Period Festivals and Tournaments for Young People

by Sabina de Almeria

Here are ideas from period that you could use for modeling an event theme, transforming the period roles into appropriate SCA roles.

• Holy Day of Innocents (December 28) In medieval English cathedrals, a choir boy was dressed up as the bishop on this day, in a reversal of roles similar to that found in Hari No Kuyo (December 12) and Saturnalia (December 17). Like the Lord of Misrule, who rules at Saturnalia (and again on Twelfth Night, January 6), the Boy Bishop ordered around his superiors and made fun of their authority. Mock Masses were celebrated which were full of bawdiness and rowdiness. Eventually the Church suppressed these customs. According to Matthews, the Boy Bishop was elected on St Nicholas Day (December 6) and ruled until Holy Innocents Day.
• During some time periods in York, the Lord of Misrule was also a child.
• Processions--Libre de Tournois talks about the procession into a city by a knight in good standing in the following way:
  That is to say that the destrier of the prince, lord or baron who is captain of the knights and squires who accompany him ought to enter the city first, covered with the device of the captain, and with four escutcheons of the captain's arms on the four limbs of the horse, and the horse's head decorated with ostrich feathers, and on the horse's neck a collar of bells, and in the saddle a very small page, as best pleases him. And after the prince's destrier ought to enter similarly the destriers of the other knights and squires of his company, two by two, or each one by himself if you like, with the knights' and squires' arms on their four limbs, as above. And after the destriers ought to come the trumpeters and minstrels, playing, or whatever other instruments you wish; and after them, heralds or pursuivants dressed in their coats of arms; and after them, the knights and squires with all their other followers.