other fugitive pigments experience changes other than fading, including darkening and even shifting hue.

Standards and Ratings?
It would be nice if we could assume that simply buying modern paints from reputable manufacturers would ensure that we’re using permanent materials, but unfortunately this is not the case. Even the best manufacturers still sell paints that are quite fugitive and do so for a variety of reasons. In some cases this is because not all artwork is designed to be permanent (for instance where a painting will be done and then scanned for use as a digital image). However, another reason is that consumers continue demanding and purchasing fugitive pigments.

In response to concerns about permanence, many manufacturers are now listing permanency and lightfastness ratings on the labels of their paints. It would be convenient if we could simply use these on-the-label ratings as a guide but, while they can help us avoid some of the most fugitive paints, these ratings are far from definitive. Manufacturers’ rating scales are simply not specific enough for scribal purposes, and in some cases are arguably influenced more by market pressures than by the need for factual honesty. Sometimes the paint manufacturer doesn’t even test the paint themselves, but just passes along the information provided by the pigment manufacturer, who might have used testing methods completely irrelevant to the form of paint and application methods we as scribes use.

The ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) lightfastness rating is reported by some manufacturers on their paint labels. While more reliable than those from the paint manufacturers, these ratings are also less than definitive for scribes. There are just too many variables that can effect a pigment’s permanence, often including how fine the pigment is ground, what binder is mixed with the vehicle to form the paint, and the particulars of how it is applied, that having a single rating for all instances of a pigment is bound to have some degree of error. A pigment that is completely permanent when ground roughly, mixed with an acrylic binder, and applied in thick layers might prove to be unacceptably fugitive when ground more finely, mixed with gum arabic to form a watercolour or gouache, and applied in a thin film. While the ASTM considers both its “Class I” and “Class II” to be permanent, when using gouache paints for scribal purposes, only “Class I” paints should generally be accepted as reliably permanent.

In short, scribes should take the permanency and lightfastness ratings given by industry bodies and manufacturers as suggestive at best when selecting paints for work through the College of Scribes.

Relevant Recommendations
In the absence of a truly definitive rating system relevant to scribal work, how is a scribe to know which paints are truly permanent? To answer this question, the current line of Winsor & Newton Designer Gouache paints was researched. This brand was chosen since it is the line of paints most commonly recommended for scribal work and generally known for its quality and performance. However, like all paint lines, there are a number of colours in the W&N gouache line that are simply not permanent enough for scribal work. If these colours are identified and avoided, the other colours in this line can be used with confidence that we are using lightfast materials of acceptable permanence and quality.

