From: odlin@reed.edu (Iain Odlin)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Perceptions of the SCA
Date: 6 Nov 92 22:58:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Nov6.225858.20028
Organization: The Stuffed Animal Trauma Team  (We're Trained Professionals)

In article <1d8kb5INN5r@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bq434@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael A. Chance) writes:
>So far, the consensus
>is that the SCA is NOT a medievalist group.  One poster even went so far
>as to indicate that the SCA has about as much in common with
>medievalists as a D&D group.

  The way I always looked at it was that the SCA provides a way of being as
  much of a medievalist as you want to be without having to be stuck-up about
  it.

  One could, perhaps, note that even the "authentic" medievalists cannot do
  complete accuracy thanks to the laws we all must follow.  An authentic Scots
  Highland Clan battle cannot possibly be done for the general public thanks
  to the fact that, during battle, they would throw off their Great Kilts and
  fight naked (which, it should be noted, scared the bejesus out of many an
  Invader to the Highlands).  There are limits to everything.  

  The SCA, of course, has a much lower "threshold of accuracy" than other
  medievalist re-creation groups *as a group*, but that in no way precludes
  individual members (or bunches of members) from being as historically ac-
  curate as their hearts desire and their pocketbooks can support.  And it
  certainly isn't reason enough for "Hoi-polloi" medievalists to gaze upon us
  "lowly folk" from behind their historically accurate noses.

  [As an aside, I wonder what some of these folk do about glasses and dental
  work... ;)  And while I salute those who desire to be as accurate as they
  possibly can, I personally desire to bathe daily (and to have those around
  me doing likewise).  If that means I am not a true medievalist, so be it.]

>I plan on writing to the Board of Directors about this perception of the
>SCA by the academic medievalist community, but I'm interested in getting
>the opinions of others.  Is it important what real medievalists think
>about the SCA, and how do we go about changing the perception?

  Would I be wrong in assuming that you feel as they do, seeing as how you 
  have called them "real medievalists" (as opposed to us "fake medievalists")?

  I submit that it isn't particularly important, and that "going about chan-
  ging the perception" of a few rancorous souls isn't worth the huge amount of
  effort it would require.

  Now, to take the edge off my comments above, I would like to point out that
  I no more believe that all "authentic medievalists" are holier-than-thou
  than I believe all cats are black, and that I truly and heartily applaud
  research and all the discoveries that come from same.  The more we really
  know about history, the better!  What I disagree with is the attitude that
  the SCA is to medievalism what cyanide is to good health.  We are *all* in-
  terested in the same thing, and we're all celebrating it in our own ways.

  "To each his own," said the woman as she married the horse.  :)
-- 
 --------------------------------- Iain Odlin ---------------------------------
                  10 Crosby Street, Level 3, Portland ME 04103
                                 odlin@reed.edu
 -------- To err is human -- To blame the other guy is even more human --------
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