Table Of ContentMedieval Fantasy as
Performance
The Society for Creative Anachronism
and the Current Middle Ages
Michael A. Cramer
THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Lanham Toronto Plymouth, UK
2010
Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc
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Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright 0 201 0 by Michael A. Cramer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cramer, Michael A., 1964-
Medieval fantasy as performance : the Society for Creative Anachronism and the current
Middle Ages 1 Michael A. Cramer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8108-6995-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-8108-6996-7 (ebook)
1. Middle Ages. 2. Europe-Social life and customs. 3. Europe-Social conditions-
To 1492. 4. C~vilization,M edieval. 5. Historical reenactments. 6. Fantasy drama. 7.
Society for Creative Anachronism. I. Title.
D117.C74 2010
940.106-dc22 2009032089
eN
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48- 1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For Gracia
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Chapter 1: A Brief History of the SCA 1
Chapter 2: Creative Medievalism 18
Chapter 3 : Interpersonal Performance 5 0
Chapter 4: On the Field of the Summer King 88
Chapter 5: In the Hall of the Winter King 131
Chapter 6: Conclusion 173
Appendix I: SCA Kingdoms 176
Appendix 11: Major Wars 179
Appendix 111: SCA History According to Olsgaard 180
Bibliography 183
Index 190
About the Author 20 1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to give thanks to several people who helped me survive this book.
To the SCA members I interviewed and corresponded with. I especially
need to thank Thorsen for having the good grace to win crown for Svava as I
was in the middle of this project, giving me a wealth of material to draw upon.
Thanks also to my SCA household, Ost Thorpe, and to the members of Serpen-
tius, House Wilmot, and the rest of Tribe Rat Mahne. And, of course, I need to
thank the populaces and the crowns of the Kingdoms of the West and the East
To Ken MeyerIMaster Hirsch von Henford, who maintains the West King-
dom History Project (http:/ihistory.westkingdom.org), where I did a huge
amount of research.
To James Saslow, Dan Gerould, and particularly, Pam Sheingorn, for doz-
ens of readings and invaluable advice.
A special thanks to Jim Cherry, Kurt Taroff, and Ed Lingan, my comrades
in arms.
Inspiration came from Ray Charles Cramer, Willis Harman, Brad Stuart,
Dean Harman, Rick Davis, Ward Harman, Elliot Beard, Gerry Boyle, and Wil-
liam Hazelton, and also from Fred Hollander, David D. Friedman, Heather Rose
Jones, Dana Kramer-Rolls, Katherine Helm-Clark, and Steven Muhlberger.
Thanks to my parents, James Cramer and Ruth Cramer, and to my step-
parents, Billie Harman and Jerry Nichols, for their love and support.
To Jenifer Tifft and Renee Camus, my very patient editors.
To the numerous conference panels and audiences who have sat through
portions of this book as I worked it out.
To the editors of The Year's Work in Medievalism, who published a portion
of Chapter in Volume XXII, Summer, 2007 under the title "Psychedellic Medie-
valism: Berkeley, the 60s, and the SCAM.
Thanks to you, my readers for bearing with me through this book. Some of
this work is based on oral history, tradition, and the sometimes faulty memories
of myself and others, which often contradict one another. Any errors or omis-
sions are all my own.
And finally thanks to Hanna Edwards, who was there when I first sat down
to write and, amazingly enough, was still there when I finished, and who put up
with me through it all.
INTRODUCTION
In the cover story of the issue of Time magazine for December 2, 2002, author
Lev Grossman wrote about the resurgence of fantasy in popular culture.
Grossman cites the film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings tril-
ogy, the Harry Potter movies, the computer game EverQuest, the card game
Magic: The Gathering, and other films, books, games, and television shows as
evidence of a trend in American popular culture: the replacement of science fic-
tion with fantasy, particularly medieval fantasy, as our main form of escapism.
By fantasy I mean not only escapism or unrealistic situations, but a genre of
literature and film rooted in medievalism and in which magic, not science, is the
governing paradigm. Writes Grossman:
Popular culture is the most sensitive barometer we have for gauging shifts in
the national mood, and it's registering a big one right now. Our fascination with
science fiction reflected a deep collective faith that technology would lead us to
a cybertopia. With The Two Towers, the new installment of the Lord of the
Rings trilogy, about to storm the box office, we are seeing what might be called
the enchanting of America. A darker, more pessimistic attitude toward technol-
ogy and the future has taken hold, and the evidence is our new preoccupation
with fantasy, a nostalgic, sentimental, magical vision of a medieval age. 1
Grossman cites as his prime example of this fascination with the medieval
an organization known as the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a "me-
dieval re-creation" society, in which people perform premodern roles in what is
truly a postmodern fantasy about the Middle Ages. They dress in historic cos-
tume, take medieval names, practice medieval arts and crafts, and often fight in
medieval-style armor with rebated weapons like Arthurian heroes. They have
laid their own geography over the contemporary world, dividing it into "king-
doms," each ruled by rotating mock kings who, rather than having been born to
the job, must win a "Crown Tournament" held two or three times each year.
They have knights and other peerage orders: "the Order of the Laurel" for arts
and sciences and "the Order of the Pelican" for service. In other words, they
play at being medieval nobility. Grossman suggests that the impetus behind their
game is a longing for a simpler time with clear moral values. SCA members he
quotes mention an antitechnology nostalgia and a sense that honor, courtesy, and
chivalry are missing from contemporary society as reasons for their participa-
tion.
If Grossman is right, and contemporary culture truly has developed a fasci-
nation with the medieval and with medieval fantasy, then looking at the SCA as
a case study will allow us to examine some ways how and reasons why that fan-
tasy is being played out, as well as allowing us to analyze the dissatisfaction
with contemporary culture that leads people into these realms of fantasy. This
book will examine the Society for Creative Anachronism in detail to discover
how SCA members adapt and employ ideas about the Middle Ages in perform-
ance, ritual reenactment, living history, and re-creation. In doing so I hope to