The following paints contain pigments that are known to be (or reasonably suspected of being) less than permanent in water-based media based in independent testing in water/gum arabic media. These W&N gouache paints should NOT be used for College of Scribes works.
Alizarin Crimson
Although it’s often recommended, this paint should never be used. It is very fugitive and the colour quickly fades quite dramatically. It’s based on PR83, the synthetic version of a period pigment derived from Madder root, which was recognised as being fugitive even then. W&N class B.
Bengal Rose
Made of the very fugitive PR169, which even W&N rate in their permanence class “C – fugitive”.
Brilliant Green
Contains the arylamide pigment PY3 prone to darkening.
Brilliant Purple
Made of a mix of two known fugitive toner pigments, PV2 and PV3. W&N class B.
Brilliant Red Violet
Contains the known fugitive rhodamine toner pigment PV1. W&N class B.
Brilliant Violet
Also contains the known fugitive toner pigment PV1. W&N class B.
Brilliant Yellow
Contains the fugitive arylamide pigment PY74.
Flame Red
Contains the fugitive naphthol pigment PR170.
Flesh Tint
Also contains a fugitive naphthol pigment, PR9.
Gold Ochre
A permanent iron oxide colour that is unfortunately “enhanced” with the fugitive arylamide PY74 and thus prone to fading and colour-shift.
Jet Black
Made of the known fugitive PBk1.
Lemon Yellow
Made of the arylamide pigment PY3 prone to darkening.
Light Purple
Like Brilliant Purple above, made of a mix of two known fugitive toner pigments, PV2 and PV3. W&N class B.
Linden Green
Contains two fugitive arylamide pigments, PY3 and PY74.
Magenta
Made of a combination of two fugitives, the lake pigment PR173 and the rhodamine toner pigment PV2.
Opera Pink
Made of a fluorescent dye/resin, even W&N put it in permanence class “C – fugitive”.
Opera Rose
Also made of a fluorescent dye/resin, even W&N put it in permanence class “C – fugitive”.
Orange Lake Deep
Contains the known fugitive arylamide red PR9.
Orange Lake Light
Also contains the known fugitive arylamide red PR9.
Permanent Aliz Crimson
Made of PR176. While it is certainly better than traditional Alizarin Crimson (PR83), it is (in spite of the name) not entirely permanent.
Permanent Green Deep
Contains the fugitive arylamide PY74.
Permanent Green Light
Contains the fugitive arylamide PY3. W&N class B.
Permanent Green Middle
Contains two fugitive arylamide pigments, PY3 and PY74.
Primary Red
Made of two known fugitives, the rhodamine lake PR173 and naphthol PR170. W&N class B.
Rose Tyrien
Made of the fugitive rhodamine lake PR173. W&N permanency class “C – fugitive”.
Sap Green
Contains the fugitive arylamide PY74.
Spectrum Red
Contains the known fugitive naphthol pigment PR170.
Spectrum Violet
Made of the known fugitive toner pigment PV3. W&N class B.
Spectrum Yellow
Made of the fugitive arylamide PY74.
Venetian Red
A permanent iron oxide colour unfortunately “enhanced” with two known fugitive pigments, the arylamide yellow PY1 and the naphthol red PR9.
*** Based on paint compositions following W&N’s 2008 revision of their gouache paint range.

SUGGESTED: The following colours form the minimum palette:
Permanent white (series 1)
Ultramarine blue (series 1)
Primary yellow (series 1)
Cadmium red (series 4) -OR- Winsor red (series 3)
The following colours are good additions to the minimum palette:
Prussian blue (series 1)
Quinacridone magenta (series 3) [mix with Cadmium red to make Alizarin-like colour]
Viridian (series 3)
Lamp black (series 1)
Raw sienna (series 1)
Gold (series 3) [a simple way to add gold elements without the complexity of goldleaf]
Posted by Caristiona at 10:28 PM

2 COMMENTS:

Mark Calderwood March 3, 2010 at 7:19 PM
Just a couple of points to consider:

Prussian blue is a synthetic pigment first made around 1706, and so should not be used. Ultramarine is the finest choice for period limning, with azurite (also known as bice, copper carbonate) being widely used throughout the middle ages as a pigment.

Primary yellow is a pthalone pigment, also out of period. Cadmium lemon and cadmium lemon pale are made from cadmium zinc oxides which were used as pigments. Of course orpiment (arsenic trisulfide) is still the brightest medieval yellow.

The point of alizarin crimson is that it is transparent, which I’m presuming the magenta isn’t (besides quinacridone pigments being invented in 1958), and a stain rather than an opaque paint. Madder was a commonly used as rose pink throughout period; alizarin is used to shade ultramarine in the Gottingen model book, a trick which Titian later refined. Modern synthetic alizarin is made without purpurin, which is the pigment component that rapidly fades, and so lasts longer than mere months. I use top quality watercolour Alizarin to avoid the refracting properties of an opaque base, mixed thickly and used like regular paint. I say use it and damn the torpedoes.

Viridian first manufactured in 1838. Given a wide range of greens in period was produced with verdigris and malachite, it’s not needed.

