Musings on authenticity
Feb. 28th, 2005 12:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damont(Of interest primarily to SCAdians, living-history folks, etc.)
A mailing list that I'm on recently had a note regarding sumptuary laws and the idea that appearances are everything. (Even today there's a lot of people who make assumptions about a person based on how they're dressed -- which, among other things, is why you often want to wear a suit to an interview -- or, in my field, why sometimes you SHOULDN'T... and figuring out when wearing a suit is good/bad is not easy!)
But in the context of having a hobby such as the SCA, one can occasionally run into... issues.
Consider: in earlier times, one was expected to maintain the dress and accoutrements associated with one's rank. (Which ran folks into problems when their financial situations soured.) So if "appearance is everything" in the era we're trying to study/emulate, why wouldn't everyone wear clothing to the highest level of their ability to afford? (Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof...)
My response: there is a disconnect between our SCA and mundane social status. (Aside: yes, "status" is the plural of "status." It's a FOURTH declension masculine noun, and the only difference is a diacritical macron over the U in the plural form, which is usually ignored in modern e-typography.)
When a person was made a peer in the actual middle ages, it would come with a grant of land -- the most universally understood form of wealth in medieval Europe. This land, if well tended, would produce income sufficient to keep one in a lifestyle commensurate with one's newly exalted social station. But in the Current Middle Ages, royalty have no control over the sources of the sort of wealth that could pay for such a lifestyle.
For the past year (and a week), I have been a peer of the realm in the SCA. In the early 14th century, in my station I would have many servants and most likely quite a LOT of financial assets. In the early 21st century, I have none of the above. Guess which century determines what garb I get to wear to events. I've got enough garb for a week or ten days, but it's all fairly plain and generic, *and* most of it is donated or handed down. Not that I'm all that much of a clothes-horse, but it would be nice to have some really spiffy garb that matches my persona's time and place(s). But I can't afford the fabric, much less to pay someone to make it (as my own sewing skills are only rudimentary). Likewise there is no way for me to afford other accoutrements that one would normally expect a peer to have.
Mundane finances can and do have an effect on the level of authenticity one can manage. Now *basic* authenticity is easy -- IMO easier, even, than being semi- or quasi-authentic. (Which is a point that newcomers should be taught quickly.) But SERIOUS authenticity often requires SERIOUS expense.
A mailing list that I'm on recently had a note regarding sumptuary laws and the idea that appearances are everything. (Even today there's a lot of people who make assumptions about a person based on how they're dressed -- which, among other things, is why you often want to wear a suit to an interview -- or, in my field, why sometimes you SHOULDN'T... and figuring out when wearing a suit is good/bad is not easy!)
But in the context of having a hobby such as the SCA, one can occasionally run into... issues.
Consider: in earlier times, one was expected to maintain the dress and accoutrements associated with one's rank. (Which ran folks into problems when their financial situations soured.) So if "appearance is everything" in the era we're trying to study/emulate, why wouldn't everyone wear clothing to the highest level of their ability to afford? (Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof...)
My response: there is a disconnect between our SCA and mundane social status. (Aside: yes, "status" is the plural of "status." It's a FOURTH declension masculine noun, and the only difference is a diacritical macron over the U in the plural form, which is usually ignored in modern e-typography.)
When a person was made a peer in the actual middle ages, it would come with a grant of land -- the most universally understood form of wealth in medieval Europe. This land, if well tended, would produce income sufficient to keep one in a lifestyle commensurate with one's newly exalted social station. But in the Current Middle Ages, royalty have no control over the sources of the sort of wealth that could pay for such a lifestyle.
For the past year (and a week), I have been a peer of the realm in the SCA. In the early 14th century, in my station I would have many servants and most likely quite a LOT of financial assets. In the early 21st century, I have none of the above. Guess which century determines what garb I get to wear to events. I've got enough garb for a week or ten days, but it's all fairly plain and generic, *and* most of it is donated or handed down. Not that I'm all that much of a clothes-horse, but it would be nice to have some really spiffy garb that matches my persona's time and place(s). But I can't afford the fabric, much less to pay someone to make it (as my own sewing skills are only rudimentary). Likewise there is no way for me to afford other accoutrements that one would normally expect a peer to have.
Mundane finances can and do have an effect on the level of authenticity one can manage. Now *basic* authenticity is easy -- IMO easier, even, than being semi- or quasi-authentic. (Which is a point that newcomers should be taught quickly.) But SERIOUS authenticity often requires SERIOUS expense.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-28 01:11 pm (UTC)I'm Sure I've Asked Before....
Date: 2005-02-28 01:39 pm (UTC)We often get so wrapped up in "the Game" and in dressing toward a theme event (none of which is bad, mind you...) that we forget that we actually fell in love with the whole Persona Concept thing at some point, and created those "alternative selves"....
So what's yours? Post and tell us your tale!
