One of my main hobbies these days is playing in the Society for Creative Anachronism, or SCA. If you've never heard of the SCA (or even if you have perhaps), this will all seem quite strange. Hopefully this page will give you both a quick introduction to the SCA, as well as some idea as to why I do this!
I first became interested
in the SCA many years ago, but never had any contact with the
organization until my last year at Michigan. As part of my wholesale
rebellion against academia, I decided to join a group dedicated
not just to studying the Middle Ages outside of the Academy (horrors!)
but also to "re-creating" aspects of medieval life (heresy!)
And so I sealed my fate...
The SCA is a little hard to explain to an outsider. It's not just a reenactment group. It's also a unique subculture with its own history and customs. A popular motto is "The Middle Ages not as it was, but as it should have been," but that's not quite right either. No one really thinks we're re-creating the Middle Ages. A better way to think of it is as a game whose rules are based on medieval institutions.
That said, there is a lot of very accurate re-creating going on in the SCA, especially in terms of the Arts & Sciences. Some people take their research quite seriously, and there's a lot of expertise about medieval warfare, handicrafts, cuisine, clothing, customs, etc. within the SCA. The SCA provides a forum for people who are interested in various aspects of medieval life to pursue and practice their particular obsessions.
As for me, my SCA "persona" is a 14th-century Frenchwoman named Ysabel d'Outremer. I haven't fleshed out the details of my persona, but I have this idea that she's wealthy, well-traveled, probably widowed, and a member of the middle class. My "period" interests, which may or may not coincide with my persona's, include manuscript illumination, sewing and cooking. And then there's bellydancing...
The picture above was taken by Leonidas (mka Lee Varis) at Lyondemere's Anniversary Tourney. (That's Patricia de Lyon, Amica MacRae of York, and myself.) For more pictures from that event, which featured a wedding between two members of our Barony, see Lee's site.
For more information, try the following links:
Society for Creative Anachronism - Official site
Kingdom of Caid - My current "home," now that I live in SoCal
Barony of Lyondemere - My local group within Caid
Kingdom of the West - Where I really got started, and the birthplace of the SCA
Homepage of Tatiana de Foix - My friend Katey's SCA persona
"Past Perfect" - An article about SCA fighters from SF Weekly