Gold is hardly complex, especially as transfer leaf or shell gold…

The paints I use/recommend to best approximate a period palette are:

Cadmium red (vermilion)
Alizarin (rose madder)
Cadmium yellow pale (orpiment)
Permanent green middle (sap green/verdigris)
Ultramarine
Burnt sienna
Permanent white/ bleedproof white (lead white)

Autumnalmonk March 9, 2010 at 3:49 AM
This article, written on the explicit request of the Provost, is aimed at providing accurate current information on what paints are the “most permanent” paint choices for scribes.

Scribes are not prevented from using modern pigments and paint colors in the production of a period appearance in our works.

Cadmium red and yellow only began to be used as pigments in the 19th century. Titanium dioxide, the pigment in Permanent white, wasn’t discovered until 1821. If you exclude pigments like Viridian and Prussian Blue because they are not period, then you should also stop using Cadmium Red & Yellow, “Permanent” Green Middle (which uses arylamide & phthalo pigments), and Permanent White as all of these are composed of modern pigments as well.

Additionally, as the article states, “Permanent” Green Middle contains an arylamide pigment known to fade, and Alizarin is so horribly fugitive that it has been used as the definitional example of “fugitive”.

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010
Lost Recipients
Greetings,
over the last year I have been trying to track down the owners to a number of AoA scrolls that were in the CoS files when I received them. Most of these people have now been tracked down but I still have 12 scrolls in my files that I can not find the owners for.
To put all of these scrolls up on the Lochac Scribes blog will take to much space and seems to cause blogger to have problems I have set up a Lochac Scribes Flickr account to put them up on. Could everyone please have a look at this account and see if you can help me track down the owner of these scrolls.
If you know the owner or have contact details for them please contact me. Some of these people I know personally but I do not have contact details for them. If you can get them to contact me or if you can send me their details so I can contact them please do.
My e-mail address is provost@lochac.sca.org
The Flickr address for the photos is http://www.flickr.com/photos/48016044@N02/
Caristiona
Posted by Caristiona at 7:25 PM

3 COMMENTS:

Mousicles March 2, 2010 at 10:37 PM
Perhaps you could post name of the recipients here because some of the calligraphy is hard to read from the photos.

And listing the names of the scribes should probably be a standard thing to do here. It’s the work of the college and we should get in the habit of recognising each other’s work. These are old scrolls so the scribes work may be very different now – if they are still playing.

Mousicles March 2, 2010 at 10:39 PM
Okay. I see the names are listed in the Ductus issue above.

Caristiona March 2, 2010 at 11:11 PM
I started putting these details on Flickr with each photo but ran out of time. I will do it when I get a bit more time. Currently in the notes for each photo is the name for most of the recipients but I have not put up the scribe and I have missed out a couple of names. Hopefully additional details, where I have them, will be up later this week.

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010
Lost Scrolls
Recently a number of scrolls that are a decade old or more have been returned to the CoS and have been sent out to the recipients.
Two of the scrolls are shown here. I hope to show another one when I get a copy of the scroll. I was so keen to get it to the recipient that I forgot to photograph it before I gave it to them.

As can be seen the AoA has been slightly damaged by its long time in storage. This was fixed up before it was given to the recipient.
Posted by Caristiona at 1:01 AM
2 COMMENTS:

Autumnalmonk March 2, 2010 at 5:12 PM
It’s wonderful that these scrolls are finally finding their way to their recipients. Great work, Caristiona!

Caristiona March 2, 2010 at 6:49 PM
I am amazed that some of these scrolls are turning up. In most cases I have not known to look for them and it is just by chance that I have started. My understanding is that there are a few more on the way to me so that I can start looking for their owners.
Caristiona

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2010
More tagging
In addition to the text-book examples I posted earlier, here are several variations on how documents were sealed in period.

Charter of Henry I, c1109, sealed on a tongue that appears to be folded double.

Confirmation of cathedral chapter of episcopal grant, 1149. Tag cuts through the body of the document as well as the turn up.

Writ of Henry II, 1173, with two tongues cut haphazardly into the document.

