Sidetracked a bit?

Taking a bit of a side journey into another one of my SCA passions: court pageantry and heraldry, and then as a part of that, ceremonies.  As a herald, I love looking at ceremonies.  I find that they bring so much of the medieval aesthetic and yes, even a bit of the mystique and drama to the game that we all play.

With my persona being fairly early period for the SCA (6th century Byzantine), I find that sometimes the standard ceremonies don't quite do it for me.  The Romans, both Eastern and Western, were totally about pomp and circumstance.  I adore pomp and circumstance.  I love it.  Banners, music, jugglers, dancing, really neat clothes . . . yep.  I love pomp and circumstance.

So, I started thinking about what a ceremony would look like in the eyes of my persona.  What would the oaths look like, that sort of thing.  And then I found this.  Take a look here.  (Source, btw, is The Byzantines, edited by Guglielmo Cavallo.  So want this book.  The oath is found on page 203.)

Quick background - this was given in writing (non scripta non est?) to the royals beginning in the fifth century, and then the document remained in the palace archives and listed in a register.  It was required of all high officials of the court, and dignitaries of the empire.  Each new functionary was required to swear the oath prior to investiture.  There's a thing, where, in the 14th c, the provincial governors would gather together at the death of an emperor, resign, and then in front of the new emperor would swear the oath. 

Seriously, for a culture that is all backstabbing and intrigues, they were serious about their oaths and getting everything in writing.

So, here's the period one:

I swear by All-Powerful God, by his only son Jesus Christ our God, by the Holy Spirit, by Mary the saintly and glorious mother of God, forever a virgin, by the four Gospels which I am holding in my hands, by the holy archangels Michael and Gabriel, that I will maintain a pure conscience with regard to our very divine and pious masters Justinian and his wife Theodora, and that I will render them loyal service in the exercise of the duties that have been given to me through their piety; I will willingly accept all pain and all fatigue resulting from the office they have conferred upon me in the interest of the empire and the state.  I am in communion with the holy Catholic and apostolic Church of God; in no form and at no moment will I oppose it, not will I permit anyone to do so, insofar as I am able to prevent it.  I do also swear that I have truly given nothing to anyone nor will give anything for the position that has been conferred upon me or to obtain a patronage, that I have neither promised nor agreed to send anything at all from the provinces in order to obtain the support of the emperor, nor to the very glorious prefects, nor to other famous people who govern the administration, nor to their entourage, nor to anyone else, but that I have been granted my position virtually without salary and can thus appear pure in the eyes of the subjects of our very holy emperors and am content with the sum that has been granted me by the state.

Byzantines?  Wordy?  NAH.  (side note.  I love that both Michael AND Gabriel are mentioned.  This is great news for my encaustic project.)  Now, clearly because this is both a sacred and a secular rite as it was done in period, it may make most Scadians cringe a little with the heavy invocation and swearing to God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Gospels, Michael, AND Gabriel, it really can cause issues there.  However, here's the one I've sort of cobbled together from this one to be a little more SCA-friendly, that is not so heavy on the religious end.  I think it works.

I swear that I, _________ will maintain a pure conscience with regard to our very divine and pious masters, King ________ and his wife Queen _________,
and that I will render them loyal service in the exercise of the duties that have been given to me through their piety;
I will willingly accept all pain and all fatigue resulting from the office they have conferred upon me in the interest of the empire and the state.
I am in compliance with laws of the Kingdom of __________; in no form and at no moment will I oppose them, nor will I permit anyone to do so, insofar as I am able to prevent it.
I do also swear that I have truly given nothing to anyone nor will give anything for the position that has been conferred upon me or to obtain a patronage,
that I have neither promised nor agreed to send anything at all from the provinces in order to obtain the support of the emperor, nor to the very glorious prefects, nor to other famous people who govern the administration, nor to their entourage, nor to anyone else,
but that I have been granted my position virtually without salary and can thus appear pure in the eyes of the subjects of our very holy emperors, and am content with the sum that has been granted me by the state.

So, yeah.  Should I ever need to write a ceremony for someone who is Byzantine, I will totally take a look at this one.  It's so cool.

Spirals and sunflowers . . .

The surprise I was hiding was the item for my recipient for this round of Noblesse Largesse.  My recipient does Rus.  And I might have exhausted a bunch of non-jewellery options (sometimes I feel I put myself into too much of a jewellery-themed box) before I came back to jewellery.

So, I made temple rings.  The bottom set is based on the Viatachi-style rings, which are pretty much spirals with a hook going in the opposite direction, and the other set is inspired by sets found near the upper Volga River (link to an interesting site about temple rings is here).  The wire I used is commercially drawn permanently coloured copper wire in either 14 or 16 gauge.  (I don't remember which one it is, but it is very thick and somewhat difficult to work with, but I like the results.  And the metal beads were on sale - they remind me a little of sunflowers with the large round middle encircled with petals.  I shaped these with pliers, and with the rings with the beads on them, put the beads onto the wire, and then shaped it just enough so that the beads wouldn't move around a lot.  They still move, and had I experience in using a soldering anything, it may have turned out differently.

One of the things I found was that gold and silver were both appropriate for use in this context.  Studying Byzantine art and jewellery, it almost all seems to be gold, so finding silver, and getting a chance to play with it within the context of a similar culture really is fun.

Photo by Ms. Rhianydd
(V. Herschell - https://www.flickr.com/photos/vhersch_rhianydd/)

In other news: I was given admittance to Calontir's Order of the Calon Cross for my work with Noblesse Largesse.  I am beyond ecstatic.  To the right is my scroll, painted and lettered by HL Neathery of Safita, and the scroll text by Master Andrixos Seljukroctonis.

Still, there is always work to be done.

Seriously.

I have two necklaces to complete prior to 

Photo by Ms. Rhianydd
(V. Herschell - https://www.flickr.com/photos/vhersch_rhianydd/)

May 24th - one for an auction at Horse and Falcon, the other for a raffle for Lilies Gate volunteers.

And then a banner for my barony.  And a banner for my lord.  There's a lot still left to do.  But, it's worth it.

One thing I've learned is that time management skills never get any easier.  On the other hand, the quest for fun and knowledge do wait.  And there's so much more to learn and do and have fun with.