The History of
The Kingdom of The West
The Annotated History Project
What is the Annotated History Project (abbrev. AHP)? It is a project that I
(Hirsch von Henford) have been working on for two and a half years now (as of April, 2001) ...
Wilhelm von Schlüssel created a "History of the West Kingdom" that
covered the beginnings of the SCA and many of its branches in the West
Kingdom, and Kingdoms that were born out of the West Kingdom, which
stopped at Purgatorio, AS XIII (1978). He had hand-typed most of it on
onion-skin paper, and three-hole punched it, putting it into a notebook
(which I still have). There were notes hand-written in by both Master Wilhelm
and by others ...
I put some effort in and typed everything that Wilhelm had done (incorporating
the handwritten notes) into the computer, and tried to get it published.
Publication didn't go very far (although I've been told there are copies
available at Pennsic ...), for a variety of reasons.
After sitting on this for a couple of years, I started getting hold of
some SCA "old-timers" -- people who had been active in the very early
days of the SCA. We networked, and got even more people involved. We did
this by creating a simple mailing list (not an internet ListServer).
Using this mailing list, I mailed out event copy from Wilhelm's work, and asked
for the people on the list who remembered anything about these events to
comment on them.
The process got more involved as conversations started -- trying to keep
the conversations together was an interesting exercise in and of itself.
However, the Annotated History of the West Kingdom is what came out
of all of this. It still stops at Purgatorio, AS XIII, but it contains a
LOT more interesting reading than the original.
Where can you GET this Annotated History of the West Kingdom? See below.
If you examine the event descriptions for the first thirteen years in the rest
of this website (from the "main page"), you will find that in most
cases the information there is taken directly from Wilhelm's original work.
The annotations will follow once the editing phase is complete, and a
publisher is found to get the AHP available to the SCA in printed form.
Information found in the appendices of the AHP will be available in some
location here on this site as well.
Appendices to the Annotated History -- This
is the appendices that are not elsewhere on the website ...
The Annotated History of the West Kingdom
Currently this is only available in "electronic" format -- specifically
in Adobe Acrobat (see below for details on how to obtain the free
reader for this). You can also download/read the "non-annotated"
version -- see below.
If you have Adobe Acrobat installed, you may still wish to download
this document, as it is large (3,400 KB -- over 3 Megabytes, 408 pages), so
by clicking on the link below, when asked about opening or downloading
the file, you may wish to choose to download it instead (in Netscape
the text reads "Save it to disk"). If that doesn't work, you may want
to put the mouse over the link, use the right mouse button, and
select an option worded like "Save Link As ...", which should allow
you to save the file without attempting to open it.
Download/Read The Annotated History of the West
The annotations will be added over time to the West History Website for
the events listed, and the items in the Appendices will be added somewhere
as well (location not yet determined).
Please do not make printed copies for sale without express permission
of the author ...
Special thanks to the commenters of the Annotated History Project, these are
all people who spent many hours reading, reminiscing, and commenting back
and forth over the topics presented. Not everything that they said made it
into this document due to space considerations (and a few things that probably
weren't really appropriate for public cosumption ...).
The following is the list of regular commentors for a span of two years
or so, some commented more than others ... as would be expected (if I
left someone out, please let me know):
| Aja du Jardin | Jana Seasgir |
| Amanda Kendal of Westmoreland | Jerald of Galloway |
| Amanda of Cawdor | Jilara of Carrowlea |
| Andrew of Riga | Jon FitzRolf |
| Annette of Fair Monte | Karina of the Far West |
| Arthur of Lockehaven | Kevin Peregrynne |
| Astrid of Hawkridge | Martin the Temperate |
| Bela of Eastmarch | Maythen Gervaise (Maythen of Elfhaven) |
| Bevin Fraser of Sterling | Melissa Kendal of Westmoreland |
| Brian Dritar an Con | Michael of Moria |
| Carol of Bellatrix | Paul of Bellatrix |
| Charles of Dublin | Radnor of Guildemar |
| David of Illwheirlaine | Rand of Dunbar |
| Denis of the Titans | Richard of Havn |
| Dorothea of Caer-Myrddyn | Rima of Rockridge |
| Earl of Morris | Robear du Bois |
| Eden of Lionsguard | Robert of Dunharrow |
| Edward of Southhaven | Roger of Beldan Abbey |
| Edward Zifran of Gendy | Sabrina de la Bere |
| Eilis ni Roibeard O'Boirne | Siegfried von Hoflichskeit |
| Flavia Beatrice Carmigniani (Bjo) | Stefan de Lorraine |
| Frederick of Holland | Steven MacEanruig |
| Hal Ravn | Wilhelm von Schlüssel |
| Henrik of Havn | William Gordon of York |
| James Greyhelm | William the Lucky |
|
To Get an Electronic Copy of the History of the West Kingdom
(Note that this is not the Annotated version ...)
Get Adobe Acrobat's FREE Reader
(if you don't have it), and if interested, you can download
the West Kingdom History by clicking on the link below.
Be warned: this file is large -- it is approximately 1,205K in size
(over one megabyte), so it will take a bit of time to download.
You may want to completely download, when given the option ... that
way it will be on your hard drive and you can view it any time you
wish. Printing this will take 157 pages ...
Download/Read West Kingdom History
Editorial notes: There are places that an image says "No Arms Registered",
but a blazon is given. This is due to an error in the OANDA database
at the time the artwork was originally done, and the fact that later these
were found and updated in this file. The Annotated History of the West
Kingdom will have these corrected. There are also some errors in
the pictures for some of the armory, hopefully all of these will be
corrected in the Annotated version.
[Main Page for the History]
[Who's Who]
The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by
Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).