Forged charter of Bishop William of St Calais, c1160, showing long seal tag and close tape.

Grant recording perambulation, 1165. This definitely shows the tag fed through a slot in the fold of the turn up.

Grant of marriage portion, 12th century. Obviously not that great a portion.

Draft charter c1180, showing adding clauses by attaching an extra slip of vellum. This approach could also potentially be used for signatures.

Another example of the tag threaded through a cut on the fold.

Mandate of Pope Innocent III, 1211. The seal cord has presumably deteriorated to reveal the threading hole for a V pattern.

Appropriation of Aycliffe church by Bishop Marsh, c1220. An unusual example of two mismatched cords threaded in a triangle pattern. One looks to be braided cord, the other appears to be tablet woven in a check pattern. Can any textile people have a guess?

I have no idea what’s going on with this one.

Chirograph document, and example of a tag cut from previously used vellum which it seems was not uncommon.

Coal mining and transport concession, c1258, with signatures on the fold as well as tags.

Mandate of Popr Martin IV for legal case, 1284. An example of what looks to be a single hemp cord knotted around itself.

Allowance of expenses for exemption of taxation, 1296. An example of letters close here shown open…

…and closed. The second long thin strip threaded at right angles to the tongue wraps the folded document and holds it closed, with the seal tucked inside. The date and presumably the bearer are written on the dorse of the closed packet.

Another example from 1304, a bond receipt for the loan of a book shown open and closed.

And another, receipt of proctor in the papal curia, 1312. This example shows how the long strip was wrapped and tied to keep the document closed.

Receipt f0r 200 marks, 1326. The tongue supports the seal, while the upturned fold is cut into a long strip, becoming the tape for letters close.

Knotted seal cords again, in an illuminated charter c1386. Two cords knotted once at the base of the document, then passing here through a wooden case to protect the fragile wax seal.

And again with bi-coloured cords in a diamond pattern, from inspeximus confirmation of Henry IV, 1401.

Oath of fidelity of William Raket, 1402, which presumably, is a letter containing his promise of fidelity backed up by a lot of character witnesses for said gentleman.

Mandate of a bishop for attendance at Parliament, 1402. Similar to a seal bag, this document shows the seal protected by being slipped into a seal packet, a sort of envelope made from previously used vellum.

Receipts for silver plate and salts, 1438. Multiple seals on tongue.

Legal verdict on the descendants of John Middleton, 1475. The more the merrier.

All documents collection of Durham University.

Goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat!
Posted by Mark Calderwood at 1:21 AM

6 COMMENTS:

CaristionaFebruary 16, 2010 at 1:15 PM
Wow, looks like almost anything goes.

Teffania February 16, 2010 at 7:27 PM
not quite anything – there are definite stylistic groupings. I’m taking a bit longer to put my stuff together because I want to present the groupings.

Teffania February 16, 2010 at 7:46 PM
Nice examples. We seem to be looking at the same sources.

Re: V tags and knotted below tags. I think these are all the same style, a variant on the larks head. I’m not sure I can put it into words, but pictures to follow.

“Appropriation of Aycliffe church”: Tabletweaving or ridgid heddle weaving are most likely techniques, although others are possible but unlikely. I don’t think it’s as simple as a cheque pattern, but I can’t see enough to be sure. On this simple a piece a threaded in pattern doesn’t sound unlikely.

“I have no idea what’s going on with this one” It was a simple parchment tag. It’s fallen off and been sewn on upside down with string.

“Knotted seal cords again, in an illuminated charter c1386. Two cords knotted once at the base of the document, then passing here through a wooden case to protect the fragile wax seal.” Is it wooden? I know clay cases were frequently used – do you have a description, or just the photo like me?

Mark Calderwood February 17, 2010 at 5:15 AM
With the Ayliffe church one, on looking at it again it probably isn’t a patterned ribbon because it doesn’t come out the bottom of the seal. I think I was fooled by how part of it looks at the top, but its most likely just a simple woven or twined cord.

