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.

Quick Update

I'm working on a rather secret project right now that will be revealed soon - it's for Noblesse Largesse's current documentation-required swap.  The hint I will give is that the object I've made is for a culture influenced by Byzantine culture, and the object is something shiny.

There will be photos - I promise.

I'm also working through a couple ideas for a Norse banner for my barony, as well as a couple of plans for Knowne World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium in Bjornsborg, and one more big project for Queen's Prize in Calontir that I'm exploring.

A year or so after I had joined the Society, I became enamored with iconography, specifically Byzantine and Rus icons.  Since many of Byzantium's icons were destroyed in the 8th and 9th century, and the few dozen that still exist are at St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, there's not a lot of information but what we do have is a handful of icons painted using encaustic paints.

Encaustic painting is painting with pigmented wax, hardened with resin, and applied to a porous substrate (such as wood).  There's a breadth of styles, from rather primitive and almost in a modern chibi style to a naturalistic and realistic style.  It'll take some more investigating, but it certainly looks like fun.

What's going on now?

So, I'm working on my documentation for the Gallo-Roman necklace.  But, of course, I'm doing more than that - I've got a piece of garb that I'm working on, too!  (Mostly because I might be completely crazy, but I also need garb that fits better, so there's that.)  At any rate, the photos for the Gallo-Roman are done.

I also have a bit of a pictorial dress diary for the tunic that I'm working on, but as sewing is not really my forte (or even patterning, for that matter) that can be found at the following link: New Byzantine Garb Dress Diary!

I'll be posting my documentation for the Gallo-Roman piece when that's finally done, and I'm thinking that there will be an appendix for it.  (I'm a little wordy, as I'm sure you've noticed.)

One thing that I did fail to note on this piece is that the same wire-wrapped technique that the simple Byzantine necklace tutorial covers is the exact same one.  The only difference between this one and the Byzantine necklace is a three strand subdivision between links, which, from what I can tell, is extremely unusual in Roman jewellery.  It's really neat, but can't find much of an explanation for.  Given the amount of wire and time that this took, it is totally possible that this may have belonged to a higher ranking noblewoman (wife or daughter of a magistrate) than perhaps someone of a lower class.

Questions like this will be asked, and we may not always have the complete answer, but we will certainly try to get the big ones (who, where, and how) answered.  Why is much more fun, but will mostly end in conjecture.

The Gallo-Roman necklace saga . . .

The saga of the Gallo-Roman necklace is over!  I have to finish writing my documentation for it, but the piece is complete.  On a whim, I went to one of my local bead stores (Beadazzler Beads in downtown Overland Park, Kansas), and looking over their selection of Hill Tribes metal, I saw these rather oval-shaped beads.  Sure, they're not exactly what I was looking for, but to capture the essence and the feel of the original piece, they're perfect.  These beads are made of brass, not gold or silver, due to the current prices of precious metals.  (Gold is currently, as of this writing, at $1576, which is down from the high of $1970-something that it was at during Christmas 2012.  Silver is also quite a bit down, as well, at $28.48.)  While the Hmong prefer using silver, as the owner of Beadazzler Beads was telling me, they're expanding their work to brass, given the prices of metal at the moment.  And I am so glad they're working in brass - it keeps my investment costs much lower, and I don't have to learn a new technique if I don't want to.  (I do want to, but not everything needs to be a learning curve.)

Making the clasp was a little less painstaking than I thought it would be.  I used 18 gauge non-tarnish brass wire, the Hill Tribes beads, and the rest of the necklace.  The first thing I started work on was the looped link, as it follows the same technique as the rest of the necklace, making sure that I kept my loops very large.  After this was completed and attached, I started work on the hook.  With the hook, it was better to connect the necklace, thread the bead on, and then shape the remainder of the wire into a hook shape.  The hook also has another loop on it, so that it does not get caught on anything or scrapes skin.  There will be a tutorial on this in the future, so please, look for this.

At any rate, this is done.  Next major project will probably be some illumination based on either the Rabbula Gospels or the Codex Argenteus, unless I get derailed by some other side project.

Paternosters

One of my other great passions in the name of the Society, while out of period for my persona, is paternosters, after stumbling upon http://paternosters.blogspot.com/ a few years ago.  I finished one last night, and used coral, quartz, and quite a few charms, in the same vein as this one from the V&A.  I did end up using different materials, and it does look considerably different, but yet entirely similar.

Paternostering is a relatively easy (and relaxing) A&S activity, though much of the research is still being done, given that grave finds rarely have a complete strand of beads strung in situ.  That being said, I've recently uploaded my documentation (found here and here) from a competition I was in that was based around a monk's life.

There will be a few more entries on other types of prayer beads as I get more research done on these, though these resources are proving to be a bit more difficult to find.  That being said, beads are a wonderful expression of both modern and medieval faith, and it's a great way to outfit a complete SCA kit.  Paternosters are one of those great little items that no proper medieval person would have gone without, both to show piousness and to show wealth as well.  And, if you couldn't bear to wear one with a cross, you could always wear one with a tassel on it instead.

Gallo-Roman Necklace - DONE! (well, mostly.)

I finished the Gallo-Roman necklace.  It took about six hours (I did take frequent breaks, so that's some of it), and most of my 24 gauge copper wire, but that was from wrapping all the links.  The time-consuming part - the links - is done.  You can see some of the reason this was so time-consuming in the photo to the left.  Each section required three separate lengths of wrapped beads, connected to a singular link.  In addition to this, the smaller beads are quite a good bit smaller than what I normally wire-wrap, and pearls are quite a bit softer and more easily marred by errant pliers.  That being said, this part is done.  The bad news is that there's still more that I need to do with it - and that is make a clasp.  I have a temporary clasp (because I did wear this to the office to have my coworkers ooh and aah over it), but if I'm going to enter the piece into A&S competition, I want something that is plausibly period - and I want it to look the part.  So, I want to have a clasp that looks right.

So, you see, it's a bit difficult to find beads that look like the original's elongated heart/spade/arrow shape.  I know.  I looked.  You can get kind of close, but I want something that could be a near-perfect replica with the modern materials that I have available.  After talking with one of my friends, who happens to be a Laurel, he suggested that I look at getting gold-clad brass sheet, cutting out the shapes, putting a crease in those shapes, soldering both sides together, and then running the wire through to complete the clasp.

I've never soldered.  Most of the metalwork I do involves cutting and wrapping wire around itself.  That being said, provided I can get assistance and help, this could be doable.  Hopefully, once I learn this technique, I can move onto other ones, like piercework, which was also used in Byzantine jewellery.