During Hilary of Serendip's tenure as Steward of the SCA, she wrote articles that were addressed to the members of the SCA for Tournaments Illuminated. For a variety of reasons attempts to publish these articles never came to fruition. However, Hilary has recently obtained permission from the Board to collect and publish these articles online.
She contacted me about the possibility of including them on the West Kingdom History Website, and I said "sure!", as they are SCA history. They are not specifically West Kingdom History, although Hilary lives in the West Kingdom ...
All of these articles are the intellectual property of Hilary of Serendip, in the non-SCA world known as Hilary Powers. Read them at your own risk -- they may cause you to think about and re-evaluate some of your perceptions of the SCA ... you have been warned. -- Hirsch von Henford, Web Minister of the West Kingdom History Website
My cousins, herewith for your enjoyment and assistance are the columns I wrote for Tournaments Illuminated whilst serving as Steward of the Society. They appear in chronological order, intermixed with a few other items that seem to fit the set.
The Society grew and changed over the eight years of my tenure, and so did my own ideas, so some of my comments no longer reflect my view of the Known World. It was tempting to edit the original text, but I left it alone except for a few minor corrections. You’ll find boxed notes introducing the columns to put things in historical perspective—mostly written in 1994, when this collection was commissioned, but with a few updates to reflect a further decade’s insights.
However, one change in worldview deserves mention here, if only to save repeating a
long paragraph over and over throughout the first half of the book.
I used to use the word mundane a lot, and now it
almost never slips out. It’s efficient to have a tag for the concept
not-in/from-the-SCA, but “mundane” is a public-relations disaster in that
context. For those outside the SCA, it doesn’t mean outside the SCA, it
means ordinary, with strong connotations of dull and boring. People
who hear or see it react badly to it, often without knowing why. I used to think
it was safe to use as long as the audience was all in the Society—it is so very
useful, after all—but I’ve learned it’s not ever safe.
My attitude changed abruptly in the course of working
with a state auditor, who interrupted my gentle explanation of the way the SCA
supports the community to snap, “I know you don’t like us anyway; you think we’re
MUNDANE!” That auditor had never heard me use the word, but it appeared in our
literature...and that was enough to force me into a nasty salvage job. We got
through the audit in good shape because we really are a constructive organization and
true to our tax-exempt purpose, but it was a lot harder than necessary because the
auditor was primed to be displeased with us. The audit had to get done so the auditor
had to stay around long enough to give me a chance to clear up the misunderstanding.
Site owners and other casual contacts don’t have to keep working with us if they take
offense, and they often just go away feeling hostile. We don’t need that sort of
grief.
No single word covers all the situations where
mundane might fit, but it’s almost always possible to find an alternative for
its neutral uses. (Of course, if you really mean dull and boring, feel free
to use mundane—it’s part of the language—just be as careful as with any
insult.) The simplest solution is to leave out the adjective for the non-SCA version:
Law (meaning what the government enforces) vs Society Law, for example, or
Name vs Society Name. When you need a word or phrase, try modern or
legal or state or federal or civil or criminal, or recast the
sentence so it refers to things outside the SCA without needing an adjective to do
the job. It takes a little longer, but it’s worth the effort!
2004 insight: Another habit of language you’ll find in the columns is the “generic masculine”—the use of he and him and his to refer to a human whose personal plumbing is not relevant to the discussion. (I thought—wrongly, as it turns out—that it was the period usage, but that’s another story.) I wouldn’t use it now; in my post-Stewardship career as an editor, I’ve learned to construct sentences that don’t leave holes for pronouns, and in this hypersensitive age that’s what I always recommend to my clients. But this is a historical document, and I hope you will accept that it wasn’t my intent to suggest that all officers—or all troublemakers—are necessarily male.
I wish you all the best of good fortune and prosperity in these Current Middle Ages,
and remain as ever,
Yours in service though no longer in office,
Mistress Hilary of Serendip
PUBLISHED COLUMNS
ASSUMPTIONS
COMMUNICATIONS
TIMELESS TROUBLES
LIFTING THE VEIL
THE GOOD OLD DAYS
“THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!”
DEADLY SIN
SO THAT’S THE WAY IT WORKS
MUTUAL RIGHTS
PUTTING OUR BEST FOOT FORWARD
ASSOCIATE STATUS
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
PUT YOURSELF IN MY SHOES
PURPOSES AND MOTIVES
HEAT AND LIGHT
PARDON TALES
EVENTS AND PARTIES
INLAWS AND OUTLAWS
SIZE AND SHAPE
FORBIDDEN GROUND
PLAYING WITH THREE FIRES
IMMANENT JUSTICE
NON SCRIPTUM, EST ANYWAY
TAKING THE HIGH GROUND
COMMUNICATIONS, REVISITED
FORWARD INTO THE PAST
MAKING TIME
MONEY FOR WHAT?
PUTTING PEERAGE IN ITS PLACE
VALEDICTIONS
PHANTOM COLUMNS (THE ONES THAT NEVER GOT WRITTEN)
WICKED ILLUSIONS
OLD VS NEW
TURN BLUE AND DIE
BRIGHT THREADS OF KNOWLEDGE
TALKING TO YOURSELF
THE TWELFTH COMMANDMENT
PROMISES TO KEEP
RENDERING JUSTICE
THE WORDS MOST MISTREATED IN THE SCA
KINGDOM STATISTICS
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES
CONFRONTATION
THE FALL FROM VIRTU
ON THE EDGE
OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST
VISION OF THE FUTURE
HILARY CAKE
HOW TO GET HELP FROM THE SCA ADMINISTRATION
HISTORY OF THE SCA
THE ART OF SCA POLITICS FOR THE NON-POLITICIAN
MIRRORS AND WINDOWS
The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).