The seal case might well be clay, I didn’t have any description to work from. I presumed wood due to what looked like tool marks and splintered areas, though this could be a hastily made clay item or just the lighting, and by the fact that is doesn’t fit the seal perfectly as it would be easy to mould clay to do. I really don’t know.

Teffania February 19, 2010 at 9:01 PM
Ayliffe church – I don’t understand what you are saying. What I see is: On the parchement are two “braids”. Between charter and seal the braids are combined in a 4 element braid. Below the seal hang 4 ends of braids, one issuing fro mthe left, 3 from the right. The two ends of thinner one with black in it has annoyingly been turned on it’s side, so all we can see it the dark edges, and not the pattern, until we get to the bit where it is just frayed end and I can see red, white and black ends. I think the pattern seen in the fragment sitting on the parchment is something like a black and white checkerboard between red borders, but not quite that simple, and I wouldn’t like to committ myself based on such a tiny sample. (if only they would photograph the tags as well as the charters and seals).
What do you see differently?
The seal case – I like your reasoning. I presumed clay because the only confirmed wooden one I’d seen was a very neat turned wood article.

Mark Calderwood February 21, 2010 at 8:43 PM
That chequerboard pattern above the seal is pretty much what I thought I was looking at too…but I could be completely mistaken or else the pattern could have unravelled below the seal.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010
On Seals
Obviously we’re all familiar with the way Kingdom and Crux seals are applied to AA scrolls. But with writs and a College seal in train, Caristiona has asked me to put up an overview of other ways documents were they sealed in period to spark some inspiration.

Medieval seals could be single or double sided, attached directly to the face of the document, on a tongue cut from the base of the document, or on tags made from strips of vellum or silk or hemp cords of silk threaded through the base of the document.

One of the simplest ways, found in earlier medieval documents, is the seal applied on a vellum tongue cut partly away from the bottom of the document.

Douglas Warrant, 14th century. Collection National Archives of Scotland State Papers SP6/11.

French military acquittal, 1378. Private collection.

Tags cut from vellum were also used for pendant seals. Strips of vellum were threaded through two cuts in the turned-up base of the document, doubled over and secured in the seal. These strips could be trimmed or left to hang below the seal.

Charter of Richard III to Queen’s College Cambridge, 1477. Collection Queen’s College.

As these examples show, the name and title of the noble affixing the seal could also be written onto the vellum tags. This could be adapted as a neat solution to space for signatures on SCA scrolls.

Possibly the most impressive option is sealing onto cords, which was developed to spread the weight of larger seals so as not to tear the thin vellum. Three cuts are made in the turned up base of the document, and two cords threaded over and under the vellum in a diamond pattern.

Charter Henry V, mid 15th C.

The resulting strings are caught in a flat 4-braid immediately under the sheet, as these bi-coloured examples show more clearly than cords of the same colour. The braid forms a ‘core’ for the wax seal impression.

Charter seals. Collection Yorkshire Cathedral.

Yorkshire Cathedral Charter, 1604. Collection Yorkshire Cathedral.

There also exists examples of a seal cords in a V pattern, threaded through two cuts in the vellum rather than three. This style would be suitable for cords as well as vellum or woven ribbon tags.

Charter of King John, 1215. British Library MS 610.

Granted letters of ennoblement of Luc de Lys, Seigneur de Reinemoulin, 1612.

Woven seal tags are also known, with examples of tablet woven twill and brocaded ribbons used as tags in England dating to the 12th and 13th centuries. Based on these, Isabail inghean Domhnall created a brocaded silk seal tag as a project for the Fibre Guild, incorporating the colours and symbols of Lochac.

Silk seal tag, Taryn East, 2004. Artist’s collection.

Seal bags were used to protect fragile wax seals attached to legal documents, such as this example was attached to a document dated 26th November 1280 which held the great seal of Edward I.

