Attending Drachenwald's Kingdom University this weekend

 So, in this year of no physical events a dedicated group of people in the SCA Kingdom of Drachenwald set about to arrange an online version of the annual Kingdom University event. Making it online made it bigger than physical event in winter could possibly get, and in the end there were 600 participants from all SCA kingdoms and all continents except Antarctica.

And it apparently was just what I needed, even if I am zoomed out and very tired today. It was lovely to put on medieval clothes and to see and talk to people also in medeival (or early modern) clothing.

I arranged a corner in my kitchen (where I have my desk and computer) to have a nice background for the zoom classes and discussions. I think it looks nice, despite being a 1970s flat, with an early 20th century oak cupboard in the background.

Here's me for the opening ceremony and hang out on Friday evening. Early 14th century wool gown.

On Saturday the event started in earnest. For this I wore my c. 1300 Italian cotton gown during the day. 

And I learned so many new things! Many of the classes were recorded and will show up on Drachenwald's youtube channel when edited - there's a bunch of them over there already.

I took the following classes:

Saturday:
"Scappi: An overview of a 16th century Italian cookbook" by Baroness Magdelena Grace Vane. Interesting, and I will have to buy the book. Magdalena has a blog about period cooking too: Magdalena's medieval kitchen

"Medieval make-up and skincare" by Honourable Lady Katherina Mornewegh, baroness of Knight's Crossing. It was super interesting, and this is one of the classes which will be put on youtube as soon as final editing is done.

"From the West to the East - the art of perfumery in ancient Rome" by Dúgū Jìnán. This was really advanced, scholarly stuff, so it took a lot of concentration. But oh so interesting! So interesting in fact that I am seriously considering attending the Kingdom of Northshield's event next weekend: "That's a Beautiful Event - The Perfumery, Beauty Care and Adornment Virtual Symposium" and this from someone who almost never wear either perfume, and rarely make-up.

"Introduction to early Roman and Greek dress"  by Contessa Saxa Amelia Africana. And now I finally have a good way to tie my girdle with a Ionian chiton :)

While doing this I cooked a medieval feast for me, my friend and neighbour Anna, who's part of our isolation bubble, and two of our kids.Though the kids weren't required to join us at the table for the online feast, or wear medieval clothing. Cooking is one of the reasons why I wore my cool, cotton gown, the other being the excellent central heating in Swedish blocks of flats.

To be able to cook while attending classes I "medeivalized" a little more of my kitchen to include my oak table, and hide modern stuff from other class attendees.

Here I have started on the dessert (though the way we serve dessert isn't really a period practice): Hazelnut tarts with rose water. Esau is "helping".

The recipe is from a Swedish book: "Grevarna Brahes Vinterbok", which unfortunately doesn't give the sources for the individual recipes. I am guessign, however, that the original source is the 16th century cookbook of Anna Wecker. I used the modern type pastry from butter and flour for this one, since it was known in the 16th century. For my herb pie I used a hot water and flour dough instead. that's the larger pie pan. In the photo I am mixing roasted and ground hazelnuts, egg, rosewater, cream and sugar.

The herb pie was a take-what-you-have version of an Italian recipe for herb tart from Lombardy. There's egg, mozzarella, cottage cheese, chopped spinach, some parsley and soem rosemary, salt, and pepper and just a very little saffron. Most of my saffron I used for a cabbage and leek soup that started off our feast.

Here you can see the finished pies, plus cabbage, leek and onions for the soup, and the minced meat with poudre fort, salt, pepper and raisins for the meatballs that I also made.

Some feast photos:

Socializing with other feast-eaters on zoom :)
There were recipes if you wanted to make the same feast as others, but I am too tired to think much these days and just made stuff I felt like making.

After the feast there was court, and  here's me and Anna at court.

After court there was a ball, which we didn't attend, but we hung out with friends, old and new, in a zoom break-out room. There was also a bardic cirle that aparently wnt on until the wee hours. I was very, very tired however, after being on my feet cooking AND taking part in classes all day, so by ten we called it a day.

Sunday
On Sunday I actually only took part in one class, except my own, but it was a heavy one: two hours of expert scholarly work on early Tudor female headwear and gowns by Dame Margaret Wolseley: "Which hat should I wear with this gown? Early Tudor fashion advice from dead people".


Then I took a walk outside, I had hardly been outdoors at all on Saturday, before (again) getting into early 14th century Italian and giving my own class: "An introduction to the medieval history of Sub-Saharan Africa"

I talked too much and for too long, as usual, but people were interested and it went well, despite my class notes being in Swedish, since this is a lecture I normally give at work.

Then it was only the bittersweet ending ceremony and a lovely, and incredibly well orgazized event was over.