Nom, nom, nom: medieval leftovers edition

[hrj]

Investiture yesterday saw duchessletitia properly installed as Princess of the Mists (oh, yeah, there was a guy involved somewhere in there too). It was a bit of an odd day. Being on court, I didn't want to bring or plan other stuff to do (too easy to get distracted) but there were plenty of courtiers and not that much to do, so I spent a lot of time just wandering around and chatting. And there wasn't much on the day's schedule other than the courts, a handful of competitions, and some fighting in the middle of the afternoon. On the one hand, it's good for an event not to be crazy-overscheduled, but I think that sometimes we lean a little too far to the other side. If I'm going to drive several hours and dress up in funny clothes, I'd like to focus on the otherworldly experience, not simply sit around and chat with my friends. I wrote a brief rant about this in comments elsewhere regarding A&S Tourney, where evidently lots of people have been saying they don't want to be bothered with having classes on Sunday -- they just want to laze around in camp and hang out with their friends. I love hanging out lazily with my friends but I can do that on my own time and my own dime. When I go to an SCA event, I want to do medieval (or at least SCA) things.

Getting back to Investiture, the feast was delicious, if a trifle drawn out. I brought home some of the leftovers and this morning's lazy brunch-on-the-deck was an omelette filled with mussels in bruet and aquapatys, followed by fruit rissoles.

I had some really lovely conversations with aureellia about the economics of medieval lawsuits over manure. Hmm. I just got a truly crazy whacked-out idea for an in-persona collegium presentation -- not for any particular topic, but just as a general structure for presenting information in an entertaining way. Enact a medieval lawsuit. Over whatever the topic of the class is. Have people present their claims and counterclaims before a presiding judge (or nobleman). Have lawyers chime in with precedents and recollections of similar cases. Have neighbors and such like as witnesses, whether of material fact or simply of character. The presentation could be educational not merely about the topic of the lawsuit, but also about the processes and nature of medieval law. And, of course, there are a variety of legal systems that could be used, depending on culture and era (and different likely topics for lawsuits). This could be a lot of fun. Shall have to think further.

Comments

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

You are so right about Investiture. The people at my table were wishing for dancing, a bard, anything. One lady found herself a bard and he came and sang to us, then she organized a little dancing lesson off in the side room. There was more than enough time for all of that I think. Luckily the food was quite excellent, or it would have been very sad. I drove over two hours (much of it at 5-10 MPH just to get there. It would have been good to have a class or something else to do between court and courses.

[vittoriosa.livejournal.com]

Enact a medieval lawsuit.

BRILLIANT! I would so be into that.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I think I really must try this. It fits so nicely into the idea of promoting "medieval experience" activities that I've been chewing on lately. I've been wanting to experiment with some more in-persona collegium presentations, but hadn't found a framework that I thought would really add to the experience rather than being a gimmick. But this idea just feels "right" to me. And I have some ideas about who I might be able to drag in to the process.

[xrian.livejournal.com]

Count me in. RF experience does come in handy when it comes to in-persona stuff.

[cellio]

I would enjoy the lawsuit class. I've seen suits a couple of times as part of peerage ceremonies, but that's a different setting with different goals. (Granted, one of them did make the documentation available -- you would expect that of a research laurel. :-) )

[(Anonymous)]

I feel a great sense of overwhelming evilness and researchy goodness filling my soul. This could be loads of fun and extremely educational. Mostly there is evil in here somewhere. Don't worry. I will find it.

Perhaps people would actually stop calling manure waste!

[corbaegirl.livejournal.com]

I was part of a Laurel elevation that took the form of a Norse lawsuit. It was interesting, very much in the persona of the gentleman being elevated, and I think it rather confused some people. It was different.

In-persona classes

[hudebnik.livejournal.com]

The lawsuit idea sounds like lots fun. I've done an in-persona class on music theory, and one on arithmetic (conveniently, both included in the Seven Liberal Arts).

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a lot of fun -- and very interesting.

[roswtr.livejournal.com]

Given how time shifts inside the kitchen, how much time did you think there was between courses? By my watch, we served the first course at 6 and the fourth at 8:40. Was there really too much of a break?