Silk embroidered wool seal bag, c1280. Collection Westminster Abbey.
Posted by Mark Calderwood at 4:21 AM

4 COMMENTS:

Mad Scientist February 15, 2010 at 7:11 PM
So with the ones on the vellum strips – how are they secured to the document? Is it that the slits go through the turned up edge as well as the vellum it covers and the tab comes out the back of the document, which is then “glued” into a loop by the seal? Because in the third picture it looks like there should be three cuts rather than two – two in the fold to loop the tab over and one in the fold itself to let the tab out.
Maeve

Mark Calderwood February 16, 2010 at 12:27 AM
Yes that’s exactly right. The cuts go through both layers so the tag comes out both the front and back, which is then glued into the loop by applying the wax for the seal.

I don’t think that third charter has extra cuts on the fold of the turn up, I think what we are seeing is tags both layers of the looped tag beneath the document that has created an imprint on the top layers- period vellum is rather than the heavy archival papers we use. It looks odd because we’re more used to that loop coming at the back, although this is the style used today (with wide grosgrain ribbons) in mundane grants of arms.

Mark Calderwood February 16, 2010 at 12:39 AM
But then you could be right- I just found an English deed dating to 1638 that does look very much like the tag comes out of a slit right on the fold.

Teffania February 16, 2010 at 1:09 AM
There’s lots of examples with one of the tags coming out of the fold. (yes I’ll provide links – give me a week though). The question I’m looking into is what is the rear of the tag doing. I wish people took photos of the back of doccuments too

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010
AoA Scrolls

These are a couple of scrolls that Mouse and I did last year. They have been off to get signed and it has taken some time to get them back to me. So I thought I would put them up so everyone can see the same blanks done in a different way.
Caristiona
Posted by Caristiona at 1:37 AM

COMMENT:

Mousicles February 15, 2010 at 4:17 AM
I did Aelfled’s (otters), Tina did Helene’s (crosses)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010
I’m on now
Ok, I admit I’m a ‘blogophob’, I had to get Kilic to help me with this. Not that Idon’t want to communicate, it’s just I’m on so many lists.

I saw the writ at CF and was very impressed with it. It made me want to open and close it and it ‘felt’ like a real document.

Aneala Scribes is happening slooowly but we’ll get there, I’ll post pics when I remember to take some.

Thanks to all who set this up, good job!
Branwen
Posted by Branwen at 5:25 PM

1 COMMENT:

Caristiona February 13, 2010 at 3:32 PM
Hi branwen,
it is good to see you online. Looking forward to seeing pictures of people and scrolls.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010
Gadget tweaks
Hi all,

I’ve added a few new gadgets so it’s easy to see who doing stuff on the blog and how to get to the main webpage.

I think I’ll need to make the main part of the page wider so the display with pictures works better.

If you can think of other changes you’d like, let me know. Someone mentioned adding links here but I think that’s better done on the main webpage lists page. (But we could link to the links page here….)

mouse….
Posted by Mousicles at 2:14 PM

3 COMMENTS:

Mousicles February 12, 2010 at 3:02 AM
Page now wider.

Caristiona February 12, 2010 at 4:41 AM
Thanks it works better.

Branwen February 12, 2010 at 5:31 PM
Great work Mouse…thanks

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010
AoA Writ
Hi everyone, Katherine Kerr of the Hermitage didn’t have time to put this up on our blog so I am doing it for her. This is what a sample AoA Writ looked like when she put it together to take to CF last week. Katherine’s report is below-

This is the folded writ with the seal tag loosely wrapped around it and a Kingdom seal standing in place of the smaller green Scribes
seal that is planned for.

When I handed it over for people to look at, there wasn’t any seal and the tag was wrapped quite firmly around the writ and looped
through to secure it. People really liked the tactile nature of opening the writ package — they may not even feel the need for a
seal, though I think it’s a nice touch.

There is room for the name, date and event to be written on the outside of the packet.

