Glossary: Knighthood, Chivalry & Tournament - S

• Balinger: A small, maneuverable, fast ship used by merchants and for war.
• Barge: A small to medium size ocean-going vessel
• Cog:

Shire: {} 

Siege: Military blockade of a city or fortification, designed to force it to surrender. The besiegers used three main techniques; close assault, bombardment, and capitulation. In close assault, they would place towers and tunnels trying to defeat the walls of the fortification, generally conducted after a period of bombardment with archery, ballista, trebuchets, catapults, and even cannons. If the fortification would not fall to direct assault, a difficult and expensive proposition, or the defenders would not give over the keys (sometimes using parlay the attackers and besiegers would agree on a specific length of time the defenders would do their best to hold out unless relieved by a friendly army), then the attackers would try to keep new supplies out of the fortress, causing privation within and usually forcing capitulation. 

Siege Perilous: The seat at King Arthur’s round table that stood empty, signifying the seat of Judas. The seat remained empty until Galahad took it as a symbol of his undertaking the Grail quest. 

Single-elimination lists: An SCA tournament format where each combatant meets another in single combat, the loser of the fight being eliminated from the lists. These tend to be used where many combatants are expected to reduce the time necessary for a large list. See also double-elimination lists and SCA tournament formats. 

Sir: The title for a knight

Sire: One title used for king, a more familiar title generally reserved for close confidants. 

Sluys, Battle of: {} 

Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA): The largest of the medieval ?re-enactment? societies, established in 1968 at the home of Diana Paxton. The Society has grown to more than 40,000 members worldwide, encompassing medieval society in Europe and the Middle East from roughly 600 A.D. to roughly 1600 AD.

The SCA has developed its own combat system, where wooden weapons simulate the whalebone and ash weapons used in medieval béhourds or vespers tourneys. In the SCA system, combatants are responsible for their calling their own ‘blows’, a technique that attempts to place the responsibility for their field conduct squarely on the combatant themselves instead of a panel of judges. Marshals watch over the combat to insure that the tone of the fight is chivalric and that the rules of safety are not violated, as well as tending to the administration of registering combatants and the like. This ‘medieval marshal art’ has become immensely popular in the United States, with active branches in Australia, Japan, Korea, Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Canada. At its finest, the Society strives to use the martial system to teach chivalric virtues, a place where the curious can come and experience something of the medieval experience. Knights in the SCA are made by the king in recognition of their prowess, courtesy, and noble demeanor; knights often take ‘squires’, less expert combatants who wish to learn the chivalric arts. At the pinnacle of the martial experience combatants can participate in and strive to become victorious in Crown tournament, earning a higher level of noble rank.

Alongside these martial pursuits, the SCA strives to encourage research and expertise in medieval arts, having developed a thriving market in which craftsmen can learn medieval trades and grow in their artistic expertise. The Order of the Laurel is awarded as a peerage award to recognize the pinnacle of artistic excellence.

Service is also very highly valued in the Society, where the Order of the Pelican and many lesser service awards are awarded to gentle who give ceaselessly of their time and energy for the good of the Society, often in administrative capacity.

The SCA is broken down into a number of kingdoms, each of which has a separate governing structure ruled by a king determined in Crown Tournament. Each kingdom has developed their own culture and ?flavor?, populated by an enthusiastic body of participants. The SCA is not like the Renaissance Faires where the experience is performance-oriented. In the SCA the essence of the experience is participation; the SCA strives to teach something of courtesy and ethics by developing an interpersonal network that reinforces the desired values.


Song of Roland: The most famous chanson de geste, composed between 1098-1100, describing the betrayal of Count Roland at the hand of Ganelon, and his resulting death in the Pyranee Mountains at the hands of the Saracens. Roland was a loyal defender of his liege Charlemagne, and the take has become a landmark in the iconography of chivalry. 

Spearmen: Footsoldiers, generally not of the knightly class, armed with a pike or spear, generally arranged into dense formations. These soldiers, when disciplined, were a potent defense against the heavily armoured cavalry, particularly where missile weapons were scarce or where the field could be restricted, such as in the Swiss or Greek mountains (the swiss pikemen of the 16th century were as renown as their predecessors in the Greek Phalanx had been two millennia before). 

Spurs: Pointed devices attached to a knight’s heel used to urge a horse. When they first came into existence, along with the stirrup and couched lance, they extended a knight’s ability to control a horse in combat. According to the Ordene de Chevalerie, the spurs symbolized {}. In Ramon Lull, they were said to symbolize {}. 

Squire: A young man in training to become a knight. During the 14th century arming squires often joined their knights in battle, a part of the knight’s household unit or lance.

"The knowledge and the school of chivalry is such that the knight makes his son to learn in his youth to ride, for if should take on the keeping of a horse. It behooves him also that he serve, and that he be the first subject of the lord, for otherwise he will not know the nobility of lordship when he should become a knight. And therefore every man who will come to knighthood should learn, in his youth, to carve at the table, to serve, to arm and to adoube a knight; for in likewise as a maid will learn to sew in order to be a tailor or a man to be a carpenter it behooves em to have a master who can sew or hew. Likewise it behooves that a noble man who loves the order of chivalry and will be a knight to have first a master who is a knight, for thus it is a discovenable thing that a squire should learn the order and nobility from any other man than a knight. So very high and honored is the order of chivalry that a squire should suffer himself not only to learn to keep horse and learn to serve a knight, that he go with him to tourneys and battles; but it is necessary that he beholds the school of the order of knighthood."

In the SCA, squires are taken by knights in a variety of roles: teacher/student, friend/friend, father/son. Each relationship is different, but the essence of each is generally a trade of teaching and guidance on one and for service on the other.  Star, Order of the: The original Company of the Star, founded in France during the reign of John le Bon, (John the Good), was intended to bring the French chivalry, increasingly fragmented, back together under the Crown, much in the same manner has John’s archival, Edward III, had done with the Order of the Garter in 1347. Originally 500 knights were admitted into the Company; by their charter John was their president, they would meet at the Noble Maison once per year for a grand feast at which they would exchange their deeds of the past year, and that members of the order would be taken care of with a pension from the Company when they were too old to maintain their estates. Unfortunately, their charter also dictated that they would never flee more than 100 arpents from any battle, a declaration which resulted in the death of most of the Star companions at the Battle of Mauron (13xx), the rest were slain at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.

Geoffrey de Charnay, a founding member of the Company, was one of the last Companions, slain carrying the Oriflamme. 

Statum Armorum in Torniamentis: Rules for tournaments set down in 1265 under Edward I, the first rules for the tournament yet documented. The rules specified how many squires a knight could bring to tournament, that such squires should not carry a pointed sword, dagger or staff. Knights who violated the statum were to lose their horse and armour and be imprisoned for three years. 

Steward: {} 

Sword in the Stone: {Galahad?s test}