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Article II (b) of the Articles of Incorporation of the
Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. states that the the corporation
was formed in part to "... engage in research; publish material of
relevance and interest to the field of pre-17th-Century Western
Culture; to present activities and events which re-create the
environment of said era, such as, but not limited to, tournaments,
jousts, fairs, dances, classes, et cetera; to acquire authentic or
reproduced replicas of chattels representative of said era..."[1] To
say that a period encampment meets the letter of this article is
something of an understatement. Yet creation of a period camp has
significance beyond the direction of the SCA, Inc. There is a profound
effect that occurs on the period camp participant - one gains a sense
of Medieval reality when the modern mundanities are invisible. The goal
then is to achieve a feeling of imersion in the milleux in order to
understand on a very deep level what it felt like to live in our period
of study.
This practice has been called "experimental archaelogy", but I would
also consider it "experiential archaeology", that is learning about the
Medieval period through experience built upon research. The goal is not
achievable without some work. Webbed here are journals of our
experiencs, both living in a period camp and building "replicas of
chattels representative of said era." An additional journal of related
activities is at the blog From
Lijsbet's Desk; some of the web page material is taken from
writings originally posted on my blog. If you read the blog, please
take a few moments to provide comments and feedbac.k.
[1] April 22, 2006 revision, Governing Documents
of the SCA, Inc The Articles are at the end of the .pdf.
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