Scriptorium – my 12th century inspired knighting scroll & vigil book page for my husband :)

And finally – last but not least – the 12th century inspired knighting scroll and vigil book page which I made for my husband’s knighting at Gulf Wars!

Well, as you might already know, I consider the 12th century the one “true century”. However, I have to admit that I awfully neglected my beloved century when it comes to calligraphy and scrolls. Therefore I made the creation of his 12th century knighting scroll my very personal mission. And yes, I even learned two new styles for it. 😀

Before I go further into the details, let us take a look at my husbands 12th century inspired knighting scroll:

Yes, I know, there is a lot of empty space at the bottom but I am waiting for some seals which we should get soon. And as soon as I am ready to open up the frame and to attach the seals, I will also add the third signature which is still missing. I have the permission to add the signature in absence as events are just too busy to sit down and to sign scrolls.

…and then there is also the 12th century inspired vigil book page which I made for my husband:

To protect his vigil book as well as the chain, spurs and belt, which he only meant to wear at his ceremony, I got him a shadow box and assembled all items for him in it:

Don’t worry, he has another white belt and several new chains he will use in the future. The chain and belt in the shadow box were a gift of a good friend of his and were already used for many years within the SCA. They are more like reliquaries for him – I am sure that he would be heartbroken if anything would happen to them so a shadowbox is definitely the best way to go here. As well as it is much easier to dust off a shadow box than the items I put in it. And yeah, he is not a fan of spurs. Well, you know, whatever makes him happy and it is one item less we might have to replace in the future due to use… 😉

We had to shift some scrolls and stuff around but then we finally found the perfect space for his sword, knighting scroll and shadow box – right above his computer corner:

…and now let’s take a closer look at the knighting scroll in progress – enjoy! 😀 

Above you can see the finished pen work for the initial before I applied the gold paint. As the colors of my husbands coat of arms are gold and black, I decided to stay in this color schema and my husband agreed with me. This was quite convenient as I had little time left for this project after my work on the Rose Tourney scroll was finished.

I normally prefer to do my calligraphy without pre-drawing. However, the 12th century script which you can see on the picture above was completely new to me and more difficult than the hands which I normally do. Furthermore I couldn’t find much information about this certain 12th century script in my calligraphy books and ended up composing letters from several different romanesque papers as well as merging several different embellishment styles for the scroll. I think the next picture gives you a good idea of how I worked to put my text together:

Yeah, one letter here and the other one from this document… *lol*

Apropos document – the 12th century inspired knighting scroll for my husband is actually not a document style scroll per se. Written as an actual document it would have been much more plain and with just little embellishment like some flourishes along the first and last line. However, in order to add some embellishment I fell back at the more colorful and embellished book pages and illuminations. 

…and a last remark about the script above – after consulting with my friend Mara Palmer, I decided to do the script completely as penwork with a very fine point nib. This way I had the best control – even over the smallest embellishments. 🙂 

I hope you enjoyed the pictures of the 12th century inspired knighting scroll and vigil book for my husband. I will try to take some better pictures of the finished scroll as soon as I get the seals and open the frame up again to attach them. In the meantime please enjoy my sewing and embroidery related postings as this posting should be the last “scroll related” one for quite some time… 😉