Society for Creative Anachronism
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Harmless historical nuts —Leslie Fish, "True Story"
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The Society for Creative Anachronism is an organization dedicated to reliving The Middle Ages and The Renaissance. On any given weekend, somewhere in the world (usually several somewheres), people will come from miles around, dressed in pre-17th century costume (or an attempt thereat), and fight in armor (with rattan swords), sing period or period-style songs, fight in armor, show off their skills with a pen/loom/anvil, fight in armor, eat a medieval feast, fight in armor, watch as the king and queen bestow awards on some deserving gentle, and fight in armor. Most participants choose a time and place to be from and a name that might have belonged to someone from that time and place (but not that of a real person or fictional character); this is called the participant's "persona".
Establishing a persona may involve crafting a costume (known as "garb"), which can be as elaborate as a person's budget and time allow, but it's a serious faux pas to nitpick another person's garb. When not in SCA garb, a person is said to be in "modern" clothing; it's sometimes called "mundane" garb, but that term has fallen into disfavor in recent years due to its somewhat negative and "put-down"ish overtones.
The "Middle Ages" as depicted by the SCA are slightly different than the real-world events, and as such are called the "Current Middle Ages" in Society parlance. "Current" means that while strict historical accuracy is nice, it's not always practical in a modern context; as such, allowances are made in situations where actual historical information is limited or may not be entirely compatible with modern society.
Strictly speaking, the Current Middle Ages comprise a period from approximately 600 CE to roughly 1600 CE; this allows a wide variety of personas, from many countries and walks of life. The only hard-and-fast rules are that persona names must be historically accurate (or "period"), a persona cannot be an actual historical figure or a fictional character, and a persona's culture must have established some form of interaction with Middle Ages society.
Literature
- Honor Harrington: Mentioned as part of the Honorverse, continuing and thriving centuries from now.
- Murder at the War: A Modern-Day Mystery with a Medieval Setting, a Murder Mystery novel by Mary Monica Pulver: A murder takes place at the SCA's annual Pennsic War near Pittsburgh, and a member who is a detective in his ordinary life is expected to solve it.
- The Warlock in Spite of Himself and its sequels by Christopher Stasheff feature the planet Gramarye, a colony world settled by the entire population of an SCA "kingdom" and maintained for centuries afterward in a Medieval Stasis in order to preserve the setting its founders wanted.
- In Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling, the Portland, Oregon branch of the SCA forms part of the "Portland Protective Association" in the wake of the "Nantucket Event".
- Since the 1980s numerous Post Apocalyptic stories and novels, like World Enough and Time by James Kahn, have noted that members of the SCA are likely to be the best equipped to survive the collapse of civilization and/or the return of magic.
- Acceptable Breaks From Reality: A perennial criticism of SCA chivalric combat is that attacks below the knee are generally considered foul, and this leads a lot of fighters to favor a less historically accurate style of high guard. However, aiming for that area leads to a lot of leg and knee injuries: most groups would rather have less "historical" fighters come back next weekend than lots of very period fighters laid up in the hospital.
- Anachronism Stew: Vikings, Romans, Elizabethans, Samurai and Saracens manage to coexist. Even Musketeers are welcome, despite being technically out of period.
- And then there are the Tuchux, essentially Gor LARPers who technically aren't even part of the Society but are always welcome, particularly on your side during a war.
- Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: A major appeal for many members. Particularly musketeers.
- Badass Bookworm: Almost all heavy fighters.
- Bilingual Bonus: Check any listing of members' persona names, their arms or households, and you are sure to find enough multilingual puns, jokes and references to choke a Percheron.
- For instance, founding Baron Pog O'Mahon [dead link] of Carillion, East Kingdom (Ocean County, NJ), whose name is a homonym for "Kiss my ass!" in Gaelic.
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats
- Buffy-Speak: An infamous homemade white canvas pavilion that was something of a landmark at the Pennsic War for many years (until its owner replaced it in the mid-1990s) was known throughout the kingdoms as "The Great White Falling-Down Thing". (Its professionally-manufactured replacement was called, at least initially, "The Great White Standing-Up Thing".)
- Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: The Society has developed (or absconded with) a number of period or period-flavored terms for modern things in order to allow their inclusion in "in persona" discussions without breaking the illusion of periodicity. For example, automobiles usually are referred to as horses, chariots, steeds or the like, computers are "golems", and the Internet is "the Rialto" (referencing several lines in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice where characters ask "What news on the Rialto?").
- Days of Future Past: "The Middle Ages as they should have been".
- Death Is Cheap: If it weren't, the ranks of armored fighters would get thin really quickly.
- Everything's Better with Princesses: Well naturally, if the Queen's daughter comes along, what does that make her?
- Fake Nationality: Part of developing a persona in the Society is to pick—and thoroughly learn about—the culture in which that persona would have lived.
- FBI: During the Nixon Administration, the SCA was investigated by the FBI as a potentially subversive organization (along with every other group to the left of the John Birch Society); it dismissed the SCA as "...a bunch of harmless monarchists."
- Filk Song: The Society not only has a strong bardic tradition, many of its premiere bards are also the premiere filksong writers and performers of SF and Fantasy fandom.
- Flynning: Averted, even in fencing combat. Within the restrictions of safety (see "Acceptable Breaks From Reality" above), Society combat seeks to recreate authentic fighting styles as closely as possible.
- Improvised Armour: Very popular amongst the heavy weapons fighters. At least until they purchase real armor or learn armorsmithing themselves.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: In the grand tradition of historical heraldry, Society heraldry is an opportunity to get away with all manner of visual punning.
- Persona names are also a rich source of this and Incredibly Lame Jokes.
- Lady of War: There are hundreds of female fighters in the Society, starting with Sir Trude Lacklandia lo these many decades ago.
- Mugging the Monster: See the story of Sir Trude Lacklandia in the "Real Life" section of that page.
- Nerf Arm: Society fighters use padded rattan weapons that can inflict a intensely-felt thwack but do no more than bruise.
- Oral Tradition: How much of the SCA's lore gets transmitted to newbies, and between established members as well.
- Rated "M" for Manly: What could be more manly then folks dressing like knights and thumping each other?
- Rule of Cool
- Rule of Fun: Despite the research and the work, fun is what the SCA is mainly about.
- Safe Word: The Society uses "Hold!" as a global safeword, basically indicating that everyone should freeze.
- Screw the War, We're Partying: Sometimes the war is the party...
- Shown Their Work: Arts and sciences competitions frequently require participants to document that their entry is done in an authentic manner, using authentic materials.
- Sometimes done just for fun, as when a feastcrat successfully documented medieval beanie-weenies.
- "Stop Having Fun!" Guys: Sadly, the Society has its share of people who think the historical recreation is the most (or only) important thing, and do not hesitate to lecture anyone who sacrifices accuracy for fun.
- Sometimes the College of Heralds can come across this way when they reject your incredibly clever persona name or device because it doesn't meet Society standards for historical documentation or proper design.
- War Is Glorious: ...and fun, too!
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: While it can be found in all its florid glory at almost any Society event, this trope is usually averted; "in persona" speech is either period-flavored modern vernacular (on the grounds that everyday speech is everyday speech regardless of era) or painstakingly-correct Elizabethan usage.