This is the draft writ with the folding instructions noted in the corners (that would not, of course, be in the real ones). It
demonstrates the fold at the bottom with the seal tag sewn in place in period style, courtesy of Baroness Teffania. The Royal Seal is
simply sitting on top of the rest of the tag as a “stand-in”.

This draft has the personal name on the inside, but people thought that having it on the outside would be more practical in a number of
ways.

The instruction sheet is folded a couple of times and tucks nicely into the bottom folded strip. It would be good, if at all possible,
to keep the wording/layout of the text such that the sheet doesn’t poke over the top of it, but that’s not a huge biggie. I noted that
virtually everyone who held the writ read it and then immediately started to unfold the sheet, so that was good.

The writ also folds up small enough to sit nicely inside the circle of the Crowns in the carry box.

Cheers,
katherine
Posted by Caristiona at 12:48 PM

1 COMMENT:

Karen C February 11, 2010 at 6:25 PM
I agree, writing the name and date, on the outside, will be much more practicle.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010
Hello from St Florian

We’ve started doing scribal night every fortnight at A&S. Most are just learning to use paint, and to hold a pen so it may take a little while before we’re up to speed.
We’re very new.. Two sessions in fact. This was from our first night and we were fortunate enough to have Katherine Alycia of Sarum come and visit. – we had a few more on the second night. I’m taking photos of everyone’s achievement every week so we can all see how we’ve progressed.
None of us are warranted so we’re really finding our way. . .
What we need is encouragement, kind words, and direction on what to do. Suggestions on texts, type of paint, tips and tricks to stop us from going made would be a useful thing.
Next session is in a week so I’ll have more photos then!
Cheers
Constanzia

Posted by constanzia Moralez de Zamora at 1:26 AM

2 COMMENTS:

Caristiona February 11, 2010 at 3:16 AM
Yay, so good to see other scribing groups. this is very exciting. I get to put faces to names, well actually more like shoulders to names as well so that when I meet up with people at Festival and they say hello to me I actually really do know who I am talking to instead of just pretending I do.

Mark CalderwoodFebruary 11, 2010 at 7:21 PM
Who’s who so we can put faces to names?

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2010
Tuesday Night Scribes

Hi everyone,
this blog is so that we can all see what everyone is doing at their respective scribe nights. I hope that it will be a good resource especially for those on the list who are not able to join in scribal nights either because they are to far away or because they are unable to make it to group scribal nights and events.

There are a few things that I think it would be a good idea to comment on, first I would prefer it if peerage scrolls are shown in stages but a final photograph of the completed scroll not put up until the recipient has seen the scroll. I have less concerns about AoA’s so but am open to comments about this.

So to start the ball rolling I am going to post some photos of what myself and some of the local Rowany scribes are working on at the moment. Mostly these are AoA’s. Last night we were working on local AoA’s and a Crescent Isles AoA from when the Crescent Isles was part of Caid. Each of these scribes is working on a variety of projects but we went with the relaxing AoA night last night.

I tried to add some more pictures in but blogger seemed to be having trouble. So this is a small sample of what we have been doing.

Caristiona nic Beathain
Provost of Scribes
Posted by Caristiona at 2:31 PM

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2010
Hello Lochac Scribes
This is the cunning new blog brought to you by the cunning new provost. This is where you can share pictures of your work and people working. If you need to be able to post here, just let the provost team know.
Posted by Mousicles at 3:57 AM

4 COMMENTS:

Caristiona February 9, 2010 at 2:30 PM
Thanks Mouse, I look forward to seeing more people on this blog.

Constanzia Moralez y de Zamora February 10, 2010 at 3:14 AM
Hurray! Hope this is a useful and inspiring tool for Lochac (and anyone else frankly!)

Karen C February 10, 2010 at 4:27 PM
Looking forward to seeing what pops up! We have scribes practice next week, so maybe we should start posting!

Caristiona February 10, 2010 at 6:50 PM
Fantastic I am really excited about being able to see what everyone is doing rather than just hearing about it.