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Re: Victorian Middle Ages (was: cloved fruit & SCA)




Poster: Rutlands@aol.com

In a message dated 2/18/99 9:14:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, srgiles@erols.com
writes:

<< 
 So what place does a Victorian game have in a group that studies the middle
 ages??
  >>
Hoo boy, you're going to start a whole new thread with that!  The way _I_
heard the story, the First Event (the Graduation Party That Started It All)
was an attempt to re-create the "Last Tournament" -- which was a Victorian
attempt to re-create the tourneys of the Middle Ages.  Many of us have a
strong underlayment of "the Middle Ages as the Victorians saw them"-- witness
the thread some weeks back on the Pre-Raphaelite painters (Victorians all) who
idealized the M.A... and poetry is similar.  I seem to remember that when I
set the poem "Lady Claire" to music Duchess Ysabeau Cameron remarked in
passing that that poem helped to interest her in the SCA-- Victorian again
(Tennyson? You'd think I would remember the author of one of "my" songs!)
My point overall is that a lot of the general assumptions we have about the
Middle Ages when we come in are actually Victorian views.  They're generally
not any more correct than any other set of rose-colored glasses-- but they are
"Victorian-having-to-do-with"-- at least until we learn differently.  
       James of Rutland
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