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An Historical Recollection
Here's a letter of light reading written in AS
XXXVI regarding the early days of the College of Boethius and in support of
the proposed siblinghood betwixt the College and the Shire of Heatherwyne, supplied
from the archives of the "Boethius
E-List" for your information and amusement... {8^)
Unto all the members of the College of Boethius,
Lady Adelicia Marie di Rienzi sends greetings:
I called Madeleine Aurore des Milleroses, our founding
Seneschal, a couple of nights ago. We jogged each other's memory enough to
recollect the circumstances under which we and others founded the College of Boethius. So return with me now to
those thrilling days of yesteryear...
Madeleine and I became friends when we met as fellow transfer
students at Pomona
College in the fall
of 1982. (We were in the same sponsor group.) She had been in the SCA in
Caid and also in the East Kingdom for a couple of years before that, and
naturally she dragged me in.
I don't remember how we got the idea to start an SCA College
in Claremont, but I believe that Madeleine had been a member of an SCA
College when she was in the Eastrealm. Apparently, at that time there were
no other SCA Colleges as such in Caid. There were college and university
SCA groups, to be sure, but they were typically incorporated as cantons of
their local barony.
We began to get Boethius rolling in late spring of '83, with
about three or four members. We had the idea to pattern ourselves after
Colleges in other kingdoms, notably the West, where the tradition was then
to name an SCA
College after a
patron saint. I rather liked the idea of calling our group the College of St. Cecil... but in the end, we all
agreed that we would break the mold and name our College after someone
secular, especially since we had Christian, Jewish, and Pagan members right
from the get-go. (Okay, okay, the real Anicius
Manlius Severinus Boethius, c. 480 - c. 524 AD/CE, was a Christian
cleric and a martyr, but not a canonized one.)
Madeleine knew her way around Caid much better than I did,
being local. (I'm from the West, but I never did much with the SCA up
there.) So I think she was already familiar with the Shire of Heatherwyne
as it was at the time -- bear in mind, this was almost twenty years ago! --
and didn't really like the idea of subsuming our identity in theirs.
Heatherwyne was dubious about us at first. A few of their folks seemed
hostile, though at this point I don't quite remember why. There were a
couple of real jerks in the Shire at the time, who seemed to belittle
everything and everyone on general principles. (I haven't seen those
particular assets to humanity in many, many years, though.)
But I think the main problem with Boethius-Heatherwyne
relations stemmed from the fact that Heatherwyne was at that time a
fighting shire, first and last -- stick jocks 'R' us! -- and none of us
Boethians were fighters at all.
We were entirely about the arts: We danced and sang (quite
well, actually!), we were into research and costumes and cooking, and most
especially, we loved courtliness and playing in persona. At events we often
used to sit in the Boethius "pavilion" (a cheap blue dining fly,
but it was home), beguiling the time between combat rounds by reading
poetry aloud, singing, playing instruments, eating tourney food that was as
authentic as we could make it (no Coke cans here!), finishing our sewing
projects, having discussions in persona, and inviting passers-by to partake
of our hospitality, which they often did.
Sometimes we could get enough people interested in a round of
dancing on the green. I used to bring my viola to events pretty regularly
-- still do, in fact -- and played for the dancers. (I'm a mediocre violist
at best, but I can play Sellenger's Round while dancing it -- want a demo
sometime??? ;-)
To give you an idea of how non-fighting-oriented we were, we
chose the first Champion of Boethius with a hand-kissing contest! Okay, all
this nostalgia is telling me I need to reassemble my scattered household
and get back to doing more of this very same stuff! That, and I need to
come to more Boethius events... last year's anniversary was wonderful!
Anyway, the point of all this is that Boethius and
Heatherwyne didn't have very many interests in common. The
"Heatherwynos" were not *at all* into persona play, they weren't
into medieval music or dancing, and they knew that as a source of new
fighters, we weren't even on the map! That said, we did have friends in the
Shire -- I remember several delightful and helpful people who came
regularly to help us with on-campus demos, which we held fairly frequently
as a means of recruitment. And we needed those recruits: In order to be
recognized as a College, we had to meet the same requirements as any other
Kingdom group at that time, namely, we had to have a minimum of five
paid-up SCA members, a seneschal, and a herald.
We met these requirements sometime during the academic year
1983-84, achieving "incipient" status. Boethius was very active
that year. We went to lots of events (maybe too many -- I had all I could
do to keep my grades out of the tank!), we entered contests, we served at
banquets, and we sang a *lot*. Zenobia wound up illustrating an entire
Crown Prints by herself. His Majesty Jason Griffiths of Shadowhurst (sp?)
heard us singing at one event and publicly praised us at closing court.
(His then Queen, now Duchess Natalya de Foix, has always been a supportive
patron of Boethius.) In other words, the College was highly visible. Of
course, we didn't realize this at the time -- we were just having fun.
After Jason and Natalya stepped down, their new Majesties,
Adrian Buchanan and Ealasaid Nic Chlurain as I recall, must have taken
notice of us. At one tourney where the King was present, we formally
petitioned the Crown to grant us full status as a Kingdom College.
This was more of a grand gesture on our part than a practical step, but it
had quite an effect.
Pompous persons that we were, we replicated the ceremony of
the principality of Caid's petition to the West to be granted full kingdom
status: We dressed the fairest fair maiden among us (Melissa Galwith --
I've lost track of her) in a pure white gown and had her approach the
throne barefoot, then kneel before his Majesty to present our scroll of
petition, while the rest of us followed her in a respectful procession and
then knelt also. Well, how could he refuse? His Majesty Adrian, a generous
and free-handed soul, magnanimously granted our request, and life was
wonderful! For a little while, anyway...
You see, this incident took place shortly before Adrian stepped down
as king. He was succeeded by Duke Jason again (with a new Queen, Maestra
Isabella Antonia de Aranjuez), who "re-incipiented" us! To this
day, I'm not quite sure why -- maybe another old Boethian will remember.
Ostensibly, it was a paperwork thing. We were angry and upset at first, as
you might well expect. However, eventually the problem was ironed out, and
we achieved Kingdom-level
College status, the
first group in Caid ever to do so.
Other colleges and universities followed our example. The
College of the Voyagers (Caltech) was the first one, I think, then San
Ambrogio (UCLA, now dormant, I believe), then Leornung-Hus Torres Rewel
(UCSB, dormant), then Fenwood Knoll (UCI), and probably others, too -- you
guys would know more about the status of other colleges than I do. And now
it seems the tide is turning away from Kingdom-level colleges.
I and the other Boethian alums I've talked to are rather
sorry to see this happen, but I think our qualms are more emotional than
practical: It's the end of a tradition, it's an irrevocable step, it might
be considered a loss of prestige to step down and be a sub-group, it could
cause problems if relations with Heatherwyne go sour, hrrumph, hrrumph,
etc.
However, I do see practical value in making the transition:
No more kingdom paperwork (huzzah!); someone to tide the College over
between periods of dormancy, especially right now, when relations between
Boethius and Heatherwyne seem to be better than ever; the mutual benefit of
access to each other's resources, and so on.
In the end, it's almost twenty years later (ack!!!), life
goes on, and things change. The College
of Boethius is your
college now. We alumni will support your decision, whichever way you
decide.
Yours in service to the College and the Kingdom,
Adelicia
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