Meli,
early 16th Century Welsh Knight's Daughter
no subject
Date: 2005-02-28 03:28 pm (UTC)Which period italian? Might as well start the research...
clothing
Date: 2005-02-28 03:51 pm (UTC)I used to feel bad that I wore the same 6 or 7 dresses to everything, and only a few of those were fancy. Then I realized that, as a minor noble without a land grant (it's Polish, it doesn't have to make sense), I would probably only have had a few dresses, and the nicer ones might have been handed down from my liege. Cloth for one new suit of clothes a year does not a varied wardrobe make. So, the fact that I own one nice linen tunic, one nice hemp tunic, one silk tunic, and 2-3 Italian/German ren dresses is commensurate with fairly high status. :)
However, my magpie-like fondness for jewelry and danglies is period for my persona, which makes me happy.
Re: clothing
Date: 2005-02-28 04:53 pm (UTC)Re: I'm Sure I've Asked Before....
Date: 2005-02-28 06:00 pm (UTC)So... my father comes from a Ligurian town near Genoa called Collaureo: "golden hills," probably named for the way it looks when the crops are ripe, either grain or canola or something else in the yellow part of the spectrum. His family runs a shipping and banking concern that trades with the English. When the war with Pisa broke out, his brother Giovanni got involved with the military effort and was killed in battle at sea. My father was packed off to England and made to stay there with some of the family's trading partners until the war was over.
What happens next is predictable: he finds a girl there, marries her and they start reproducing. I'm the oldest, named for my late uncle. Except that my mother only knew my uncle by his nickname Vann'... so that's what she told the clerk, who heard "Evan" which was common enough in those parts. So when I'm in Genoa I'm actually Giovanni, but in England I'm Evan.
As the oldest son I'm expected to take a place in the family business. But it's a big firm and I certainly won't be inheriting anything close to all of it. When I showed an aptitude for scholarly work, I was set to learn the landward aspects of the business, with a bit of ship design thrown in (medieval precursor to engineering). Eventually I was sent to Atlantia to attend university, and stayed on afterwards to look after the family concerns in Atlantia and the Eastrealm.
So my time period is very early 14th century, like around 1304. Either Genovese (northwestern Italian) or southwestern English (Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Goucester, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight). Our family tries to steer clear of heavy politics, it's bad for business. Edward I in England, never the nicest person to begin with, is nearing the end of his reign in England and has bankrupted the treasury in his attempt to conquer Scotland. Philip IV of France is a complete and utter anal sphincter and we do little business in France as a result. The Papacy is in disarray as various factions vie for control of it and Rome; the Pope's removal to France in 1305 makes Roman politics even more chaotic than before, if that is possible. Sicily and Naples have been continually at war since 1282 (a war which will go on uninterrupted for another century and a half, and continue to break out for centuries thereafter). Spain is a little more peaceful after the French invasion of the 1280's failed. Atlantia and the East, for all their internal difficulties, pose few intractable problems for us.
So there it is in a (fairly large) nutshell...
no subject
Date: 2005-02-28 06:20 pm (UTC)Early 14th century. If you are trying (and able) to be more geographically specific than "Italy", aim for northern, northwestern, Genoa/Liguria.
Re: clothing
Date: 2005-02-28 06:34 pm (UTC)Certainly from around 1400 on, as the climate entered the "Little Ice Age," underclothing wold increase; while one would need to change (and wash) undergarments more often, the stuff that actually SHOWED would not require the same level of attention. It has always been my understanding that having more outer clothing was one way to display one's wealth, so that the richest would change outfits quite often as a way of showing off. This reached what I consider to be the illogical extreme in 19th century England. (The EARLY 1800's for men, before the Regency when simplicity came into fashion for them. Upperclass women continued to wear four or five different gowns each day for the entire century, and you tried never to wear the same gown twice, at the very least you waited a week.)
Re: clothing
Date: 2005-03-02 04:05 am (UTC)Concerning body linen: According to the 16th century English inventories I've read, wealthy medieval people tended to have a lot of it, probably because cleaning it was quite an operation, performed infrequently. It wasn't generally washed, since that would require hauling and heating water. Instead, it was carefully folded into a bucking tub, separted by judiciously placed sticks so that fluid could run through it without pooling, and a weak lye solution was poured through it and out the bottom of the tub until the liquid ran clear. That way, clothing could be cleaned and bleached in a single operation. As for the poor, even they generally had some linen underclothes, unless they were really destitute. "Going woolward"--ie, without body linen, was regarded as a penance, and was probably really uncomfortable and itchy, on the order of a hair shirt. Outer clothing wasn't usually washable, but could be spot cleaned with pipe clay for grease spots and was (in theory) brushed nightly. Clothing not being worn would have been packed away in a clothes press, with sweet herbs like lavender, to make it smell better (deodorants did exist, but weren't entirely effective), keep it from wrinkling and to keep off the fleas.
Amazing what peculiar stuff I remember from history classes.
Roswitha