Scrolls for Investiture in Aarnimetsä

I have not written here earlier I guess, so let me introduce myself – and this post will be long… I am Magdalen Yrjänäntytär from the Barony of Aarnimetsä and I have been making scrolls about two years now. Especially the illumination has been quite easy and natural for me, as I have drawn all my life.

There was an Investiture last weekend in Aarnimetsä and King Sven and Queen Siobhan gave Court Barony for Baron Vilhelm and Baroness Agata, who stepped down. As Baroness Agata’s persona in from Renaissance, I wanted to make them scrolls in a later style and chose Vespaniano’s humanist manuscript as an inspiration. An exact page can be found from A History of Illuminated Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel, page 249. I had not used humanist hand before, but it was quite easy to get a hang of it, as it is so close to modern text. In Finnish the text is in archaic form of late 16th century. It is modified by Fearghas Mac Ebhearard from letters of Kings Gustav I Eriksson and Johan III to their Finnish subjects. In English it goes like this (translated by Fearghas): We Sven and Siobhan, gracious King and Queen of Drachenwald. We make this known to all. We, all with that power that We can muster, make and proclaim Our Realms beloved subject, loyal and just baron Vilhelm/baroness Agata in Our court, with all the rights and good counsel that is pertainning to that rank. And with this Our mandate, be the only to carry arms ratified. As there is no good translation for Grant of Arms, I painted letters GoA to the space whre the initial would have been and actually it turned out well, as I wanted to make the scrolls as mirror pages and then I had no problem how to match the initial to the text in Agata’s scroll.

I had another very special project for the Investiture. I think most of you know Mistress Johanna aff Hucka, who is one special lady and Pelican and have got many well deserved recognitions from both Kingdom and Baronial level, but never one single Marshlight/Virvaliekki, which are very basic awards of Aarnimetsä and usually people get one, if they are any active in society and events. They usually come with no scroll, but a token. Why, even I have a couple of them. Now Baron Vilhelm and Baroness Agata had decided to give all eight to her in a same court and I got the great honour and joy to make a scroll for her. This time I got the idea to do it after Irish knot work and paint the knots with all the colours of the different marshlights and I used a page of the Book of Durrow (folio 191v) as an inspiration to both the illumination and the calligraphy. Text is again by Fearghas and I hope you can read it from the scroll, as it is quite long.

Larger files of pictures you can find from here, here and here.

Last weekend was quite crazy for me as a scribe. It seems I have came long way in a two short year, as when we had our last Investiture, I were asked by then ruling Baroness Eva to make a local scroll and took it to Investiture where she and Baron UlfR gave it away. It was my first or second scroll and unfortunately I do not have a picture of it. Now I made these three shown here and calligraphed four scrolls, two Dragon’s Jewels, one Laurel and one Pelican.  And I got a very beautiful scroll at Baron Vilhelm’s and Baroness Agata’s last court. It was made by Maaria Taaventytär, who is signet of Aarnimetsän and funnily enough; it was made after the Book of Durrow too.

Reason I am telling this all to you is that I have thought it earlier, but now I am even surer that I&C is my niche in SCA and I want to concentrate even more to it.

Magdalen