Each Deed scroll I've done reflects something of the day itself, either the scenarios the fighters will be participating in, or the talents and strengths of the winner, or just the process of traveling far to reach the tournament itself. None of these paths to create a scroll for the Deed are even remotely period though.
See, winners of Deeds usually received goods and money for their wins. They were given passports by the noble of the region. Often the prize was that they lived. We know of these things from written accounts of these deeds:
- Monstrelet, Enguerrand de, The Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet. trans.Thomas Johnes, two vols., (London, 1877), Book II, Chapter cclxix-cclxxi
- Cripps-Day, Appendix II. xiiii, giving Memoires de M. de Peiresc as source.
- Landsdowne Ms. 285(John Paston's copy of the Grete Booke) fo. 15b, reproduced in Cripps-Day, F.H. The History of the Tournament (London, 1918; reprint New York, 1982). Appendix, p.xxxv
Each of these retells the people involved, what they fought with and how, and who oversaw the deeds so as to determine the winner.
Some of these deeds were recorded in illuminated manuscripts, but the images were not usually so accurate to what happened, but were allegory (Diana loosing an arrow on a stag in a temple with a group of men watching) rather than the battles themselves. The scrolls I'm creating are exceedingly anachronistic.
In the past the words for the scrolls have been provided to me as well. For this scroll I had license to use my own words, and so went to a period source for them.
First, I used the opening from The Pas d'Armes of Charlemagne's Tree, 1443 and the ending from Challenge of Arms of Piers de Masse, 1438 to create the following text:
Before the Tourney of the Fallen Stag, several gentlemen, with Their Majesties permission, and for Their amusement, had proclaimed throughout the East, and other realms, that if there were any men of name desirous of gaining honour and renown by deeds of arms, there were gentlemen of Caer Adamant, whose names shall be presently declared, who offered to receive and furnish them with arms suitable for the enterprise.
And that they be appointed for to do and accomplish these said arms on foot before these excellent nobles of the Gallery of the which Their Majesties of good grace hath appointed will be the judges that same day.
These be the arms that ___________ did accomplish within the Shire, in the year of our Society 54, done the 28th day of September, during the first reign of Ozurr and Fortune.
The calligraphy was done with Pelican ink and a Mitchell #5 nib. The gold is patent gold leaf, and the gouache is Holbein and Windsor-Newton.
The image is from Psalter-Hours MS M.729 at the Morgan Library f. 289v, and the text is from the same book, f. 96r. Total size is roughly 1:1 for the original manuscript, painted on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of pergamenata.
I left the shields blank completely, with the thought that the winner could chose what arms I should paint there (household, kingdom, etc) but due to the extreme humidity of the day, I was unable to paint anything, let alone calligraph the winner's name onto the scroll. It went home with her, to Ansteorra, for the scribes there to complete.
In past Deeds, all the combatants and members of the Gallery were asked to sign the scroll. We did not do that at this event.
