Creating The Roll has Joined ORBlogs

10. A bit of administration is called for, so we'll step out from behind the curtain for a moment and assume modern voice.

I've just been notified that this blog has been accepted as one listed on the ORBlogs omnibus. For those whose connection with local blogs – or any blog – is this one, what ORBlogs (a free service run for the last four or more years by blogGod Paul Bausch, who apparently lives on good karma to our inestimable benefit) is is an aggregation site for blogs by Oregonians – of which I am one (an Oregonian, not a blog).

Principally this will make my blog more easily findable by Oregon and Washington surfers who would be apt to enjoy this content ... for those who like this sort of thing, this would be just the sort of thing they should like.

In the interests of full disclosure, this blog persona (Sebastian zem Sterne) is the same person who runs the vastly underrated The ZehnKatzen Times, if I may be so bold as to say. And I can, because this is my blog. So I do.

Back to the medieval crazyness.

Tags: Sebastian zem Sterne, ORBlogs

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Email Subscriptions Enabled

9. I've tried the email subscription box myself and it seems to work okay. I noticed an error message on subscribing, but I don't think that will prevent anyone from getting updates.

Coming up, we're going to be taking a deeper look at what goes into the making of vellum. We will be looking in depth at the information the Lady Tegan has graciously provided me. Also, my instructor has directed me to get a first hand view if possible, and that's in the works.

Stay tuned to this scroll for further details.

Tags: vellum, coming up

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A Guide for Subscribers And Commenters

5. A commenter, via email remarks, indirectly reminded me that there are more options I could be providing to those wishing to access or be notified of new comment in this blog, and for the act of commenting itself.

As someone who has his own style of content gathering which is as unique as he (it is to be hoped) is, I understand that some who have interest here might not wish to load the blog each time or, say, subscribe via RSS. By adjusting settings I have increased to maximum the ways to stay updated on the progress of research chronicled in this blog:

1. Naturally, of course, loading this blog is the basic way to see if any new content has been added.
2. One can subscribe to the RSS Feed to be notified of new posts when they happen. The RSS Feed provides a summary of blog developments as they happen, updated as they occur, in a compact format which can be subscribed to. Many if not most of the current crop of web browsers support it (in Firefox, it's called Live Bookmarks, in Safari, there's an RSS icon in the address bar, and so on). There are also a surfeit of RSS reading software that range in price from free on up.
3. And, one more exciting option for those who don't care to bother with RSS; thanks to FeedBlitz, who provided a free widget, you can now subscribe to this blog via email. This was just installed, so there may be some debugging, but we will work this out.

Insofar as commenting goes, I have just enabled anonymous commenting for this blog. Previously, you had to be signed in to your Google account to comment. Naturally, this isn't everyone's can of beer, and I'm sympathetic to that ... it seems I have more logins and regstrations for things than a sane person really needs.

Anonymous commenting allows commenters maximum freedom:

1. If one wishes to sign in to post a comment, one can of course. Just choose the service from the dropdown list and fire away.
2. You can subscribe to email follow comments by signing in, if you so desire.
3. If you don't wish to sign in but want to leave your name, click the Nickname radio button and fill in the box. Your comment will be posted with your name. This is a nice quick alternative if being notified of follow up comments is not of-the-essence.
4. And, of course, there's the anonymous option. Just click the Anonymous radio button and you're off to the races (I'd ask that you'd sign it with your name so that any information added to the common weal gets its due and proper credit, or at least I can take any necessary conversations up with you in email).

Of course, if any correspondent wishes to simply forgo all that folderol and shoot me a comment via email, just feel free to do it that way. All comment will be treated with respect and dignity – though if it's interesting enough to share (or teaches me something, as the last comment via Moreach did), I will share it with the readership, so if it's something you don't want shared, please make sure to tell me.

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My "Mundane" Self

3. Another thing that would I think be fair to the readers to do is to establish my "Mundane" identity.

The SCA is as much a state of mind as it is anything else. When in persona, as I am trying to be with this blog (this is the man behind the curtain, stepping out and telling you this ... if this were a show, I'd be breaking the fourth wall) I am a scholar and artist of late-15th Century Germany, specifically a resident of Nürnberg (what latterly we call Nuremberg, an important center of population and culture in northern Bavaria).

It bears mentioning, I think, because my activities pre-school as a budding heraldic artist in the SCA was also an inspiration toward trying to muscle into the field of graphic design; heraldic art, I feel, is the ancestor of what they called "commercial art" which was the father, mother, and grandparents of what we today call graphic design.

If you wonder what I try to get away with in the day-to-day land we call Mundania (from mundane, as in ordinary, rather than in the strict Xanthan sense) follow this link to my mundane blog, The ZehnKatzen Times.

Tags: ZehnKatzen, Sebastian zem Sterne, Samuel John Klein

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Creating The Roll

1. This blog is meant to be the ongoging record of my research into and creation of a battle roll-of-arms for the Battle of Barnet, one of the skirmishes of the English Civil War (known by we Americans as the Wars of The Roses. The Battle of Barnet occurred on 14 April 1471 and pitted King Edward the IV of England and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Of the Battle of Barnet, Wikipedia has this to day:

The main protagonists were King Edward IV of England and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, former friends and allies who had fallen out as a result of Edward's tendency to favour the relatives of his queen, Elizabeth Woodville. In October of the previous year, Warwick "the Kingmaker" had driven Edward out of the country, replacing his Lancastrian predecessor, King Henry VI of England, on the throne. Warwick then made the mistake of agreeing to assist King Louis XI of France in his conflict with the Duke of Burgundy. This prompted the Burgundians to offer military aid to Edward, who returned to England on March 14, 1471. The two armies were evenly matched in numbers, but Warwick was expecting support from his son-in-law, George, Duke of Clarence, who happened to be Edward's brother and hurried to make his peace with the latter.

(taken from the Battle of Barnet entry) The principal purpose of this blog is to be an open an public journal of the results of my researches. They will extend into not only researching the content of the roll itself but also researching the materials and how they were created and used. I will be making some (but not all) of the materials I will be using, and sharing the interesting bits about heraldry along the way.

General Blog Policies – Addendum of 17 January AS XLII (2008)

In general, for the sake of clarity, I should set out my ideas about posting and updating.

The posting frequency remains to be determined. Very likely it will be irregular, with new information being mounted as it becomes available to me or rendered in any finished or useful form. I will also be posting interesting things I happen to find in as regards heraldry in general, but will try to restrain myself from posting items with little or no comment (and this may well be the first personal rule I break).

Since my research will include areas germane to medieval heraldry, which is a real-world thing (as opposed to SCAdian) which, in some areas, carries the force of civil law, my findings will touch both on the Current Middle Ages as well as Mundane concerns. I will try to make it clear which sphere I'm commenting in when I do so.