Ffraid for Johanna af Hucka

The text reads:

To all present and to come these letters seeing or hearing greetings from the soverigns of insulae draconis, Duncan and Constanza. For the love we bear our cousin mistress Johanna aff Hucka and for all she hath done we invite her into our order of ffraid. xxi*ix*liv.

I had had an entirely different design planned, but then I found a scroll I'd earlier done with this style of bordure and it reminded me of how much I love it, so I changed plans. (I had also forgotten how fiddly all that gilding is!).

I was a bit under pressure time-wise, so the scroll came along with me to Würzburg and I painted in my hotel room. Here's some inprogress photos!

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© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.

AoA for Hiltrude von Trivium

Sepia ink on vellum with gouache and gold leaf. The text reads:

To all true and honourable people these present letters seeing or hearing greetings from Vitus and Isabel king and queen of Drachenwald. Inasmuch as we have both seen and heard of the works and skills of our trusty and well-beloved servant Hiltrude von Trivium we the above-named rulers affirm that henceforth and in perpetuity she shall be known in all places as a lady, and for the remembrance of this she now holds the sole and unique right to display the arms depicted above plainly.

Confirmed vii aug liv.

Always a pleasure to do an AoA when the recipient has registered arms!

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© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.

Winged Pouch for Lara the Tall

When you're at a castle and your princess comes to you and asks for a combat scroll, you say "of course" and whip out your pre-cut vellum squares and your gold. This may not be my nicest gilding, but it is by far my quickest. (Usually I let my gesso cure overnight. After moving house in May, to a much less humid house, I found I could let it cure for 30-90 minutes and then gild. In this case, I let it cure for...probably closer to 15. It was definitely too wet in some places, so it smudged and smeared and I had to do a bit of scraping, but I figured a bit of wonky gold would still be better than no gold at all. And I'm told the recipient was quite happy with it.

The text reads:

To all present and to come seeing or hearing these words know the will of Duncan and Constanza, prince and princess of Insulae Draconis, aving seen the great works of our subject Lara the Tall especially her scholarship are minded to make her a member of the Order of the Winged Pouch. Datum viii augusti a.s. liv.

The thing I most proud of is the fact that I drew the margins and the lines without a ruler. I am super pleased that they are roughly parallel to each other, and the lines are basically equidistant.

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© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.

Panache for Yannick of Normandy

Ink, gold, and gouache on vellum. Based on a British Library MS.

The text reads:

Notum sit omnibus dilecti draconis patris filijs quod ego Vitus rex et regina mea Isabella having received many reports of our noble cousin viscount Yannick wish, will, and desire to advertise to all the skills he has displayed in the gentle arts by naming the said Yannick a companion of the order of Panache. Done at Raglan Fair and signed by the king below.

The Latin bit is translated into English as: "Let it be noted by all sons and daughters of our beloved dragon father Albion that I Vitus king and my queen Isabel..." It is adapted from one of the openings found in W. A. Hulton, editor, The Coucher Book, or Chartulary, of Whalley Abbey (Manchester: Printed for the Chetham Society, 1847-49): Notum sit omnibus sancte matris ecclesie filijs quod ego [name] et uxor mea [name] = Let it be noted by all sons of our holy mother church that I [name] and my wife [name].

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© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.

Hild for Catherine Weaver

Done on vellum. The "C" is based on the Macclesfield alphabet; I'm quite happy with it so long as I don't compare it to the original.

The text reads:

Constanza princess and Duncan prince to our right worthy cousin lady Catherine Weaver. This present charter confirms you as a member of the Order of Hild, created at Raglan Fair in august in the first year of our reign anno societatis LIV and here witnessed.

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© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.

Silver Guard for Gilbert Blakthorn

My twin Mala had been doing a bunch of blanks from the Macclesfield alphabet and it made me want to revisit that source. I was super pleased to find -- when I couldn't find my facsimile edition in the post-move book mess -- that the entire MS is online! The Dragon T I picked is on folio 10r; it was a choice between that and the "I" two folios earlier, but G saw both and told me to do the dragon, so there it is.

The text reads:

To all seeing or these present letters hearing both now and to come greetings from Vitus and Isabel king and queen of Drachenwald. It is our will and command and solemn desire that from this day henceforth Gilbert Blakthorn be numbered and counted amongst the company of the Silver Guard.

The text should have read "To all seeing or hearing these present letters" BUT at least once I realised I'd skipped "hearing" I was able to reconstruct a grammatical sentence.

The scroll took me 1.5 episodes of Great British Bake-Off to complete, using vellum I'd already pre-cut.

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© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.

Sigillum Coronae for Simon Talbot

I was given the privilege of doing one of the very personal end-of-reign scrolls for my dear husband, who dropped a lot of his own projects (including renovating our house) to make a new Order of Precedence database and interface. I had recently been gifted about a kilo of vellum scraps, so shortly after we moved house I sat down and went through all of them to find the biggest squares I could cut, and then picked the biggest one out of them. I wanted to do a diploma style writ, and my twin said if I finished it soon enough and sent it to her, she'd not only seal it with the kingdom seal, but also with her own personal seal as a witness. Seeing as Simon is a big fan of seals, I knew this was the route to go.

The basic format of the diploma was modeled after a 12th century papal letter.

The text was modelled after a couple of 12th C French documents from the abbey of Notre Dame in Paris. It reads, in Latin:

Willelmus rex et Isabetta regina drachenwaldenses notum fieri volumus universis tam presentibus quam futuris quod donamus Simoni Talbot, armigero, jus ostendere sigila nostris. Actum apud Polderslot, a. s. LIV. Ego Aria Bona scripsi.

Translation:

William king and Isabetta queen of Drachenwald will it be made known whether to present [people] or future that we give to Simon Talbot, armiger, the right to bear our sigils. Acted at Polderslot, in the year of the society fifty-four. I, Good Ary, enscribed [this].

I included as many abbreviations as I plausibly could.

I wasn't present at the court it was presented at (didn't get to site until a few hours after he did), but the first thing he did after I arrived and found him was squee about the seals. And he said the scroll made up for the fact that he'd spent the nights that I sat at my desk working on it (in his presence!) irritated that I was scribing instead of unpacking boxes.

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© 2019, Sara L. Uckelman.